INTRODUCTION: You've got your Telegard v3.02 or v3.09.g1 BBS software installed, and you and your users are really enjoying it. Now you would like to offer networked echomail, and you would like to receive private netmail. You've ask around for help, and have been told you will need a front-end, a mail tosser and a nodelist compiler. "Great," you think, "wottheheck are they and how much are they going to cost?" You know Telegard was free, and wonder if you can match that price with your mailer software. The answer is YES! A "front-end" is software that runs before the BBS is loaded. When an modem call comes in, it will detect if the call is to drop off and pick up mail, a remote request for files from your system (a freq), or if one of your users is trying to log onto your BBS system. The front-end to be discussed here is "Portal of Power", known also as Portal or PoP. It is free (after you send them five nice postcards). The "mail tosser" is software that manages your incoming and outgoing mail bundles -- both echomail and netmail. Its similar to the post office, only faster (and it doesn't shoot fellow employees). It breaks down the mail bundle into packets for each received echo, and tosses them to the correct destination. (Ie. echomail for TG_SUPPORT goes to the TG_SUPPORT message directory and netmail goes to the NETMAIL message directory.) We will deal with the Squish mail tosser here because it is fast, and yup -- its also free. Briefly, the nodelist compiler takes the weekly nodelist changes, merges them in with the current nodelist, compiles them together and outputs a variety of lists for your mail system to use. A nodelist is a published list of mail addresses of the members belonging to that network. There are two popular versions of nodelists: Version 6 and Version 7. Telegard likes Version 6, but I prefer Version 7 for Portal and Squish. My nodelist compiler is FastV7, and costs 25 Dutch Guilders. If you prefer a Version 6 compiler for free, use QNode or one similar. This FAQ will describe how to link each of the above programs to work well with each other. The samples provided are for a 386 or above computer, running on DOS 5.0 or above, with at least 4MB of memory. If you are planning to run a BBS with lots of files, I will assume you have a hard drive with several megabytes free on it. Before we get going, you will need to have the following programs: TG_309G1ZIP w/TG_309S2.ZIP - Telegard BBS software (or TG_302.ZIP) P062-286.ZIP - Portal of Power 0.62 front-end SQSH_111.ZIP - Squish 1.11 mail tosser FV7-203K.ZIP - FastV7 2.03K version 7 nodelist compiler Current FidoNet nodelist and BACKBONE.NA (echo listing) Also nice to have, but not required: P062UTIL.ZIP - Additional Portal utilities TG2TP100.ZIP - Adds last five TG callers to Portal's WFC screen SQTOOL11.ZIP - Multi-purpose tool for Squish 1.11 Create the directories for each of the programs (see my DIR.HLP file). I put Telegard in C:\TG, Portal in C:\POP, and Squish in C:\SQ. The nodelist and FastV7 go into C:\NODE. I have also created C:\MSG\FIDO to store my echomail messages, and C:\MSG\NET to store my netmail. I like to keep each in their own directories -- it makes upgrading so much easier. Now unarchive each program into its respective directory. For the sake of brevity, I will assume you already have Telegard installed and running. We will just concentrate on setting it up to handle echomail and netmail. I will also assume you have already obtained your FidoNet node address. TELEGARD SETUP: Refer to the file TG-MAIL.HLP for setting up Telegard to handle echomail and netmail using Squish and Portal. PORTAL SETUP: There are two important components required to operate Portal: The PORTAL.CFG file and the POP.BAT file. I admit, the documentation that comes with Portal is sketchy at best. To make it easier to install this robust program, I have taken screen shots of each of the Configuration Menu screens and included an annotated sample of a working POP.BAT. To configure Portal, from the command line type: PORTAL /C /N. This will bring up the config menu. Refer to the files TG-PORT.HLP to configure Portal, and TG-PBAT.HLP to set up your POP.BAT file. SQUISH SETUP: Now that we have the BBS and the front-end ready for callers and mail, we need to install the mail tosser: Squish. Squish will receive your uplink's mail bundles, unarchive them, sort them by echotag, then send them to their respective message holding areas. It also handles your outgoing echomail and netmail by bundling them up into a mail packet and prepares it to go to your uplink. Portal will handle the actual sending by polling your uplink (either via a forced or scheduled event). Squish handles netmail, plus two type of echomail message areas: shared and pass-thru. A "shared" echo is when both your BBS and a downlink receives the echo. A "pass-thru" echo is when only the downlink gets mail that passes through your system. Refer to TG-SQSH.HLP for an example of the SQUISH.CFG file, the ROUTE.CFG file and the COMPRESS.CFG file. Please observe the capitalizations used; it is VERY important. If you wish to cut & paste this file, please remove the comments in the right-hand column. (NOTE: A semi-colon ";" to the left of a command option will disable it.) FASTV7 SETUP: Each week FidoNet will send down changes for the nodelist in a file called NODEDIFF.Ann. It is important to keep your nodelist accurate and up-to-date, and FastV7 will make this task simple and quick. It will extract the weekly nodelist changes from the nodediff, merge them with your current nodelist, and recompile the new nodelist. FastV7 also provides an excellent nodelist browser that will quickly help you locate a name or node address and provide you with information about that system. Setting up FastV7 can be intimidating, to say the least. To ease this problem, refer to TG-FV7.HLP -- it contains step-by-step annotated examples of each configuration menu and sub-menu for FastV7. The examples are meant to mesh with your previous TG, Portal and Squish setups. TROUBLE-SHOOTING: If any program in this setup fails to work, normally it is due to a spelling error of one of the commands. Refer to the .HLP file for that program while going over your own configurations. If you still can not get it to work correctly, ask someone in the FidoNet TG_SUPPORT echo, or send me netmail at 1:265/124, or via email at b_lotspeich@juno.com. In closing, I would like to remind everyone that the program configur- ations discussed here are basically for the sysop wanting to add FidoNet echomail and netmail to his/her system for the use of their users and themselves. It does not discuss information for sysops who want to utilize their system as a mail or file hub, with multiple downlink addresses, multiple networks, the ability to hatch files, process .TIC files, etc. I plan on providing an add-on to this FAQ showing how to set up Seal 0.50 to handle all of this. Yes, Seal is also free... -O-O-