********************************************************************** FTSC FIDONET TECHNICAL STANDARDS COMMITTEE ********************************************************************** Publication: FTS-5002 Revision: 2 Title: POINTLIST FORMATS Author(s): Michiel van der Vlist Date: 8 March 2010 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Contents: 1. Purpose 2. Formats 2.1 The "Boss" format. 2.2 The "Point" format. 2.3 The "Poss" format 2.4 The "Fake Net" format. 2.5 The "FidoUser" format. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Status of this document ----------------------- This document is a Fidonet Standard (FTS). This document specifies a Fidonet standard for the Fidonet community. This document is released to the public domain, and may be used, copied or modified for any purpose whatever. Introduction ------------ This paper attempts to document the formats of five types of pointlists in use in FidoNet. Current practice for Fidonet Technology Networks (FTN) is to maintain pointlists on net, region and possibly zone level to store the details of the points participating in communication via the network. 1. Purpose ---------- The concept of points was introduced into the FidoNet community by Henk Wevers as an easy and fast way for users to get their mail by using an FTN compatible mailer. During the course of FidoNet history points have become a major source of flow in FidoNet echomail. In order to suggest a netmail address for a point with a known name but unknown address, point- lists are distributed on various levels. Unfortunately there has been little or no coordination on the format of those lists. It has mostly been up to the whim of the local list keeper. This document is a first attempt to coordinate those efforts due to Henk Wevers, Joaquim Homrighausen and others. 2. Formats ---------- Four formats for maintaining pointlists are used by the FidoNet community and other networks using the FidoNet technology. 2.1 The "Boss" format --------------------- This is an extension of the St. Louis nodelist format, the list of points is distributed separately from the nodelist. The list contains of one or more lines of the format: Boss,:/[,[]] Where may be a copy of fields 3-8 of the corresponding nodelist entry of the boss node. The second comma and following fields are however optional and are usually omitted. Current node/pointlist parsers ignore the additional fields but some pointlist keepers include the second comma anyway just to be on the safe side. Directly below the 'Boss' line is a list of the points entered as if they were nodes. The first field of a point entry must be empty. The telephone number field may contain the actual number if the point is online or "-Unpublished-" if it is not. Example: ;A Sample pointlist for Friday Aug 2 1996 day 044 : 12345 ; Boss,1:1/1 ,1,First_point_of_node_1,Somewhere,John_Doe,-Unpublished-,300 ,2,Joe'sPoint,Cybercity,Tom_Jennings,1-234-567-890,9600,V34,XX,U,ENC ,3,fido.vlist.net,Driebergen,Michiel_Vlist,-Unpublished-,300,CM,IBN Known exceptions/additions to FTS-5000/5001: In some countries (f.e. Netherlands) one may find a NOZMH flag in combination with callable points. Such a point is not online during ZMH but can be called at (an)other time(s) which is specified by one or more Tyz flags as defined FTS-5001. The 16 bit checksum in the first line is not always present in some distributed lists. Since the checksum is only really needed for diff processors, this is not a problem if diffs are not used. The "Boss" format is the preferred format for future distribution. 2.2 The "Point" format. ----------------------- This is also an extension of the St. Louis nodelist format as described in FTS-5000. The node- and pointlist are not distributed separately, it is a combined list. It is not used very much in FidoNet, but in Othernets one encounters it occasionally. Points are entered in the nodelist immediately below their bossnode with the word "Point" (without the quotes) in the first field. The rest of the line has the same format as an entry for a node as per FTS-5000. The telephone number field usually contains "-Unpublished-" (without the quotes) but it need not be so. If the point is online at certain times, it may contain the actual telephone number. Example: ;A Node/pointlist for net 999 Friday Aug 2 1996 day 214 : 27158 ;A Host,999,Net_999,Simcity,Joe_Host,9-876-543-210,9600,V34,XX ,666,Just_a_Node,Simcity,Joe_Grunt,9-012-345-678,9600,VFC Point,1,Point_1,Simcity,Joe_Point,-Unpublished-,300, Point,2,Point_2,Simcity,Joes_Brother,9-345-678-901,9600,V34,XX,U,Tbc 2.3 The "Poss" format -------------------------- The Poss or pointplus format is the same as the Boss format with the keyword "Point" added in field one. Some feel this adds clearity, others feel that it adds needless redundancy. The Poss format is deprecated. Example: Boss,1:1/1 Point,1,First_point_of_node_1,Somewhere,John_Doe,-Unpublished-,300 Point,2,Joe'sPoint,Cybercity,Tom_Jennings,1-234-567-890,9600,V34,XX,U,ENC 2.4 The "fake net" format. ------------------------- Fake nets were introduced as a way of allowing points using 2D software. The use of a fake net is largely abandoned, very few software that can not handle 4D is still around, but some nets still distribute pointlists in a format that reflects this obsolete practise. Technically the fake net list is not a pointlist but a nodelist. It has the same format as a regular FTS-5000 nodelist. The boss node is listed as the host and his points are listed as the leaf nodes. Example: Host,32061,2446/301,Uedem,Lothar_Behet,49-2824-922240,9600,CM, ... ,1,2446/301.1,Emmerich,John_Doe,49-2824-922240,9600, ,2,2446/301.2,Goch,Jim_Doe,49-2824-922240,9600, ,3,2446/301.3,Goch,Tom_Doe,49-2824-922240,9600, In order to facilitate sending crash mail to a point, the telephone number in the list is that of it's boss. Note that this would be incorrect if it were a real nodelist. Listing a node with a tele- phone number of another node that is not physically the same may cause password errors in case these are defined for those nodes. Also note that in this example the system name field contains the actual node/point number for easy conversion of fake net/node number to net/boss.point number. Listing of the 3d number in the point lines is redundant. Some only list the actual number in the Host line and use arbitrary strings in the points system name field. Host,10005,240/5496,Moisburg,Christian_Schmidt,49-4165-971143, ... ,1,Chrissie.1,Moisburg,Christian_Schmidt,49-4165-971143,9600, ,2,Chrissie.2,Buchholz,Steve_Tell,49-4165-971143,9600, An alternative way to supply conversion information is used in Denmark. The node number is supplied by the use of a UBOSS flag (without a comma) in the line of the fake host: Host,17010,NightCall,[..],[..],45-63121074,9600,V34,UBOSS:237/10 ,1,System,Location,Point_Name,-Unpublished-,9600,MO Also note that the fake list format is less suitable for big lists since fake net numbers are restricted to the range 1-32767. As the number of boss nodes grows the difficulty of assigning unique fake net numbers increases. 2.5 The FidoUser format ----------------------- As the name suggests the FidoUser format was originally intended to be a list of users in FidoNet. It allowed BBS software to suggest a fidonet address for netmail if the name of the recipient is known to the sender. It was first used by the Fido BBS programme for this purpose. Due to the explosive growth, keeping a list of all FidoNet users soon became impractical. The format of the list has survived for pointlists. First of all it needs to be noted that although the FidoUser list looks like an ASCII text file, it is NOT. It is a datafile consisting of equal length records. The last two bytes of each record are a CR and a LF. The actual record length is not specified, but all records must be of the same length. The format of a record is: , [:]/[.] Records must be sorted on . The zone number may be omitted. Default is the own zone. The address must start on or after column 46. The record must be padded with trailing blanks to make all records of equal length. The keyword is the last word in the name. Usually this is the surname, but in case of a compound surname it is the last of them. Restofname usually is the first name, but it may be more than one name and/or prefixes to the surname. Keyword and restofname are separated by a comma and one space. Examples: Roche, Baptiste petit dit de la 2:500/128.6469 Vermeulen, Jan 2:280/100.1 Vlist, Michiel van der 2:500/9.5 It appears however that some software does not take kindly to spaces in the name field. It is the old problem of BBS software that allows only one first and one last name. Usually the problem is "solved" by substituting dots or underlines in the names. So one would also encounter: Petit_dit_de_la_Roche, Baptiste 2:500/128.6469 Raaijmakers, Henk_Jan 2:500/506.11 van_der_Vlist, Michiel 2:500/555.5 Only ASCII characters are allowed. (No "high ASCII") Known exceptions: Dutchie 3, Timed and MBM 3.40 accept the IBM character set in the name fields. They also accept that the address starts at column 37 and the address may be right justified without trailing blanks. MakePl and PcMerge accept ASCII text files looking like FidoUser lists. Last name and address must be separated by at least two spaces or a tab character. Records need not be sorted and comment lines starting with a semicolon are accepted. Some nets distribute lists in the form of these ASCII "look alike" Fidouser lists. A. Acknowledgements ------------------- The following persons were helpful: Marcel Wulffraat, Ruud Uphoff, Lothar Behet, Kaare Olsen. Alexey Antonyuk, Ulrich Schroeter, Stas Degteff, Carol Shenkenberger B. References ------------- [FTS-5] "The distribution nodelist", Ben Baker, Rick Moore. February 1989. Obsoleted by FTS-5000. [FTS-5000] "The distribution nodelist". Colin Turner, Andreas Klein, Michael McCabe, David Hallford, Odinn Sorensen. June 1999. [FTS-5001] "Nodelist flags and userflags". Colin Turner, Andreas Klein, Michael McCabe, David Hallford, Odinn Sorensen. June 1999. C. Contact Data --------------- Michiel van der Vlist Fidonet: 2:280/5555 E-mail: pa0mmv at vrza dot nl administrator at ftsc dot org D. History ---------- Rev.1, 20001001: Initial Release. Principal author Michiel van der Vlist. Rev.2 20100408 Added Poss format Some small textual changes **********************************************************************