*** Notes for version 1.4 Connecting to the BBS from the node would generate a spurious "Failure with" message. Updated web interface from KA7IJK. RoundTable incorrectly handled the case where a user changed topics. *** Notes for version 1.3 1.3 is now the release version. The QTH command via the web interface crashed. Fixed a bug where a missing channel field in an attach kiss command would not be noticed, and SNOS would crash. Fixed a minor problem with NetWalker. There are some problems with the WP database. When you first load this version, the existing WP will be deleted and a new one created. *** Notes for version 1.2 Some changes to the AX.25 slow start code that appear to significanly improve retry rates. Various updates to the RoundTable code, fixes a few minor bugs that have been around for years. AX.25 commands frackmin / frackmax have been replaced by frack. NET/ROM commands frackmin / frackmax have been replaced by frack and blimit. Found a bug in the FTP server that would leave a "ghost" process active if the client did not connect to the data port during a passive transfer. There was a missing timeout on the listening socket. Minor cleanup in the AX.25 and NET/ROM code. The "bye" command from an AX.25 connection would send DM (teminate) instead of DISC (disconnect). The connected TNC would interpret this as a link failure instead of a normal link teardown. Fixed. Thanks to KD7ZLF for noticing this one. Minor cleanup in the session control code. Minor cleanup in the forwarding control code. Minor cleanup in the FTP and NET/ROM code. *** Notes for version 1.0R Another minor improvement to NET/ROM handling of "dead routes". If there is more than one node with a specific alias, the connect command will now choose the node with the better quality. Added the "arp ignore" command, similar to the "netrom ignore" command, to avoid automatic creation of an IP route to a specific host on a specific interface. Example: arp ignore ax6 n7yss-1. *** Notes for version 9.15 NNTP and SMTP forwarding now honor grouping commands in forward.txt. See \nos\examples\paret\forward.txt for an example of using groups. *** Notes for version 9.14 Retry counts might be shown as higher than they really are in some unusual circumstances. That has been corrected. Now handles OX16PCI954 UARTS correctly, sets the FIFOs to 128 bytes. For SIIG PP-20212 and similar "CyberPro". New utility program, PCISCAN.EXE, checks the PCI buss to discover the correct IRQ and address for any serial cards. With the -a option on the command line it will tell you more than you ever wanted to know about PCI devices. If you place the pci.ids file, renamed to pci-ids.txt, in same directory as PCISCAN.EXE the information in that file will be used to identify chip supplier and card supplier information. The pci.ids file may be downloaded from http://pciids.sourceforge.net/. Expire NTS or unread personal messages will now return them to sender instead of silently deleting them. Added the command "msgs off". If this command is placed in startup.txt after the system callsigns commands, all messaging functions (BBS, NNTP, POP, SMTP) are disabled. This feature is for use in a router only situation. *** Notes for version 9.13 Added the command "arp ui on/off". If on, IP connections will use UI frames (unconnected mode). The "arp add" command may be used to override the default on a per-link basis if needed. The default setting is "arp ui off". DHCP seemed like a good idea. However there are many many complexities involved, and getting it right would take another six months or so. It has been removed. *** Notes for version 9.12 I have disabled the "passive" mode in the FTP server. Testing various FTP clients to verify that this feature is not actually required. Another case where SNOS should not have a particular feature unless there is a specific need for it. The "attach digi" command has been removed, use "attach com" with the Digiboards. The control register is no longer used. The "exit" command is now working. Added a "monitor show" command to bring up the monitor window as needed. No reason to have it active unless it is actually being used. Removed the "connect" and "telnet" commands from the local console, the "node" command provides the same functionality. Disabled the split-screen feature for the connect terminal screen. Did not seem to be really required. Further work on DHCP. To connect a windows machine into a network with SNOS, the windows machine must have a host name and must have "use DNS" checked. SNOS will provide the IP address, DNS address, default router address and domain name. Ping command in the monitor window to a host not in the hosts file could hang or crash the system. Fixed. New BBS sysop command "uh" to release all held messages. If you specify a default router or DNS for the client to use, those will be provided to the client. Otherwise the system address will be used. The commands are (e.g.): "dhcp dns 44.116.1.21" and "dhcp dns 44.116.1.21". If the DHCP client has a host name known to SNOS, the associated IP address will be assigned. A minimal DHCP server is now included. This allows connection of a windows machine on the ethernet without need to specify a fixed address on that machine. To provide dynamic addresses use "dhcp address first last" where first is the first address to assign, last is the last to assign. e.g. "dhcp address 44.116.1.1 44.116.1.5" Note that host names can be used in place of IP addresses. *** Notes for version 9.11 Delay the startup of network services (except RIP) until the routing tables have been established. NNTP forwarding of bulletins is now working, but needs some further testing. In forward.txt you put (for example): Call: kc7zzx Nntp: kc7zzx Tag: pdx or amsat arrl pnw usw usa noam ww You must also remove the bulletin tags from the BBS forwarding item for kc7zzx. The "TMP" environment variable is no longer used by SNOS. The "start" command in startup.txt is no longer used. Corrected a problem with a route timing out if the remote host has no subnet. The remote host will not send RIP info, but will still respond to an ARP poll. The route entry timeout was not being reset in the situation. This will only occur if the remote host does not have an ethernet port attached. Router-only version discontinued. Enhanced error checking and diagnostic messages at startup. *** Notes for version 9.10 The hosts file is now in \nos and the \windows directory is not required. Install will place a current 44.116 hosts file into \nos if none exists. There was really no reason to have the hosts file in \windows, and one less directory to worry about makes things simpler. *** Notes for version 9.9 Corrections and cleanup to message headers. NNTP forwarding may be working now. Netscape and Thunderbird would not work as email clients. Found problem in SNOS, fixed same. The rewrite command now shows where the message will forward, as well as the translated address and mailbox. Fixed several problems with the continuous pinger. Further small changes to SMTP and to DNS. Mostly enhanced error handling. Found a problem in the ethernet packet driver interface code that has existed for a very long time. It could cause occasional hangs or crashes. *** Notes for version 9.8 Continued small changes to the FTP, SMTP, NNTP, HTTP servers. Slowly making the detailed changes needed so they are exactly standards compliant. These changes tend to be very minor things like more specific error messages instead of generic "I couldn't do that" messages. For example, the NNTP server will now produce a list of recently added newsgroups when asked, instead of just giving a "Not implemented" response. The "wp kdays" command has been replaced by "expire read". In the previous versions, SNOS has attempted to recover damaged WP or message databases, and has attempted to convert from older versions when possible. That behavior is now changed. If SNOS detects a damaged database, or an old version of a database, it will reinitialize the database instead of attempting recovery or conversion. The attach packet and attach bpqenet commands have been changed to conform with the other attach commands. Note that you MUST make this change in your startup.txt. Below are the examples. Note that the interface name and packet interrupt number have changed places. attach packet et1 0x60 1520 ifconfig description et1 "House Ethernet" ifconfig netmask et1 255.255.255.224 attach bpqenet ax1 0x60 256 ifconfig description ax1 "House Ethernet" ax25 speed ax1 64000 *** Notes for version 9.7 The following commands are no longer required at the end of your starup.txt, you can remove them: ; Populate our routing table. ; Send our routing table. arp poll wait 5 rip kick wait 5 rip request Note the change in names for the following commands: nw hoptout - per hop connect attempt, seconds. nw routetout - for the whole connect to the distant node. nw rttmult - adjustment for slow hops. Rewrite of NetWalker. Does one probe at a time. No longer uses disk based database. Reports generated directly, NWRPT no longer used. The old version was a horror show to maintain. Made a minor change to the "ping" code to avoid a potential problem when a large group of ping commands are issued, that connection is dropped before all the responses arrive, and a new connection is started before all the responses arrive. The "domain cache age" command has been removed, this is now handled automatically. It should be removed from startup, where it might be found as a cron command. Significant changes to the way timed events are handled, the details of the arp / rip / route cleanup processes, and some details of NET/ROM circuit managment. These were done to make the code easier to maintain, and to help find two remaining stability issues. *** Notes for version 9.6 The ps command now shows time active for transient processes. Changes to NetWalker to use "static tasks". Makes the code easier to maintain, uses less resources. Removed the local system screen display of progress. Many improvements to some low level parts of the code that improve memory management, serial port handling, and file handling. Better error reporting for the mailbox message commands. The generic "Not found" was confusing. WP.DB contains information about the system owner. There is now a check at startup to verify that an existing WP.DB corresponds to the callsign of the system owner. If not, a fresh WP.DB is created. Handling of multiple ethernet cards removed. Found that it was not needed, and the code is very much simpler to maintain. "pop poll" command has been removed, not used. "ifconfig broadcast" command removed, calculated from the ip address and netmask instead. Added a "com txtout" command, will protect against loss of UART TX empty interrupts under most circumstances. Removed the "log cron" command. It is redundant. Minor changes to the computation of round trip times *** Notes for version 9.5 End of 2004 stable release. *** Notes for version 9.4 messages.txt is now indexed at startup. This is an efficiency improvement, uses less memory and fewer processor cycles. Note that you must make some changes to the attach commands. The interface quality is no longer given in the "attach packet" or "attach bpqe" command, but is given only in the "ax25 quality ppp qqq" command, where ppp is the interface and qqq is the quality. See \nos\examples\paret\startup.txt. The interface quality will default to a standard quality depending on the radio baud rate. There are a large number of minor changes to some of the low level code. These are for stability and efficiency improvement. If a domain name was mentioned in startup.txt prior to the "start" command and if that name was not in the hosts file, SNOS would hang waiting for domain name resolution. It now will produce an error message in the log file. Some changes to the way monitoring information is queued and displayed. Should use much less compute time to get the data formatted and shuffled about. Appears to be a big improvement. In forward.txt you can add the keyword "Poll" after a "Call:" entry to force polling of that BBS on every forward cycle. This will allow you to avoid long delays with forwarding partners who run software that can only forward once per hour. Defaults provided for port speeds of 38400 and 57600 baud. MSYS sends AX.25 DM as V1 not V2, SNOS will recognize this and treat it as a V2 DM. Allows faster recovery to AX.25L2V2 on AX.25L2V2.2 connect request from SNOS. There appear to be other cases where MSYS does not handle the poll/final bit correctly. The file \nos\sys\article is no longer used. The data in article has been combined into history. The file \nos\sys\bids is no longer used. The information in it was duplicated in the file \nos\sys\history. Used a different scheme to start a forwarding session that makes a much faster decision about what to forward. A few further stability changes. *** Notes for version 9.3 LFA.EXE is now a Windows console program. This allows it to handle much more log data. Some changes in NNTP for better interprocess locking. May cure a hang that occurs occasionally. Corrected an error in handling of R: headers in non-compressed forwarding. Thre has been considerable confusion about how to attach a TNC in XKISS mode vs. one in KISS mode. There are now two commands, attach kiss and attach xkiss. I hope this will be easier to understand. See \nos\examples\paret for an example of the use of the two commands. Added capability to edit info.txt and motd.txt from the web interface. Node broadcasts are now done via the cron facility. You *must* add the line: cron from 00 to 23 each 60 at now "netrom bc" to your startup.txt. and remove the line: netrom bc from the end of your startup.txt Added "Message of the day" feature. If the file \nos\motd.txt exists, it is shown to the user when he connects to the BBS. Improved log entry for SMTP delivery failure. Another very minor change that appears to correct an occasional message locking problem. The ftp client is working. Added more "running low on memory" protection in the DNS query code. Added node commands istatus, link, rip. *** Notes for version 9.2 More changes to the ftp server to support windows mapping and web browsing of the SNOS file system. Added support for simple shared IRQ serial cards such as the SIIG Cyberport and similar. These cards will only work if they have a DOS initialization program from the manufacturer. You can find the IRQ and addresses via that initialization program, or via the BIOS display at boot time. Use the normal "attach com" commands. This has been tested on only one serial card ;-) Note that I have done very little testing of this new driver, so it may or may not work correctly. Made a minor change to the pop poll code to allow for malformed incoming email. If the incoming email did not have correct end-of-header and / or correct end-of-body markers the download would hang. If a TNC is turned on and SNOS is not running, it is possible the TNC will fill it's serial port output buffer and cause SNOS to record a number of buffer overflow events when it is started. When this happens, there appear to be cases when the TNC and SNOS will not properly communicate. Added some code to drain any existing data from the TNC at startup. Discovered a problem with usenet postings getting an incorrect address as bulletins, and thus getting lost. This problem appears to have existed for quite awhile. Is fixed now. Changed timer tick rate to be a bit slower, roughly 1.7 milliseconds per tick. Added "kill pid" command, kill a given process. Added timeout to "Hit enter to continue" prompt. Removed the "ax25 reset" command, it could cause a crash. Better end of line marker detection, CR vs CR/LF vs LF. Added "ip ignore" command to avoid routing frames from "bad" ip addresses, for example worm infected windows machines. The active file now correctly tracks the article file after news articles are expired. Fixed a crash that could occasionally occur if the exit or restart command was used in the monitor window. If multiple rejects are received for the same AX.25 frame, the frame is only retransmitted once. Simplification of file locking. Major simplification of the WP database. The existing WP.DB file is saved as WP.OLD. Various minor bug fixes. Added command "netrom ignorebc call" to handle those cases where you must be on the same frequency as a station it is impossible to connect with ... but you hear their node broadcasts. Corrected problem where bulletin posted via nntp would not show up in the newsgroup. Changes to log file names and format. Corrected an error in the display of connected users in the case where the user had actually disconnected, but the user process had not yet terminated. *** Notes for version 9.1 Changed WP database to a transaction based model. This should help avoid potential database corruption after a crash or power failure. Fixed a few minor bugs in the NNTP protocol, mostly involving malformed incoming NNTP commands. Fixed a number of minor bugs involving memory allocation problems. Added defaults for KISS parameters (TXD, TXT, etc.) similar to the existing AX.25 parameter defaults. Enabled IP over AX.25 UI frames. For now, this requires a manual ARP entry to mark the route as using UI frames instead of I frames. Both ends of the link must either use I frames as in the past, or must use UI frames. Example: arp add cedar ax2 k7iqi-1 UI News articles and bulletins are now managed as a single message file. When 9.1 is first run, the existing news directory is emtied and removed and the article file is cleared. All existing news articles are gone. They will rebuild from new incoming bulletins or new posts. The existing news article numbering is retained, so clearing or restting things in your newsreader should not be needed. Note that once 9.1 hs been run, the only way to go back to a previous version is to do a clean install.