enigma-bbs/docs/_docs/messageareas/ftn.md

layout	title
page	FidoNet-Style Networks (FTN)

FidoNet-Style Networks (FTN)

FidoNet proper and other FidoNet-Style networks are supported by ENiGMA½. A bit of configuration and you'll be up and running in no time!

📜 Before proceeding you may wish to check Setting up FTN-style message networks with ENiGMA½ BBS by Alpha. An excellent guide detailing some of the setup described here!

Configuration

Getting a fully running FTN enabled system requires a few configuration points:

1. messageNetworks.ftn.networks: Declares available networks. That is, networks you wish to sync up with.
2. messageNetworks.ftn.areas: Establishes local area mappings (ENiGMA½ to/from FTN area tags) and per-area specific configurations.
3. scannerTossers.ftn_bso: General configuration for the scanner/tosser (import/export) process. This is also where we configure per-node (uplink) settings.

ℹ️ ENiGMA½'s ftn_bso module is not a mailer and makes no attempts to perform packet transport! An external utility such as Binkd is required for this task.

Networks

The networks block is a per-network configuration where each entry's ID (or "key") may be referenced elsewhere in config.hjson. For example, consider two networks: ArakNet (araknet) and fsxNet (fsxnet):

{
  messageNetworks: {
    ftn: {
      networks: {
        // it is recommended to use lowercase network tags
        fsxnet: {
          defaultZone: 21
          localAddress: "21:1/121"
        }

        araknet: {
          defaultZone: 10
          localAddress: "10:101/9"
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

Areas

The areas section describes a mapping of local area tags configured in your messageConferences (see Configuring a Message Area) to a message network (described above), a FTN specific area tag, and remote uplink address(s). This section can be thought of similar to the AREAS.BBS file used by other BBS packages.

When ENiGMA½ imports messages, they will be placed in the local area that matches key under areas while exported messages will be sent to the relevant network.

Config Item	Required	Description
network	👍	Associated network from the networks section above
tag	👍	FTN area tag (ie: FSX_GEN)
uplinks	👍	An array of FTN address uplink(s) for this network

Example:

{
  messageNetworks: {
    ftn: {
      areas: {
        // it is recommended to use lowercase area tags
        fsx_general:        //  *local* tag found within messageConferences
          network: fsxnet   //  that we are mapping to this network
          tag: FSX_GEN      //  ...and this remote FTN-specific tag
          uplinks: [ "21:1/100" ] // a single string also allowed here
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

💡 You can import AREAS.BBS or FTN style .NA files using oputil!

A More Complete Example

Below is a more complete example illustrating some of the concepts above:

{
  messageNetworks: {
    ftn: {
      networks: {
        fsxnet: {
          defaultZone: 21
          localAddress: "21:1/121"
        }
      }

      areas: {
        fsx_general: {
          network: fsxnet

          //  ie as found in your info packs .NA file
          tag: FSX_GEN

          uplinks: [ "21:1/100" ]
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

ℹ️ Remember for a complete FTN experience, you'll probably also want to configure FTN/BSO scanner/tosser settings.

FTN/BSO Scanner Tosser

Please see the FTN/BSO Scanner/Tosser documentation for information on this area.