enigma-bbs/docs/messageareas/bso-import-export.md

layout	title
page	BSO Import / Export

The scanner/tosser module ftn_bso provides Binkley Style Outbound (BSO) import/toss and scan/export of messages EchoMail and NetMail messages. Configuration is supplied in config.hjson under scannerTossers.ftn_bso.

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

Let's look at some of the basic configuration:

Config Item	Required	Description
schedule	👍	Sets import and export schedules. Later style text parsing supported. import also can utilize a @watch:<path/to/file> syntax while export additionally supports @immediate.
packetMsgEncoding	👎	Override default utf8 encoding.
defaultNetwork	👎	Explicitly set default network (by tag in messageNetworks.ftn.networks). If not set, the first found is used.
nodes	👍	Per-node settings. Entries (keys) here support wildcards for a portion of the FTN-style address (e.g.: 21:1/*). archiveType may be set to a FTN supported archive extention that the system supports (TODO); if unset, only .PKT files are produced. encoding may be set to override packetMsgEncoding on a per-node basis. If the node requires a packet password, set packetPassword
paths	👎	An optional configuration block that can set a retain path and/or a reject path. These will be used for archiving processed packets. You may additionally override the default outbound, inbound, and secInbound (secure inbound) base paths for packet processing.
packetTargetByteSize	👎	Overrides the system target packet (.pkt) size of 512000 bytes (512k)
bundleTargetByteSize	👎	Overrides the system target ArcMail bundle size of 2048000 bytes (2M)

Scheduling

Schedules can be defined for importing and exporting via import and export under schedule. Each entry is allowed a "free form" text and/or special indicators for immediate export or watch file triggers.

• @immediate: A message will be immediately exported if this trigger is defined in a schedule. Only used for export.
• @watch:/path/to/file: This trigger watches the path specified for changes and will trigger an import or export when such events occur. Only used for import.
• Free form text can be things like at 5:00 pm or every 2 hours.

See Later text parsing documentation for more information.

Example Schedule Configuration

{
  scannerTossers: {
    ftn_bso: {
      schedule: {
        import: every 1 hours or @watch:/path/to/watchfile.ext
        export: every 1 hours or @immediate
      }
    }
  }
}

Nodes

The nodes section defines how to export messages for one or more uplinks.

A node entry starts with a FTN style address (up to 5D) as a key in config.hjson. This key may contain wildcard(s) for net/zone/node/point/domain.

Config Item	Required	Description
packetType	👎	2, 2.2, or 2+. Defaults to 2+ for modern mailer compatiability
packetPassword	👎	Password for the packet
encoding	👎	Encoding to use for message bodies; Defaults to utf-8
archiveType	👎	Specifies the archive type for ArcMail bundles. Must be a valid archiver name such as zip (See archiver configuration)

Example:

{
  scannerTossers: {
    ftn_bso: {
      nodes: {
        "21:*": {
          packetType: 2+
          packetPassword: mypass
          encoding: cp437
          archiveType: zip
        }
      }
    }
  }
}

A More Complete Example

Below is a more complete example showing the sections described above.

scannerTossers: {
  ftn_bso: {
    schedule: {
      //  Check every 30m, or whenever the "toss!.now" file is touched (ie: by Binkd)
      import: every 30 minutes or @watch:/enigma-bbs/mail/ftn_in/toss!.now

      //  Export immediately, but also check every 15m to be sure
      export: every 15 minutes or @immediate
    }

    // optional
    paths: {
      reject: /path/to/store/bad/packets/
      retain: /path/to/store/good/packets/
    }

    //  Override default FTN/BSO packet encoding. Defaults to 'utf8'
    packetMsgEncoding: utf8

    defaultNetwork: fsxnet

    nodes: {
      "21:1/100" : {            //  May also contain wildcards, ie: "21:1/*"
        archiveType: ZIP        //  By-ext archive type: ZIP, ARJ, ..., optional.
        encoding: utf8          //  Encoding for exported messages
        packetPassword: MUHPA55 //  FTN .PKT password, optional

        tic: {
          //  See TIC docs
        }
      }
    }

    netMail: {
      //  See NetMail docs
    }

    ticAreas: {
      //  See TIC docs
    }
  }
}

Additional Resources

• Blog entry on setting up ENiGMA + Binkd on CentOS7. Note that this references an older version, so be wary of the config.hjson refernces!