[HECnet] Fidonet and FIDOGW::

[Sampsa Laine]

About Fidonet
=============

Fidonet was started by Tom Jennings in 1984 to enable system operators of
dial up bulletin boards to exchange mail between their boards and respective
users.

The network quickly expanded beyond simple mail exchange ("netmail") to deliver
both newsgroup style discussion forums ("echos") as well file transfer
and distribution via various mechanisms, and by the 1990s had grown to tens of
thousands of hosts with hundreds of thousands of users. By the end of the 1990s,
however, the network was rapidly shrinking as both sysops and users moved to the
Internet and BBSs were wound down. More on this rather sad story can be found
at:
	
	http://www.bbsdocumentary.com/
	
The BBS scene isn't entirely dead in 2009 and shows some signs of revival -
old sysops are returning to set up boards (mostly accessed by telnet) and users
are starting to return in a slow trickle. The glory days of the 90s will probably
never return, but BBSing is still a fun hobby for any retrotechnology oriented
geek.

It works on a store-and-forward basis, with hierarchical organisation divided
into Zones, the top level Fidonet org, somewhat analogous to a DNS TLD,
Nets, second level org, perhaps a little like a DNS domain, however a Fidonet
host always has a Node number, which is the lowest form of publicly reachable
Fidonet hosts. Finally, a Node may have private sub-nodes called Points - the
node itself is Point 0.

The address is expressed as follows:

	2:250/7.0		(Zone 2 = Europe, Net 250 = UK, Node/Point 7 = B4BBS)
	
There is no standard syntax for expressing a username + node address, typically
the node was entered separately in software.


FIDOGW:: - The HECnet - Fidonet Netmail Gateway
===============================================

The HECnet gateway uses the following addressing format for mails going out to
Fidonet:

	FIDOGW::"FIDONET ADDRESS "!" GIVENNAME_SURNAME"
	
Example:

	FIDOGW::"2:250/7.0!Sampsa_Laine"
	
NOTE: You MUST include the full Fidonet address including the zone and point -
otherwise the message will be dropped.

The quotes are necessary as VMS MAIL does not appreciate this rather complex
notation otherwise.

Inbound mail from Fidonet should be addressed to the node 2:250/88.0, the recipient
name should be set to the full HECnet MAIL 11 address, e.g. CHIMPY::SAMPSA.

The HECnet gateway only supports netmail for now, echos support might be added in
the future should people show interest in this. For now, a user desiring access
to echos should obtain an account on B4BBS, this is accessible either by logging
in as B4BBS on CHIMPY::, telnet to b4bbs.sampsa.com or via the Flash client at
http://sampsa.com/b4bbs.

Finding other hosts on Fidonet can be done either via downloading and compiling
a nodelist (not possible on VMS/RSX) or a web based nodelist search tool, such
as my feeble attempt at http://rhesus.sampsa.com/cgi-bin/fidonodes/findnode.com

One thing to keep in mind about Fidonet netmail are the very unpredictable message
delivery times. The message may take days to be delivered as it travels up and
down between nodes and mailhubs, some of which might only make a connection
over dial up once a day.
	
Final note: Fidonet is a community of amateurs with certain community standards
that members adhere to. More details of these (suggested reading for all gateway
users) can be found in the Fidonet POLICY4 document accessible at:
	
	http://www.fidonet.us/policy4.html

More info can be found on the Wikipedia Fidonet entry:
	http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidonet

or these sites:

	http://www.fidonet.org/
	http://www.fidonet.us/
	http://www.fidonews.info/public/fidonews/default.htm
	
I hope you enjoy this facility!

Regards,

Sampsa