Network Operating System (NOS)
Manual Acuan Untuk Pemakai

Phil Karn, KA9Q
dan
Gerard van der Grinten, PA0GRI

alih bahasa & revisi
Onno W. Purbo, YC1DAV
Kelompok Bidang Keahlian Jaringan Komputer
Pusat Antar Universitas bidang Mikroelektronika
Institut Teknologi Bandung
Bandung, 40132
Tel: 022 250-4256
FAX: 022 250-5442
E-mail: yc1dav@itbgtw.itb.ac.id

Manual ini diperuntukan bagi NOS versi 911229 YC1DAV v.1.0
yang dilepaskan untuk publik oleh YC1DAV

INSTITUT TEKNOLOGI BANDUNG
1994

1.	Perangkat lunak NOS.EXE

	Program NOS.EXE (selanjutnya kita sebut Nos) yang bisa dijalankan diatas sistem operasi MS-DOS mempunyai beberapa fasilitas servis, seperti, Internet (TCP/IP), NET/ROM and AX.25. Karena Nos mempunyai fasilitas sistem operasi multitasking di dalamnya, Nos dapat berfungsi sekaligus sebagai client, server dan packet switch untuk ketiga set tata-cara komunikasi (protokol) diatas. Sehingga, pada saat pemakai (user) lokal menggunakan berbagai servis jarak jauh, sistem Nos juga dapat memberikan servis yang sama pada pemakai lain yang masuk dari sistem yang berjauhan pada saat yang sama juga melakukan switching untuk IP, NET/ROM dan AX.25 paket dan frame untuk node client dan server lainnya. Keyboad dan monitor digunakan oleh operator lokal untuk mengontrol berbagai fungsi host dan gateway, yang mana beberapa perintah untuk keperluan tersebut akan dijelaskan dalam manual ini.

1.1.	Startup

	nos [‑b] [‑s <#sockets>] [‑d </directory>] [‑v] [<startup file>]

Pada saat Nos dijalankan tanpa argumen, Nos akan berusaha untuk membuka berkas autoexec.nos di root directory pada disk yang saat itu digunakan. Jika berkas autoexec.nos ada, Nos akan membaca berkas tersebut dan menjalankan isinya seperti halnya jika kita tuliskan perintah melalui konsol. Kemampuan ini sangat berguna untuk menempelkan berbagai interface komunikasi, melakukan konfigurasi alamat dan route jaringan, serta menjalankan berbagai servis.
Ada empat (4) buah command-line yang diterima:

1.1.1.	‑b

Option -b digunakan untuk menggunakan BIOS untuk keluaran konsole; nilai default adalah menulis langsung pada buffer video display. Gunakan option ini jika anda menjalankan Nos dibawah paket program window dan memperoleh masalah ada huruf-huruf dari Nos yang keluar di window yang salah.

1.1.2.	 ‑s <no_of_sockets>

Option -s menunjukan banyaknya soket yang dialokasikan didalam Nos. Jumlah soket yang ada akan membatasi jumlah hubungan yang dapat beroperasi bersamaan. Nilai default adalah 40.

1.1.3.	‑d </directory>

Option -d memungkinkan pemakai untuk menset direktori "root" untuk berkas-berkas konfigurasi dan spool; nilai default adalah direktori root sistem.

1.1.4.	‑v

Option -v memungkinkan pemakai untuk melihat eksekusi dari perintah pada saat menjalankan Nos. Option ini memungkinkan perintah dalam autoexec.nos dibaca dan ditampilkan dilayar sebelum dieksekusi oleh Nos. Hal ini membantu jika Nos berhenti (hang) pada saat inisialisasi oleh autoexec.nos.

Setelah semua option command-line, kita dapat menset nama lain dari berkas yang berisi perintah-perintah yang perlu dibaca untuk inisialisasi. Jika nama berkas ini kita tuliskan, maka hanya berkas tsb. yang dibaca bukan autoexec.nos.

1.2.	Variabel DOS.

Variabel DOS berikut dapat digunakan untuk menset beberapa hal dalam Nos.

1.2.1.	TZ

Variable TZ sebaiknya diset pada waktu lokal. Nilai default adalah UTC. Variable ini digunakan sebagai stempel waktu di SMTP.

1.2.2.	MAILER

Variabel MAILER menset program apa yang perlu dijalankan pada saat menjalankan perintah mail di Nos. Nilai default adalah BM.EXE.

1.2.3.	COMSPEC

Variable COMSPEC menset command shell yang akan digunakan pada saat shell keluar dari Nos. Variabel ini umumnya di set oleh MS-DOS ke COMMAND.COM. Nilai default juga COMMAND.COM.

1.2.4.	TMP

Variabel TMP digunakan untuk menyediakan tempat dimana berkas-berkas yang sifatnya temporer disimpan. Jika variabel TMP tidak di set, berkas-berkas temporer akan dibuka di direktori root. Contoh untuk menset variabel TMP adalah "set TMP=C:\tmp\".

1.2.5.	USER

Variabel USER digunakan oleh ftp dan rlogin untuk menset username yang digunakan untuk memasuki mesin lawan. Nilai default variabel USER adalah guest. Pada saat melakukan ftp jika kita hanya mengirimkan <CR> maka isi variable USER yang akan dikirim.

2.	Mode konsol

Konsol mungkin beroperasi pada dua buah mode, yaitu, command (perintah) dan converse (interaksi). Pada mode command, prompt net> akan ditampilkan dan perintah-perintah Nos dapat dimasukan pada saat ini. Dalam mode converse, perintah yang dimasukan dari keyboard akan di proses sesuai dengan session yang saat itu berjalan. Session yang masuk sangat beragam: Telnet, Ttylink, Rlogin, FTP, AX25, Finger, NETROM, Ping, More, Dial, Dir, PPP PAP, Hopcheck dan Tip.

Pada session Telnet, Ttylink, AX25, NETROM, Rlogin, atau Tip, masukan dari keyboard akan dikirimkan ke sistem lawan dan keluaran dari sistem lawan akan ditampilkan pada layar monitor di konsol. Dalam session FTP, masukan dari keyboard pertama kali akan diperiksa apakah perintah tsb. merupakan perintah-perintah lokal, jika demikian halnya maka perintah tsb. akan dikerjakan secara lokal. Jika tidak, perintah tsb. akan dikirimkan ke remote FTP server (untuk jelasnya lihat bagian FTP). Pada sessi Ping, seorang pemakai dapat mentest hubungan antara komputernya dengan komputer yang berjauhan. Pada sessi More, seorang pemakai dapat membaca berkas yang ada di disk komputer yang dia pergunakan. Sessi Hopcheck digunakan untuk mentrace hubungan (path) yang harus ditempuh ke tujuan yang spesifik. Sessi Finger untuk melihat pemakai yang sedang bekerja di komputer remote. PPP dan PAP digunakan untuk membangun saluran (seperti slip) antara dua buah sistem.

Keyboard mempunyai dua buah keadaan yaitu, keadaan masak (cooked) dan mentah (raw). Pada keadaan masak (cooked), pengiriman data dilakukan secara satu-baris-setiap-kali mengirim (line-at-a-time); Pemakai dapat menggunakan beberapa karakter kontrol untuk mengedit seperti ^U, ^R, ^B, ^W dan backspace untuk menghapus baris, menampilkan kembali baris, menampilkan kembali bagian dari baris sebelumnya, hapus kata terakhir dan hapus huruf terakhir. Baris yang ditulis baru akan dikirim ke program aplikasi setelah kita menekan <RETURN>. Pada keadaan mentah (raw), setiap karakter akan langsung dikirim ke program aplikasi sambil di ketikan. Keyboard selalu pada keadaan matang (cooked) pada mode perintah. Keyboard juga dalam keadaan matang pada mode percakapan (converse) pada sessi AX25, FTP atau NET/ROM. Pada sessi telnet atau Ttylink, tergantung dari komputer di ujung yang lain apakah sudah mengirimkan perintah (dan komputer lokal sudah menyetujui) option Telnet WILL ECHO (silahkan lihat perintah echo).

Pada IBM‑PC, pemakai dapat keluar kembali ke mode perintah dengan menekan tombol F10 atau tombol escape. Pada sistem lainnya, pemakai dapat kembali mode perintah dengan menggunakan karakter escape, yang umumnya nilai defaultnya adalah kontrol-] (hex 1D, ASCII). Karakter untuk escape dapat diubah (lihat keterangan tentang perintah escape). Tombol F10 dapat di definisikan ulang menggunakan perintah fkey. Pemakai kami peringatkan untuk tetap membuka kemungkinan bagi dirinya sendiri untuk melakukan escape. Jika anda men-set F10 dan escape ke kode yang sama sekali tidak dapat di eksekusi maka anda akan memperoleh dikemudian hari karena tidak bisa escape dari sessi yang hang.

Pada NOS versi IBM PC, setiap sessi (termasuk "sessi" perintah) akan mempunyai screen masing-masing. Ketika sessi baru 

In the IBM PC version, each session (including the command "session") has its own  screen.   When a new session is created, the command display is saved in memory and the screen is cleared.  When the command escape key (usually  F10 or ^]) is hit, the current session screen is saved and the command screen is restored.  When a session is resumed, its screen is restored  exactly as it appeared when it was last current. NosFp expects that the driver NANSY.SYS is loaded to support the screen and terminal emulation routines. ANSY.SYS has many problems and should NOT been used. Version 24 of nansy.sys (nan24hyc.zip on download systems) should be used  for  best  results.  Users  of  DeskView should be ok  with dvansy.sys as it has been reported that tab expansion is all right under DV.

3.  Commands

This section describes the commands recognized in command mode, or within a startup file such  as autoexec.nos. These are given in the following notation:

        command
        command literal_parameter
        command subcommand <parameter>
        command [<optional_parameter>]
        command a | b

Many commands take subcommands or parameters, which may be optional or required.  In  general, if a required subcommand or parameter is omitted, an error message will summarize the available subcommands or required parameters. (Giving  a '?' in place of the subcommand will also generate the message. This is useful when the command word alone is a valid command.)  If a command takes an optional value parameter, issuing the command without the parameter generally displays the current value of the variable. (Exceptions
to this rule are noted in the individual command descriptions.)

Two or more parameters separated by vertical bar(s) denote a  choice  between the specified values. Optional parameters are shown enclosed in [brackets], and a parameter enclosed in <angle  brackets>  should  be  replaced  with an actual value or string. For example, the notation <hostid> denotes an actual
host or gateway, which may be specified in one of two ways: as a numeric IP address  in  dotted  decimal  notation (eg. 44.0.0.1.), or as a symbolic name listed in the file domain.txt,

All commands and many subcommands may be abbreviated. You only need type enough  of a command's name to distinguish it from others that begin with the same series of letters. Parameters, however, must be typed in full. Certain FTP subcommands (eg. put, get, dir, etc) are recognized only in converse  mode with the appropriate FTP session; they are not recognized in command mode.  (See the FTP Subcommands chapter.)

3.1.  <CR>

Entering a carriage return (empty line) while in command mode puts you in converse  mode  with the current session. If there is no current session, Nos remains in command mode and reissues the net> prompt.

3.2.  !

An alias for the shell command.

3.3.  #

Commands starting with the hash mark (#) are ignored. This is mainly useful for comments in the autoexec.nos file.

3.4.  abort [<session #>]

Abort a FTP get, put or dir operation in progress. If issued without an argument, the current session is aborted. (This command works only on FTP sessions.) When receiving a file, abort simply resets the data  connection;  the
next incoming  data packet will generate a TCP RST (reset) response to clear the remote server. When sending a file, abort sends a premature end‑of‑file. Note that in both cases abort will leave a partial copy of the file on the
destination machine, which must be removed manually if it is unwanted.

3.5.  arp

Display the Address Resolution Protocol table that maps IP addresses to their subnet (link) addresses on subnetworks capable of broadcasting. For each IP address entry the subnet type (eg. Ethernet, AX.25), subnet address and  time
to expiration is shown. If the link address is currently unknown, the number of IP datagrams awaiting resolution is also shown.

3.5.1.  arp add <hostid> ether |  ax25  |  netrom  |  arcnet  <ether_addr>  |
<ax25_addr>

Add a permanent entry to  the  table. It will not time out as will an automatically‑created entry, but must be removed with the arp drop command.

3.5.2.  arp drop <hostid> ether | ax25 | netrom | arcnet

Delete a permanent entry from the arp table.

3.5.3.  arp flush

Drop all automatically‑created entries in the ARP table; permanent entries are not affected.

3.5.4.  arp publish <hostid> ether | ax25 | netrom |  arcnet  <ether_addr> | <ax25_addr>

This command is similar to the arp add command,  but  the  system  will  also
respond  to  any  ARP request it sees on the network that seeks the specified
address.  (Use this feature with great care.)

3.6.  autoroute <yes|no>

Displays or sets the IP autorouting option. When set all AX25 IP packets  are
analysed and remembered.

3.7.	asystat

Display statistics on attached asynchronous communications  interfaces  (8250 or 16550A),  if any. The display for each port consists of three lines. The first line gives the port label and the configuration flags;  these indicate whether  the port is a 16550A chip, the trigger character if any, whether CTS flow control is enabled,  whether  RLSD  (carrier  detect)  line  control is enabled,  and the speed in bits per second.  (Receiving the trigger character causes the driver to signal upper layer software that data is  ready;  it is automatically set to the appropriate frame end character for SLIP, PPP and NRS lines.)

The second line of the status display shows receiver (RX) event  counts: the total  number  of  receive interrupts, received characters, receiver overruns (lost characters) and the receiver high water mark.  The high water  mark  is the maximum number of characters ever read from the device during a single interrupt. This is useful for monitoring system interrupt latency margins  as it shows how close the port hardware has come to overflowing due to the inability of the CPU to respond to a receiver interrupt in time. 8250 chips have no FIFO, so the  high  water  mark cannot go higher than 2 before overruns occur. The 16550A chip,  however,  has a 16‑byte  receive  FIFO  which the software  programs  to  interrupt the CPU when the FIFO is one‑quarter full. The high water mark should typically be 4 or 5 when a 16550A is used; higher values indicate that the CPU has at least once been slow to respond to a receiver interrupt.

When the 16550A is used, a count of FIFO timeouts is also displayed on the RX status line. These are generated automatically by the 16550A when three character intervals go by with more than 0 but less  than  4  characters  in  the FIFO. Since the characters that make up a SLIP or NRS frame are normally sent at full line speed, this count will usually be a lower bound on the number of frames received on the port, as only the last fragment of a frame generally results in a timeout (and then only when the frame is not a multiple of 4 bytes long.)

Finally, the software fifo overruns and high water mark are displayed. These indicate whether the <bufsize> parameter on the attach command needs to be adjusted (see the Attach Commands chapter).

The third line shows transmit (TX) statistics, including a total count of transmit interrupts, transmitted characters, the length of the transmit queue in bytes, the number of status interrupts, and the number of THRE timeouts. The  status interrupt count will be zero unless CTS flow control or RLSD line control has been enabled. The THRE timeout is a stopgap measure to catch lost transmit interrupts, which seem to happen when there is a lot of activity (ideally, this will be zero).

3.8.	attach <hw type> ...

Configure and attach a hardware interface to the system. The details are highly interface dependent and dependent on configuration flags in the file config.h when the software is build. It can be that not all drivers listed below will be included in your copy of Nos.  Detailed instructions for each driver are in the Attach Commands chapter. Drivers are available for the following hardware types:

3.8.1.	attach 3c500

Don't use this one anymore. Use the packet driver instead. This driver is obsolete and not supported anymore.

3.8.2.	attach asy

Standard PC asynchronous interface (com port) using the National 8250 or 16450 or 16550A chip or compatible equivalent.

3.8.3.	attach axip

A "wormhole" ax25 digipeater device.

3.8.4.	attach arcnet

A ARCnet driver via the PACKET driver.

3.8.5.	attach drsi

N6TTO driver for the DRSI PCPA 8530 card.

3.8.6.	attach eagle

WA3CVG/NG6Q driver for the Eagle Computer card (Zilog 8530).

3.8.7.	attach hapn

KE3Z driver for the Hamilton Amateur Packet Network adapter board (Intel 8273).

3.8.8.	attach hs

Special "high speed" 8530 driver for the WA4DSY 56kb/s modem.

3.8.9.	attach kiss

This enables a multiplexed tnc type to be used for second channel. It is used to connect a second port to an already attached asy interface. It will copy most of the params of it's parent port.

3.8.10.	attach netrom

This is a psuedo interface to enable NET/ROM operations.

3.8.11.	attach packet

Driver for use with  separate  software  "packet  drivers"  meeting the FTP Software, Inc, Software Packet Driver specification.

3.8.12.	attach pc100

Driver for the PACCOMM PC‑100 (Zilog 8530) card.

3.8.13.	attach pi

Dma driven 8530 scc board from VE3IFB.

3.8.14.	attach scc

PE1CHL driver for generic 8530 cards.

3.8.15.	attach slfp

Serial Line Faming Protocol packet driver.

An easy way to obtain a summary of the parameters required for a given device is to issue a partial attach command (eg. attach packet.) This produces a usage message giving the complete command format.

3.9.	attended [off | on]

Displays or sets the global "I am present" flag in Nos. This flag is used in the welcome header by incoming ttylink connections.

3.10.	ax25 <subcommand>

These commands are for Ax25 interfaces.

3.10.1.	ax25 bc <interface> [on | off]

The bc command displays or enables or disables broadcasts via interface <interface> when on | off are given.

3.10.2.	ax25 bcinterval [<seconds>]

The bcinterval displays or sets the time in seconds  between bc broadcasts. On display both the interval and the countdown values are shown.

3.10.3.	ax25 bckick <interface>

The bckick command issues a direct broadcast to interface interface  when  so
enabled by a ax25 bc <interface> on command.

3.10.4.	ax25 bctext ["broadcast text"]

The bctext command displays or sets the text to be send  for  broadcast  messages send out every bcinterval seconds.

3.10.5.	ax25 blimit [<limit>]

Display or set the AX25 retransmission backoff limit. Normally  each  successive AX25 retransmission is delayed by twice the value of the previous interval; this is called binary exponential backoff.  When the backoff reaches the blimit  setting  it  is held at that value, which defaults to 30. To prevent the possibility of "congestive collapse" on a loaded channel, blimit should be set at least as high as the number of stations sharing the channel. Note that this is applicable only on actual AX25 connections; UI frames will never be retransmitted by the AX25 layer.

3.10.6.	ax25 dest

See ax25 hearddest command. This is a shorthand version of it.

3.10.7.	ax25 digipeat [on | off]

Display or set the digipeater enable flag. If the axip interface is used this flag MUST be on , otherwise the digipeat function will not work at all.

3.10.8.	ax25 filter <0 | 1 | 2 | 3>

The filter commands enables or disables the logging in the heard lists of source  and  destination  ax25_addresses. This is a bitwise or function where the 01 value is for source stations and the 02 value for destination stations. When the bit is off, logging is enabled, when on disabeled.

3.10.9.	ax25 flush

Clear the AX.25 "heard" list (see ax25 heard).

3.10.10.	ax25 heard [<interface>]

Display the AX.25 "heard" list. For each interface that is configured to  use AX.25,  a  list  of all ax25_addresses heard through that interface is shown, along with a count of the number of packets heard from each station and the interval, in hr:min:sec format, since each station was last heard.  The local station always appears first in the listing;  the  packet  count  actually reflects the number of packets transmitted. This entry is always present even if no packets have been sent. If interface is given, only the heard list for that  interface is displayed. Note that logging of heard stations is controlled with the ax25 filter command.

3.10.11.	ax25 hearddest [<interface>]

Displays the destination list, i.e. the addressed to stations. Next to the time  the last transmission to that station the time that station replied (if heard) is displayed. This gives a good reference to see if a station is reachable and responding.

3.10.12.  ax25 irtt [<milliseconds>]

Display or set the initial value of smoothed round trip time to be used when a  new  AX25 connection is created. The value is in milliseconds. The actual round trip time will be learned by measurement once the connection has been established.

3.10.13.  ax25 kick <axcb>

Force a retransmission on the specified AX.25  control  block. The control block address can be found with the ax25 status command.

3.10.14.  ax25 maxframe [<count>]

Establish the maximum number of frames that will be allowed to remain  unacknowledged at one time on new AX.25 connections. This number cannot be greater than 7.  Without count it will display the current  setting.  Note  that  the maximum outstaning frame count only works with virtual connections. UI frames are not affected.

3.10.15.  ax25 mycall [<ax25_addr>]

Display or set the default local AX.25 address.  The standard format is used, (eg.  KA9Q‑0 or WB6RQN‑5).  This command must be given before any attach commands using AX.25 mode are given.

3.10.16.  ax25 paclen [<size>]

Limit the size of I‑fields on new AX.25  connections. If IP datagrams or fragments  larger than this are transmitted, they will be transparently fragmented at the AX.25 level, sent as a series of I frames, and reassembled back into a complete IP datagram or fragment at the other end of the link. To have any effect on IP datagrams, this parameter should be less than  or  equal  to the MTU of the associated interface.

3.10.17.  ax25 pthresh [<size>]

Display or set the poll threshold to be used for new AX.25 Version 2  connections.   The  poll  threshold controls retransmission behavior as follows. If the oldest unacknowledged I‑frame size is less than the  poll  threshold,  it will  be  sent  with the poll (P) bit set if a timeout occurs.  If the oldest unacked I‑frame size is equal to or greater than the threshold, then a RR  or RNR  frame,  as  appropriate, with the poll bit set will be sent if a timeout occurs.

The idea behind the poll threshold is that the extra time needed  to  send a "small"  I‑frame  instead of a supervisory frame when polling after a timeout is small, and since there's a good chance the I‑frame will have  to  be  sent anyway  (i.e.,  if it were lost previously) then you might as well send it as the poll. But if the I‑frame is  large,  send  a  supervisory  (RR/RNR)  poll instead  to  determine  first  if retransmitting the oldest unacknowledged I‑frame is necessary; the timeout might have been caused by a lost acknowledgement.   This  is  obviously a tradeoff, so experiment with the poll threshold setting. The default is 128 bytes, one half the default value of paclen.

3.10.18.  ax25 reset <axcb>

Delete the AX.25 connection control block at the specified address.

3.10.19.  ax25 retry [<count>]

Limit the number of successive unsuccessful retransmission attempts on new AX.25  connections.  If  this  limit  is  exceeded,  link re‑establishment is attempted. If this fails retry times, then the connection  is  abandoned and all queued data is deleted.

3.10.20.  ax25 route

Display the AX.25 routing table that specifies the digipeaters to be used in reaching a given station.

3.10.20.1.  ax25 route add <target> [digis ... ]

Add an entry to the AX.25 routing table.  An automatic ax25 route add is executed  if  digipeaters are specified in an AX25 connect command, or if a connection is received from a remote station  via  digipeaters.  Such  automatic routing table entries won't override locally created entries, however.

3.10.20.2.  ax25 route drop <target>

Drop an entry for target from the AX.25 routing table.

3.10.20.3.  ax25 route mode <target> [vc | datagram | interface]

Sets the mode to vc | datagram |  interface  for  target.  Interface  is  the default for that interface. Vc is a virtual circuit (ax25 connected mode) and datagram is unconnected mode, (AX25 UI frames).

3.10.21.  ax25 status [<axcb>]

Without an argument, display a one‑line summary of each AX.25 control  block. If  the  address  of a particular control block is specified, the contents of that control block are dumped in more detail. Note that the send queue  units are frames, while the receive queue units are bytes.

3.10.22.  ax25 t3 [<milliseconds>]

Display or set the AX.25 idle "keep alive" timer. Value is in milliseconds.

3.10.23.  ax25 t4 [<seconds>]

Display or set the AX.25 Link "redundancy" timer. Value is in seconds. When no exchange has been had during this time the link is reset and closed.

3.10.24.  ax25 timertype [l | e | o]

Sets or displays the type of timer used for retransmission and recovery: linear, exponential or original.

3.10.25.  ax25 version [1 | 2]

Display or set the version of the AX.25 protocol to attempt  to  use  on  new connections.  The  default is 1 (the version that does not use the poll/final bits).

3.10.26.  ax25 window [<size>]

Set the number of bytes that can be pending on an AX.25 receive queue  beyond which  I  frames  will  be  answered with RNR (Receiver Not Ready) responses. This presently applies only to suspended interactive  AX.25  sessions,  since incoming  I‑frames  containing network (IP, NET/ROM) packets are always processed immediately and are not placed on the receive queue. However, when an AX.25  connection carries both interactive and network packet traffic, an RNR generated because of backlogged interactive traffic will  also  stop  network packet traffic from being sent.

3.11.  bbs

Enter the local bbs port (same as a telnet session to your own station).
 Current commands are:
 help      ? <command>
 area      a [<area>]
 bye       b
 connect   c <node>
           c <interface> <ax25_addr> [[<ax25_addr>] .... ]
 download  d <filename>
           du <filename>         (for uuencode bin file)
 escape    e [<escape char.]
 finger    f [<user>]
 help      h [<command>]
 info      i
 jheard    j
 kill      k <msg number>
 list      l [<msg number>]
 mbusers   m
 nodes     n <node>
 operator  o
 ports     p
 read      r [<msg number>]
 send      s[f] <usename[@hostid] [<from_addr>] [$bul_id]
 send repl sr [<mgs number>]
 telnet    t <hostid>
 upload    u <filename>
 verbose   v <n>
 what      w [<directory>]
 expert    x
 zap       z <filename>
 sysop     @

3.12.  bootp <subcommand>

This is a bootp server / client, included into Nos. It is picked up from  the University  of  Michigan in Ann Arbor. It is included into the sources of Nos but is not used nor tested by me. (PA0GRI) Its usability  is  fague  but  the discussions  on  tcp‑group drove me to include this for possible use of reusable addresses.

3.12.1.  bootp start

Starts the bootp server.

3.12.2.  bootp stop

Stops the bootp server.

3.12.3.  bootp dns [<ipaddr>]

Display or set the list of domain name servers for bootp.

3.12.4.  bootp dyip [<iface> | <iface> <ipaddr1> <ipaddr2> | <iface> off]

Display or set the interface address range. The range is between ipaddr1 and ipaddr2, both in dot notation.

3.12.5.  bootp host [<hostaddr> <hardware type>  <hardware addr>  <ip addr>
[boot file]]

Display or activate a bootp process. Hardware type is netrom,  ether,  macappletalk  or ax25. Hardware addr is the interface name. Ip addr must be in dot notation.

3.12.6.  bootp rmhost <ipaddr>

Delete ipaddr from the host table.

3.12.7.  bootp homedir [<directory> | default]

Display or set the directory where the bootp files reside. The default directory is bpfiles.

3.12.8.  bootp defaultfile [<bootfile> | default]

Display or set the file name of the bootp file. The default is boot.

3.12.9.  bootp logfile [<filename> | default] [on | off]

Starts or stops the logging of bootp requests to filename or the default file name bootplog.

3.12.10.  bootp logscreen [on | off]

Enables or disables the logging of bootp to the screen.

3.13.  bootpd

This starts the server daemon for bootp.

3.14.  cd [<dirname>]

Change the current working directory, and display the new  setting. Without an argument,  cd  simply displays the current directory without change. The pwd command is an alias for cd.

3.15.  close [<session>]

Close the specified session; without an argument, close the current  session. On an AX.25 session, this command initiates a disconnect.  On a FTP or Telnet session, this command sends a FIN (i.e., initiates a close) on the  session's TCP  connection.   This is an alternative to asking the remote server to initiate a close (QUIT to FTP, or the logout command appropriate for the  remote system  in  the case of Telnet).  When either FTP or Telnet sees the incoming half of a TCP connection close, it automatically responds by closing the outgoing half of the connection.  Close is more graceful than the reset command, in that it is less likely to leave the remote TCP in a "half‑open" state.

3.16.  cls

Clears the current session screen (command screen).

3.17.  comm <interface> <text‑string>

The comm command sends text‑string via interface.  This can be used  to  send straight  text  to an tnc still in TAPR command mode during Nos startup. Note that to preserve spaces tabs etc. to include the string between double  quote characters. Aka: comm ax1 "start kiss"

3.18.  connect <iface> <ax25_addr> [<digipeater> ... ]

Initiate a "vanilla" AX.25 session  to  the  specified  ax25_addr  using  the specified interface. Data sent on this session goes out in conventional AX.25 packets with no upper layer protocol. The  de‑facto  presentation  standard format  is  used, in that each packet holds one line of text, terminated by a carriage return.  A single AX.25 connection  may  be  used  for  terminal‑to‑terminal, IP and NET/ROM traffic. The three types of data being automatically separated by their AX.25 Level 3 Protocol IDs.

Up to 7 optional digipeaters may be given; note that  the  word  via  is  NOT needed.  If  digipeaters  are  specified, they are automatically added to the AX25 routing table as though the ax25 route add command had been given before issuing the connect command.

3.19.  delete <filename>

The filename is removed from the file system.

3.20.  detach <iface>

Detach a previously attached interface from the system. All IP routing  table entries referring to this interface are deleted, and forwarding references by any other interface to this interface are removed.

3.21.  dialer <iface> [<file> [<seconds> [<pings> [<hostid>]]]]

Setup an autodialer session for the interface.   Whenever  the  interface  is idle  for  the  interval in <seconds>, the autodialer will ping the <hostid>. If there is no answer after <pings> attempts, the autodialer will execute the special commands contained in the <dialer‑file>.

If the interval in <seconds> is zero, a previous dialer command process  will be removed.  If the number of <pings> is zero, the <dialer‑file> will be executed without pinging the <hostid>.

The file may have any valid name, and must be located  in  the  configuration root  directory  (see  the Installion section).  The commands in the file are described in the Dialer Subcommands chapter.
 Commands in file are:

3.21.1.  control <up | down>

3.21.2.  send <string> [<milliseconds>]

Sends string to the interface. If milliseconds is given, inter character timing is milliseconds milliseconds.

3.21.3.  speed <bps>

Displays or sets the current interface speed to bps baud.

3.21.4.  status <up | down>

3.21.5.  wait <milliseconds> [<string> [speed]]

Wait the amount of milliseconds. If string is given, incoming characters from the  interface  are compared with string. If an compare is found and speed is the string speed, the next numbers read from the interface is  the  new  baudrate  used.  This  works  like HAYES response CONNECT 9600. The wait command could habe been "wait 10000 CONNECT speed".  This waits 10 seconds for the CONNECT response from the modem.

3.22.  dir [<dirname>]

List the contents of the specified directory on the console. If  no  argument is  given,  the  current directory is listed. Note that this command works by first listing the directory into a temporary file, and then creating  a  more session to display it. After this completes, the temporary file is deleted.

3.23.  disconnect [<session>]

An alias for the close command (for the benefit of AX.25 users).

3.24.  domain <subcommand>

The domain commands control and show the working  of  the  name  to  internet address  mapping software. NOS currently only has a client with a simple file reading local server. A real server is needed to service  the  community  for their growing needs.

3.24.1.  domain addserver <hostid>

Add a domain name server to the list of name servers.  Note that,  when  this command is given in the autoexec.nos file the ip address command should given be before this command is used.  (If not, Nos will not kow how to resolve the address,  and  an answer will never be recognized, or worse: just plain hangs the system.)

3.24.2.  domain cache <subcommand>

Following commands work on the domain cache. These are resource records (see RFC 1033/1034) held in memory.

3.24.2.1.  domain cache clean [<yes | no>]

Displays or sets the discard of expired  resource  records.  Expired  records have  their timeout value decremented to zero. Normaly resource records get a default timeout value of 1800 seconds. After this time  they  are  considered "old"  and  if  referenced  again the domain name resolver should be enquired again.  When clean is off (the default), expired records will be retained; if no replacement can be obtained from another domain name server, these records will continue to be used.

When clean is on, expired records will be removed from the file whenever any new record is added to the file.

3.24.2.2.  domain cache list

This command shows the current content of the in memory cache for resource records.

3.24.2.3.  domain cache size [<size>]

Display or set the nominal maximum size  of  the  local  memory  cache. The default is 20.

(Note: The cache may be temporarily larger when waiting for new records to be written to the domain.txt file.)

3.24.2.4.  domain cache wait [<seconds>]

Display or set the interval in seconds to wait for additional activity before updating the domain.txt file.  The default is 300 seconds (5 minutes).

3.24.3.  domain dropserver <hostid>

Remove a domain name server from the list of name servers. You are warned when you delete the last name server.

3.24.4.  domain listservers

List the currently configured domain name servers, along with  statistics  on how  many  queries  and  replies  have been exchanged with each one, response times, etc.

3.24.5.  domain maxwait [<timeout>]

This sets a timeout value (1 to 255  seconds)  to  a  query  or  domain  name server.   This is not set for a already defined server but will be used for a newly defined name server. Also the value is used for domain nslookups.  Note that  name  servers  can  have (PC based) trouble finding records in an large database. The default is set to 30 seconds.

3.24.6.  domain retry [<retries>]

The retry value (number) limits the number of  queries  send  out  to  remote
domain   name   resolvers   before  giving  up  and  telling  you  that  host
xyzzy.ampr.org does not exist. The total time lost with a query is retries  *
timeout * number of domain servers defined.

3.24.7.  domain suffix [<domain suffix> | none]

Display or specify the default domain name suffix to be appended  to  a  host name  when  it  contains  no  periods.  For  example, if the suffix is set to ampr.org. and the user enters telnet ka9q, the domain resolver  will  attempt to  find  ka9q.ampr.org..  If the host name being sought contains one or more periods, however, the default suffix is NOT applied if the last part  of  the name is less than 5 characters and contains only letters; e.g.,
 telnet foo.bar would NOT be turned into foo.bar.ampr.org..
 telnet foo.ka9q will be turned into foo.ka9q.ampr.org..  Note that a  trailing  dot  (.)  is  required for the suffix.  If the suffix is the string none (without trailing period) the current suffix is cleared and forgotten.

3.24.8.  domain trace [on | off]

Display or set the flag controlling the tracing of domain server requests and responses.  Trace messages will be seen only if a domain name being sought is not found in the local cache file, domain.txt.

3.24.9.  domain translate [off | on]

Display or set the flag that controls the translation of  ip  adress  in  dot notation  into  symbolic  names. The translation process makes heavely use of reverse domain name lookups. Do not set this flag unless you have a good  and fast connection to a domain name server or have a fast domain.txt handler and domain.txt contains all IN‑ADDR.ARPA. records you ever wanted.

3.24.10.  domain verbose [off | on]

Display or set the flag controlling the return of a full name (true) or  only the first name (dot delimiter) (false). This is for IP address to name translation only.

3.24.11.  domain xyzzy

This is (when spelled fully) a magic word to enable domain queries to outside domain  servers when reading commands from the startup file. This should only be used by those who have reliable access to a domain name server.

3.25.  drsistat

Shows the statistics for all configured drsi boards.

3.26.  dump <hex‑address | .> [decimal‑range]

The dump command shows memory in hex and ascii. Hex‑address is a 32 bit value for  a  PC  split into page address and page offset. A splitting colon is not used nor accepted. If decimal‑range is not given , 128 bytes  are  displayed. dump . displayes memory starting at the end of a previous dump command.

3.27.  echo [accept | refuse]

Display or set the flag controlling client Telnet's response to a remote WILL ECHO offer.

The Telnet presentation protocol specifies that in the  absence  of  a  negotiated  agreement  to the contrary, neither end echoes data received from the other.  In this mode, a Telnet client session echoes keyboard  input  locally and  nothing  is  actually  sent until a carriage return is typed. Local line editing is also performed: backspace deletes the last character typed,  while control‑U deletes the entire line.

When communicating from keyboard to keyboard the standard local echo mode  is used, so the setting of this parameter has no effect. However, many timesharing systems (eg. UNIX) prefer to do their own echoing of typed input.   (This makes  screen  editors  work  right, among other things). Such systems send a Telnet WILL ECHO offer immediately upon receiving an incoming Telnet  connection  request.  If  echo  accept  is  in effect, a client Telnet session will automatically return a DO ECHO response. In  this  mode,  local  echoing  and editing is turned off and each key stroke is sent immediately (subject to the Nagle tinygram algorithm in TCP).  While this mode is  just  fine  across  an Ethernet, it is clearly inefficient and painful across slow paths like packet radio channels. Specifying echo refuse causes an incoming WILL ECHO offer  to be  answered with a DONT ECHO; the client Telnet session remains in the local echo mode.  Sessions already in the remote echo mode are  unaffected.  (Note: Berkeley  Unix  has  a  bug  in  that it will still echo input even after the client has refused the WILL ECHO offer. To get around this problem, enter the stty ‑echo command to the shell once you have logged in.)

3.28.  eol [unix | standard]

Display or set Telnet's end‑of‑line behavior when in remote  echo  mode. In standard  mode,  each  key  is sent as‑is. In unix mode, carriage returns are translated to line feeds.  This command is not necessary with all  UNIX  systems;  use  it  only  when you find that a particular system responds to line feeds but not carriage returns.  Only SunOS release 3.2 seems to exhibit this behavior; later releases are fixed.

3.29.  escape [<char>]

Display or set the current command‑mode escape character in hex. On the PC, the  escape  character  is default ^]. The alternate escape key is F10 unless F10 is redefined with fkey.

3.30.  etherstat

Display 3‑Com Ethernet controller statistics (if configured).

3.31.  exit

Exit the nos program and return to MS‑DOS.

3.32.  finger <user@hostid> | <@hostid>

Issue a network finger request for user user at host hostid. This  creates  a client  session  which  may  be interrupted, resumed, reset, etc, just like a Telnet client session. If only @hostid is given, all users on that  host  are identified.

3.33.  fkey [<number> [<string>]]

Fkey displays or sets values for the programmable keys on  the  PC  keyboard. fkey  alone  gives  a  display  of all remapable keys and their number.  fkey number displays the current value for that key.  fkey number  string  assigns string  to that key. Control characters can be created by prefixing then with an ^ character. A cr is ^M.  To insert an ^ in the string 2 ^'s next to  each other are needed.  Following is the map of keys and their number. F1 is function key 1.  Sf1 is Shift function key 1. Cf1 is Control function key 1. Af1 is Alt function key 1. Etc. The right most row is the numeric keypad.

    key number   key  number   key  number   key  number  key   number
    f1   59      sf1   84      cf1   94      af1  104     pgup   73
    f2   60      sf2   85      cf2   95      af2  105     pgdn   81
    f3   61      sf3   86      cf3   96      af3  106     home   71
    f4   62      sf4   87      cf4   97      af4  107     end    79
    f5   63      sf5   88      cf5   98      af5  108     arup   72
    f6   64      sf6   89      cf6   99      af6  109     ardn   80
    f7   65      sf7   90      cf7  100      af7  110     ar l   75
    f8   66      sf8   91      cf8  101      af8  111     ar r   77
    f9   67      sf9   92      cf9  102      af9  112     ins    82
    f10  68      sf10  93      cf10 103      af10 113     del    83
The mapping is taken to  look  like  a  vt100  /  ansi  keyboard.   Currently
assigned value strings for following keys:
    number  string     key
    59     " 33OP"   /* F1 */
    60     " 33OQ"   /* F2 */
    61     " 33OR"   /* F3 */
    62     " 33OS"   /* F4 */
    71     " 10"     /* home*/
    72     " 33[A"   /* up arrow*/
    73     " 25"     /* pgup */
    75     " 33[D"   /* left arrow */
    77     " 33[C"   /* right arrow */
    79     " 05"     /* end */
    80     " 33[B"   /* down arrow */
    81     " 12"     /* pgdn */
    82     " 01"     /* ins */
    83     " 177"    /* del */

3.34.  ftp <hostid>

Open an FTP control channel to the specified remote host and  enter  converse mode on the new session. Responses from the remote server are displayed directly on the screen. See theFTP Subcommands chapter for descriptions of the commands available in a FTP session.

3.35.  ftype [ascii | binary | image | logical <size>]

This command displays or sets the default start file mode (ascii  or  binary) for  ftp  transfers.  If  ftype binary or image is given the next ftp session started will be in binary type. No binary command is needed once the  session is started. In case of logical, the "word" size is set to size.

3.36.  help

Display a brief summary of top‑level commands.

3.37.  hop <subcommands>

These commands are used to test the connectivity of the network.

3.37.1.  hop check <hostid>

Initiate a hopcheck session to the specified host. This uses a series of  UDP "probe"  packets  with  increasing IP TTL fields to determine the sequence of gateways in the path to the specified destination. This function is patterned after the UNIX traceroute facility.

ICMP message tracing should be turned off before  this  command  is  executed (see the icmp trace command).

3.37.2.  hop maxttl [<hops>]

Display or set the maximum TTL value to be used in hop check sessions. This effectively bounds the radius of the search.

3.37.3.  hop maxwait [<seconds>]

Display or set the maximum interval, in seconds, that a hopcheck session will wait for responses at each stage of the trace. The default is 5 seconds.

3.37.4.  hop queries [<count>]

Display or set the number of UDP probes that will be sent at  each  stage of the trace. The default is 3.

3.37.5.  hop trace [on | off]

Display or set the flag that controls the display of  additional  information during a hop check session.

3.38.  hostname [<name>]

Display or set the local host's name. By convention this should be  the  same as  the  host's primary domain name. This string is used only in the greeting messages of the various network servers;  note  that  it  does  NOT  set  the system's IP address.

If <name> is the same as an <iface> (see the Attach commands  chapter),  this command  will  search for a CNAME domain resource record which corresponds to the IP address of the <iface>.

3.39.  hs

Display statistics about the HS high speed HDLC  driver (if configured and active).

3.40.  icmp <subcommand>

These commands are used for the Internet Control Message Protocol service.

3.40.1.  icmp echo [on | off]

Display or set the flag controlling the asynchronous  display  of  ICMP  Echo Reply packets.  This flag must be on for one‑shot pings to work (see the ping command.)

3.40.2.  icmp status

Display statistics  about  the  Internet  Control  Message  Protocol  (ICMP), including the number of ICMP messages of each type sent or received.

3.40.3.  icmp trace [on | off]

Display or set the flag controlling the display of ICMP error messages. These informational messages are generated by Internet routers in response to routing, protocol or congestion problems. This option should be turned off before using  the  hop  check  facility because it relies on ICMP Time Exceeded messages, and the asynchronous display of these messages will  be  mingled  with hop check command output.

3.41.  ifconfig

Display a list of interfaces, with a short status for each.

3.41.1.	ifconfig [<iface> [[[ <subcommand> <param>] <subcommand> <param>] .... ]

When only iface is given, a extended interface status is displayed.  Multiple subcommand / parameter can be put on one line.

3.41.2.	ifconfig <iface> broadcast <addr>

Set the broadcast address of interface iface to addr.  Addr can eighter be an ax25_addr  or an ether_addr, depending on the interface type, with 1's in the host part of the address. This is related to the netmask sub‑command. See also the arp command.

3.41.3.	ifconfig <iface> description ["description"]

This command sets the interface description to the string  specified.  If  no string  is  supplied,  the current description is cleared. The description is displayed with the ifconfig iface command (no parameters) and with the  mailbox commands.

3.41.4.	ifconfig <iface> encapsulation <slip | ax25 | ether | encap | ppp>

Sets the encapsulation for interface iface to slip / ax25 / ether /  encap  / ppp.

3.41.5.	ifconfig <iface> forward <iface‑2>

When a forward is defined, all output for interface iface  is  redirected  to the  interface  directed by iface‑2.  To remove the forward, set <iface‑2> to <iface>.

3.41.6.	ifconfig <iface> ipaddress <addr>

Set the IP address to addr for this interface. This might be nessesary when a system  acts  as  a gateway. Like an system with IP address 44.137.1.8 has an Internet  access  via  its  ethernet. The  Internet  IP  address  could   be 129.179.122.10. An ifconfig ec0 ipaddress 129.179.122.10 sets the correct address for that interface. Now routing to that system will work. (Note that the 44.x.x.x address is NOT connected to the Internet.)  See also the hostname and ip address commands.

3.41.7.  ifconfig <iface> linkaddress <hardware‑dependant>

Set the hardware dependant address for this interface.  For AX.25 this can be the callsign, for ethernet a new ethernet address.

3.41.8.  ifconfig <iface> mtu <param>

Set the maximum transfer unit to param octeds (bytes).  See the  Setting  ...  MTU, MSS and Window chapter for more information.

3.41.9.  ifconfig <iface> netmask <address>

Set the sub‑net mask for this interface.  The <address> takes the form of  an IP  address  with 1's in the network and subnet parts of the address, and 0's in the host part of the address.  Sample:  ifconfig  ec0  netmask  0xffffff00 for  a  class  C  network  (24  bits).  This is related to the broadcast subcommand.  See also the route command.

3.41.10.  ifconfig <iface> rxbuf <size>

Set the receive buffer size.

3.42.  info

Info gives information about the version of Nos  currently  running  and  its buildin  configuration.  The  configuration  info  is  build  with defines in config.h in the source distribution. That way it gives automatically correct configuration information.

3.43.  ip <subcommand>

These commands are used for the Internet Protocol service.

3.43.1.  ip access <permit|deny|delete> <dest addr>[/<bits>] <ifname> <proto‑
col> <lowport> [higport]

Set or display access control for IP routing functions. This  command  implements  router access functions to NosFp. Permit enables dest‑addr packets  of type protocol to be routed via ifname. Deny disables those.  Protocol can  be tcp  or  udp. Only those two protocol types are checked.  If lowport is given as keyword all, all ports are assumed.  If only lowport is given,  that  port is  only  checked for permission.  If lowport and highport are given, that is the range of ports permitted/denied.  Dest‑addr can be the word all  for  all addresses  possible.  The ip access delete must match a previous defined permit or deny to be able to delete that definition.  Some samples:

 ip access permit 44/8 ax0 tcp 20 25
 ip access deny all ax0 tcp 1 1023
 ip access permit all ax0 udp all If no access list is  created,  all  interfaces might carry all types. If an access control is defined for an interface there must be an permit defined for that interface to allow trafic.  Thus  an partial denyal without an permit is an complete denyal for that interface.

3.43.2.  ip access trace <dest addr|0>

The ip access trace command shows the desissions made during  access  control for given address. Specifing the address 0 disables the trace. No subnet bits are recognized, just a full 32 bits address. This is a debug tool.

3.43.3.  ip address [<hostid>]

Display or set the default local IP  address.  This  command  must  be  given before  an  attach  command if it is to be used as the default IP address for the interface.

3.43.4.  ip rtimer [<seconds>]

Display or set the IP reassembly timeout. The default is 30  seconds.   Value is in seconds.

3.43.5.  ip status

Display Internet Protocol (IP) statistics, such as total  packet  counts  and error counters of various types.

3.43.6.  ip ttl [<hops>]

Display or set the default time‑to‑live value  placed  in  each  outgoing  IP datagram.  This limits the number of switch hops the datagram will be allowed to take. The idea is to bound the lifetime of the  packet  should  it  become caught  in  a routing loop, so make the value slightly larger than the number of hops across the network you expect to transit packets.  The default is set at compilation time to the official recommended value for the Internet.

3.44.  isat [on | off]

Display or set the AT flag.  Normaly this flag is set when  an  interface  is attached  with an interrupt of 8 or higher. This is to signal that the second interrupt controllerc in a AT also needs an return of interrupt  signal.   If an  AT  type  clock is in use, this command will allow measurement of time in milliseconds, rather than clock ticks (55 milliseconds per clock tick).  During  I/O initialisation this flag is set if the monitor prom has the standard byte 0xfc at address f000:fffe.

3.45.  kick [<session>]

Kick all sockets associated with a session; if no argument is given, kick the current  session.   Performs  the same function as the ax25 kick and tcp kick commands, but is easier to type.

3.46.  lock [password <"password string">]

Locks the keyboard or defines a password string.  If password is  given  then <password> is saved as the unlock string.  If no parameters are supplied, the keyboard becomes locked when a password was specified earlier.  If  the  keyboard  is  locked,  the password is requested.  If a correct password is supplied, the keyboard becomes  unlocked.   The  setting  of  the  password  and locking  of the keyboard can only been done by the system console keyboard or autoexec.nos startup file.  The password can not been shown.

3.47.  log [stop | <filename>]

Display the current log filename or set the filename for logging server  sessions.  If  stop is given as the argument, logging is terminated (the servers themselves are unaffected).  If a file name is given as an  argument, server session log entries will be appended to it.

3.48.  lzw [<subcommand>]

Lzw is the data compression capability on  some sockets. This command set defines or changes their definition. Normaly leave this set default.

3.48.1.  lzw mode <fast|compact>

Displays or sets the compression methode used on data compression for specific sockets. Currently SMTP can use compression.

3.48.2.  lzw bits <number>

Displays or sets the number of bits used for the compression size. The more bits defined the larger the table space needed. Range is 9 to 16.

3.49.  mail

This command will start a shell escape command. The mailer  used  is defined with the DOS environment variable MAILER, wich defaults to BM.EXE.

3.50.  mbox [<subcommand>]

Display the status of the mailbox server system (if configured).

3.50.1.  mbox attend [yes | no]

Displays or sets the attended flag on. This is used to announce in the mailbox if the station mannager is willing to attend his station (chat).

3.50.2.  mbox expert <on|off>

Displays or set the level expected of a mailbox user. When set (s)he  gets  a short  ( > ) prompt. When not set a long prompt is send with the first letter of each mailbox command as prompt. The user can then set Xpert mode to get the short prompt.

3.50.3.  mbox fwdinfo ["forward info"]

Displays or sets the mailbox forward info to be included in the R:  line  for forwarded BBS bulletins.  An empty string ("") as info clears the info field.
Sample: netrom fwdinfo "HNLNET BBS"

Will show '[HNLNET BBS]' in the R: line.

3.50.4.  mbox haddress ["home‑address"]

Displays or sets the home address field to be included in  the  R:  line  for forwarded BBS bulletins.  An empty string ("") clears the field.

Sample: netrom haddress "#CRV.OR.USA"

Will show '@WG7J#CRV.OR.USA' in the R: line. (when ax mycall is WG7J)

3.50.5.  mbox jumpstart <on|off>

Displays or sets the mailbox jumpstart code. When set  and  an  "known"  node connects to the mailbox, no extra line needs to be send to activate the mailbox but the prompt is send directly. Warning: When set, it takes a  while  to hear  all  nodes and an AX25 connect could have an wrong start as there is no wait for a level 3 protocol check.  Especialy  RSPF  in  virtual  mode  could course serious problems.

3.50.6.  mbox kick

To kick the mailbox back in activity after retry timeouts.

3.50.7.  mbox maxmsg

To display or set the maximum number of messages per area when  an  notesfile is shown to a user. This reserves lots of memory for every mailbox session.

3.50.8.  mbox motd ["message string"]

Display ot set the mailbox welcoming Message Of The Day.

3.50.9.  mbox nrid <on|off>

DIsplays or sets the Netrom id flag. When set the node id is displayed on the prompt line.

3.50.10.  mbox operator [<address>]

The operator command shows or sets  an  alternate  address  for  the  control operator. When set and mbox attend is off or the user is "shelled out" and an mbox user requests a Operator command, the ttylink session is  redirected  to the address specified. Else it works as before that the mbox user is notified with "Unattended". When the system pointed to by address  has  also  set  its attended to off, then an Unattended is replied with as well (but generated by the remote station). This is a "flaky" way of having an  attended  unattended system.

3.50.11.  mbox password <"password string">

Sets a password string to be presented to Sysops entering that  mode  in  the mailbox  (using  the  @ command and having that priviledge set to their login name/password in f/ftpusers). When a password is defined (max 30  characters) then  (s)he  is  prompted with 5 numbers before letting her/him in.  The five numbers represent the 5 character locations in the  string  defined,  whereby the  first character is number 0.  Multiple lines of 5 characters can be send to fool "snoopers".  The end of password sending is signaled  with  an  empty line.  If  there  was a good response, sysop mode is entered.  The setting of the password can only been done by the system console or autoexec.nos startup file. The password can not been shown.

3.50.12.  mbox qth ["qth info"]

Sample: netrom qth "Driebruggen, NL"

Displays or sets the info for qth in the R: line for forwarded BBS messages.

3.50.13.  mbox secure <yes|no>

Displays or sets the security option for mailbox gateway users. If set  users comming  in via telnet to the bbs are not allowed to use the gateway.  If not set anybody can use the gateway. (Note: No check for Bozo's).  Also the mailbox send command is disabled except for ax25 and netrom connects.

3.50.14.  mbox smtptoo <yes|no>

Displays or sets the flag to include SMTP headers in BBS messages.  When  set SMTP headers are included in messages. When not set not included.

3.50.15.  mbox status

An alias for just entering mbox on the prompt line.

3.50.16.  mbox timer [<seconds>]

Display the current interval and time remainig or set the mailbox  forwarding timer.

3.50.17.  mbox tiptimeout

Displays or sets the timeout value for tip connection timeout. After  timeout seconds of no activity the connection is closed.

3.50.18.  mbox trace [yes | no]

Displays or sets mailbox forward trace code flag. The trace is  very  minimal but every one working on mailbox/forward code now has a common flag Mtrace.

3.50.19.  mbox utc <offset>

Displays or sets the offset you are according  to  ZULU  time.  Positive  and negative  numbers  are supported and full leap year and month calculation are done. This is used by the mailbox forwarding to give a standard time  in  the R: line.

3.50.20.  mbox zipcode zip

Displays or sets the info for the zip field for R:  line  BBS  header  lines. This  field  is  max 7 characters long as released. For USA the zip is only 6 numbers long. Netherlands has 4 figures a space and 2  letters.  Guess  every PTT wants something they "invented" their own.

Sample: netrom zip "3465 TJ"    or:  netrom zip 54551

3.51.  memory <subcommand>

These commands are used for memory allocation.

3.51.1.  memory debug [on|off]

Displays or sets the memory allocator debug flag. If set debug information is written  to the log file containing most flags and parameters from the memory allocation routines.

3.51.2.  memory efficient [yes | no]

Displays or sets the search algorithm for buffer memory. When set the  search is  always  started  from  the beginning of the free list. This is slower but keeps memory fragmentation to a minimum. When clear search is started on  the end,  accounting  for  more  memory  fragmentation but keeping speed. Roumers state that you should include this command as the first line in autoexec.nos. The current releases default sets efficient to yes.

3.51.3.  memory freelist

Display the storage allocator free list. Each entry consists of a starting address, in hex, and a size, in decimal bytes.

3.51.4.  memory ibufsize [<size>]

Display or set the size of the buffers in the  interrupt  buffer pool. The size  should  be  set to the largest type of buffer plus a header size of 22. For example: If your ax25 is the omly interface and a packet length of 256 is defined,  the  ibufsize  should  be 256 + 10 * 6 + 22. The 10 * 6 is the ax25 header (source , destination and 8 digipeaters).

3.51.5.  memory minheap [<number>]

Displays or sets the minimum heap size to be allocated before shell  escaping to  DOS.  This  assures a free heap so that Nos can run trough without gettig short on memory for a while.

3.51.6.  memory nibufs [<number>]

Display or set the number of interrupt buffer pool buffers.  If the number of buffers  is  set,  the  statistics in the memory status display are reset for number of interrupt buffer fails. The minimum available value is set  to  the requested  number  of buffers.  A roule of thumb for the number of buffers is to watch the statistics and keep a minimum of 2  free  buffers.  Increase  or decrease as required.

3.51.7.  memory sizes

Display a histogram of storage allocator request sizes. Each histogram bin is a binary order of magnitude (i.e., a factor of 2).

3.51.8.  memory status

Display a summary of storage allocator statistics. The first line  shows  the base address of the heap, its total size, the amount of heap memory available in bytes and as a percentage of the total heap size, and the amount of memory left  over  (i.e., not placed on the heap at startup) and therefore available for shell subcommands.

The second line shows the total number of calls to allocate and  free  blocks of  memory, the difference of these two values (i.e., the number of allocated blocks outstanding), the number of allocation requests that were  denied  due to  lack  of memory, and the number of calls to free() that attempted to free garbage (eg. by freeing the same block twice or freeing a garbled pointer).

The third line shows the garbage collection status.  Garbage collection is  a separate  process running every second. If memory is "low" garbage collection routines are called in "Red alert" mode, else in "Yellow alert".

The fourth line shows the number of calls to malloc and  free  that  occurred with  interrupts  off. In normal situations these values should be zero.  The fourth line shows statistics for the special pool of fixed‑size buffers  used to satisfy requests for memory at interrupt time. The variables shown are the number of buffers currently in the  pool,  their  size,  and  the  number  of requests that failed due to exhaustion of the pool.

The fifth line shows the current setting of the interrupt  buffer  pool,  its minimal  value  and the number of no buffers available.  These statistics are reset when a memory nibufs <number> command is given.

3.51.9.  memory thresh [<size>]

Displays or sets the memory threshold size in bytes.  If  memory  gets  below this value , no more new sessions are started or accepted.

3.52.  mkdir <dirname>

Create a sub‑directory in the current working directory.

3.53.  mode <iface> [vc | datagram]

Control the default transmission mode on the specified AX.25  interface. In datagram mode, IP packets are encapsulated in AX.25 UI frames and transmitted without any other link level mechanisms, such as connections or  acknowledgements.

In vc (virtual circuit) mode, IP packets are encapsulated in AX.25  I-frames and are acknowledged at the link level according to the AX.25 protocol.  Link level connections are opened if necessary.

In both modes, ARP is used to map IP to AX.25 addresses.  The defaults can be overridden  with the type‑of‑service (TOS) bits in the IP header.  Turning on the "reliability" bit causes I frames to be used, while turning on  the  "low delay"  bit uses UI frames.  (The effect of turning on both bits is undefined and subject to change).

In both modes, IP‑level fragmentation is done if the datagram is larger than the interface  MTU.  In virtual circuit mode, however, the resulting datagram (or fragments) is further fragmented at the AX.25 layer if it (or  they)  are still  larger  than  the  AX.25  paclen  parameter.  In  AX.25 fragmentation, datagrams are broken into several I frames and reassembled at  the  receiving end  before  being passed to IP. This is preferable to IP fragmentation whenever possible because of decreased overhead (the IP header isn't repeated in each  fragment)  and  increased  robustness  (a  lost fragment is immediately retransmitted by the link layer).

3.54.  more <file> [<file> ...]

Display the specified file(s) a screen at a time. To proceed to the next screen,  press  the  space bar; to cancel the display, hit the 'q' key.  A CR advances a line. The more command creates a session that you can suspend and resume just like any other session.

3.55.  motd [<"message of the day">]

Display the current message or  sets  the  welcome message to the defined string.

3.56.  multitask [on | off]

Displays or sets the multi task flag. If set Nos  continues  to  service  its interrupts  and  handling  of  normal operation when put in the background by executing a shell escape. Some programs do not like  to  miss  valuable  time taken away this way and weard results can happen. Clearing the flag stops all activiity fron Nos when put in the background.

3.57.  netrom <subcommand>

3.57.1.  netrom acktime [<milliseconds>]

Displays or sets the ack delay timer, similary to ax25 t2.

3.57.2.  netrom alias <alias>

This sets the netrom alias for this station. Other stations  can  connect to the  ax25  callsign  and  to the Netrom alias (when set). The alias is broadcasted with a Netrom broadcast.

3.57.3.  netrom bcnodes <iface>

Initiates an immediate broadcast of nodelist on iface.

3.57.4.  netrom call <call>

Displays or sets the call to be used by the netrom interface. Note: this is a shortcut for the "ifconfig netrom linkaddress call" command.

3.57.5.  netrom connect <node>

Start a connection to node.

3.57.6.  netrom choketime [<milliseconds>]

Display or set the time breaking a send choke. Choke is the term netrom uses for flow control conditions.

3.57.7.  netrom derate [on | off]

Display or set automatic derating of netrom routes on link failure.

3.57.8.  netrom interface <iface> <quality>

Define a netrom interface iface.  The quality can be between 1 and  255.  For compatibility  with other implementations set this to 192 normaly. A check is made that the interface is of type CL_AX25,  meaning  NETROM  capable  media. Note:  the alias is not specified on this line anymore. Use netrom alias command.

3.57.9.  netrom irtt [<milliseconds>]

Display or set the initial round trip time.

3.57.10.  netrom kick <&nrcb>

Give the control block a kick to get activity going again.

3.57.11.  netrom load [<filename>]

When fully implemented reloads a saved netrom  node  list  to  continue  from where you left when you saved the list. All entry's read are time decremented as if normal time just went on. If it took some time (obsotimer * x) your list could be empty as they all timed out.

3.57.12.  netrom minquality [<value>]

Display or set the minimum quality for recognizing a node entry. Entry's below this value are not considered valuable for usage.

3.57.13.  netrom nodefilter <subcommand>

Node filtering.

3.57.13.1.  netrom nodefilter add <neighbor> <iface>

Allow neighbor to give us node updates.

3.57.13.2.  netrom nodefilter drop <neighbor> <iface>

Disallow neighbor to give us node updates.

3.57.13.3.  netrom nodefilter mode [none | accept | reject]

Display or set the initial filter schema. None accepts  all. Accept,accepts only  from  nodes  defined in netrom nodefilter add lists. Reject,no accepts from nodes defined in netrom nodefilter add lists.

3.57.14.  netrom nodetimer [<seconds>]

Display or set the interval our node list is transmitted.

3.57.15.  netrom obsotimer [<seconds>]

Display or set the time a node quality gets decremented.

3.57.16.  netrom promiscious [off | on]

Enables nodes with a higher quality than defined with minquality. If on, all nodes are received, independent od nodefilter.

3.57.17.  netrom qlimit [<bytes>]

Display or set the maximum queue limit for chat. Similar to ax25 window.

3.57.18.  netrom reset <&nrcb>

Remove the control block. You can find the control block with socket.

3.57.19.  netrom retries [<value>]

Display or set the maximum number of retries on connect, disconnect or data.

3.57.20.  netrom route <subcommand>

Netrom routing commands.

3.57.20.1.  netrom route add <alias> <destination> <iface> <quality>  <neigh‑
bor>

Add a netrom route.

3.57.20.2.  netrom route drop <destination> <neighbor> <iface>

Delete a netrom route.

3.57.20.3.  netrom route info <destination>

Display the route it would take to get to destination.

3.57.21.  netrom status

Displays all netrom connections.

3.57.22.  netrom save [<filename>]

When fully implemented, saves the current  netrom  node  list  in  memory to /netrom.sav or filename, if given.

3.57.23.  netrom timertype [exponential | linear]

Displays or sets the type of backoff.

3.57.24.  netrom ttl [<hops>]

Display or set the maximum number of hops a frame might hop before discarded, if it did not reach its destination before.

3.57.25.  netrom user [<username>]

Display or set our netrom user name. This is used on outgoing connects.

3.57.26.  netrom verbose [off | on]

Display or set the verbose flag. If set all nodes known to us are transmitted each  time  the  nodetimer  expires. If off, only your stations node ident is send out.

3.57.27.  netrom window [<frames>]

Display or set the size of the sliding window. This is the largest send and receive window we might negotiate.

3.58.  nntp <subcommand>

Network news transfer protocol has the following subcommands:

3.58.1.  nntp addserver <nntpserver> <seconds> [<range>] [<groups>]

Add a nntp news server to quiry  every  seconds  interval  for  new  articles specified  by  the nntp groups command. Range can be a limit in time to query like nntp addserver someserver 600 22:00‑23:00,  to  only  query  the  server between 10 and 11pm.  Multiple nntp add can be used co concatenate groups (up to 512 bytes) The interval seconds can be set to 0, so that normaly the  nntp client  does not query the server regulary but an nntp kick nntpserver can be used to start a session.

3.58.2.  nntp directory <directory>

Show or set default directory for spooling news.  This is not the control directory but the (alternate) place to spool articles to.

3.58.3.  nntp dropserver <nntpserver>

3.58.4.  nntp groups <group> [<group> ...]

Set or display currently set newsgroups.

3.58.5.  nntp  kick <nntpserver>

Kick the client to get in touch with the named server.

3.58.6.  nntp listservers

Lists the curently defined servers.

3.59.  nntp quiet [yes | no]

Shows or sets the flag controlling the display of newly  received  nntp  news messages.  The  smpt  quiet  fag controls the beep following the message. If both are off, nothing is shown, keeping the  display  from getting hung on ‑more‑ when running unattended.

3.60.  nntp trace <level>

Sets or shows the current trace level for the nntp client. 0 No tracing 1 (default) displays serious errors.  2  displays as 1 and transient errors. 3 displays as 2 and session progress. 4 displays as 3 and actual received articles.  5  displays errors.

3.61.  nrstat

Displays the netrom interface statistics.

3.62.  param <iface> [<param> ...]

Invoke a device‑specific control routine.  On  a  KISS  TNC  interface,  this sends  control  packets  to the TNC.  Data bytes are treated as decimal.  For example, param ax0 1 255  will set the keyup timer (type field =  1)  on  the KISS TNC configured as ax0 to 2.55 seconds (255 x .01 sec).  On a SLIP interface, the param command allows the baud rate to be read  (without  arguments) or  set.  On  asy  lines DTR and RTS can be (and possibly should be) set with param iface dtr 1 and param iface rts 1.  The implementation of this  command for the various interface drivers is incomplete and subject to change.
Current commands defined are:
   0  Data       ‑ Normal KISS data
   1  TxDelay    ‑ set TX delay for TNC
   2  Persist    ‑ set persistence delay for TNC
   3  Slottime   ‑ set slottime delay for TNC
   4  TxTail     ‑ set TX tail delay for TNC
   5  Fulldup    ‑ set Full duplex for TNC
   6  Hardware   ‑ Hardware dependent
   7  TxMute     ‑
   8  DTR        ‑ 0 = down, 1 = up
   9  RTS        ‑ 0 = down, 1 = up
  10  Speed      ‑ baud rate
  11  Enddelay   ‑
  12  Group      ‑
  13  Idle       ‑
  14  Min        ‑
  15  Maxkey     ‑
  16  Wait       ‑
  17  Parity     ‑ 0 = none, 1 = even, 2 = odd parity
 129  Down       ‑
 130  Up         ‑
 254  Return2    ‑ Some tnc's need this
 255  Return     ‑ Reset a tnc from KISS into command mode

3.63.  ping <hostid> [<length> [<milliseconds> [<incflag>]]]

Ping (send ICMP Echo Request packets to) the specified host. By  default  the data  field  contains only a small timestamp to aid in determining round trip time; if the optional length argument is given,  the  appropriate  number  of data bytes (consisting of hex 55) are added to the ping packets.

If milliseconds is specified, pings will  be  repeated  indefinitely  at  the specified  number  of  milliseconds;  otherwise  a single, "one shot" ping is done.  Responses to one‑shot  pings  appear  asynchronously  on  the  command screen,  while  repeated  pings  create  a  session that may be suspended and resumed.  Pinging continues until the session is manually reset.

The incflag option causes a repeated ping to increment the target IP  address for  each  ping;  it  is  an  experimental feature for searching blocks of IP addresses for active hosts.

3.64.  pop <subcommand>

The pop client provides an automatic interface to  the  pop  server  that  is totaly  transparen to the user; all that the user needs to do is to set a few key parameters and the client will take it from there, appart from registring with  the server station manager for setting up the user data. (see pop user data command.  To read more about pop, read rfc937.  The following  paragraph describe  the pop subcommands.

3.64.1.  pop mailbox [<name>]

Show the defined name or sets the name to name for POP mail  queries  to  the mailhost.  The  server  keeps  the  mail  in  the  mailbox  name  located  in /spool/mail/name.txt. This is a mandatory parameter.

3.64.2.  pop mailhost [<ipaddr>]

Show the currently defined host address for a  pop  server  or  sets  the  IP address  to the system named ipaddr for POP connections.  This is a mandatory parameter.

3.64.3.  pop kick

Start a POP connection now. (one shot connection)

3.64.4.  pop timer [<seconds>]

Show the current setting and time remaining untill  next  server  enquiry  or when  seconds is given, defines the interval that a pop connection is started every <seconds> to retrieve mail from the server system.  When the  timer is not set the client is only started with a pop kick command.

3.64.5.  pop userdata <name> <password>

Sets up the userdata used for validation on the POP server system. Note  that <name>  and  <password> are case sensitive. When only pop userdata is entered to show the values only the <name> is shown. (ultimate in  security,  if  you realy  want to see the password look in the "ether").  Remember: the name and password should also be defined at the server site in the popusers file.

3.65.  popmail <subcommand>

popmail is a newer implementation of the pop  client/server.  It  can  handle both pop2 and pop3 type pop client/servers. For functionality see pop but the subcommands are different.

3.65.1.	popmail addserver <host> [<seconds>] [hh:mm‑hh:mm] <protocol> <mailbox> <username> <password>

Add hostP as a pop server. When seconds is given, a timer is started to query the  host with that interval for mail. If not specified no quering to the pop host  will be started. You have to do that manualy with a kick.  When  hh:mm‑hh:mm is given then only in that exact timeframe are queries to the host made (allowed).  Protocol is eighter POP2 or POP3, depending on the  mail  service the host is providing. Note: pop2 is superceded by pop3. Mailbox is the mailbox name on the host where fore mail has to be picked up. Username and  password  are  this  systems  validation  parameters  for the host.  Note that on entering this command the host name is looked up. If non exsistant an error message is presented.

3.65.2.  popmail dropserver <host>

Drops host from the list of pop servers to be queried. All references to the entry are deleted from the current system.

3.65.3.  popmail kick <host>

Starts a pop session with host to retrieve mail. This command is needed  when no interval is specified with the popmail addserver command.

3.65.4.  popmail list

Lists the current popmail server table.

3.65.5.  popmail quiet <yes|no>

Displays or sets the notification of new mail ariving via pop.

3.65.6.  popmail trace <level>

Displays or sets the trace level of pop sessions. Current trace levels are:
 0 ‑ No tracing
 1 ‑ Serious errors reported
 2 ‑ Transient errors reported
 3 session progress reported Note that tracing only goes to the log file.

3.66.  ppp <subcommands>

These commands are used for Point to Point Protocol interfaces.

This implementation of PPP  is  designed  to  be  as  complete  as  possible. Because  of  this,  the number of options can be rather daunting. However, a typical PPP configuration might include the following commands:

        attach asy 0x3f8 4 ppp pp0 4096 1500 9600
        dial pp0 30 <hostid> 3 dialer.pp0
        #
        ppp pp0 lcp local accm 0
        ppp pp0 lcp local compress address on
        ppp pp0 lcp local compress protocol on
        ppp pp0 lcp local magic on
        ppp pp0 lcp open active
        #
        ppp pp0 ipcp local compress tcp 16 1
        ppp pp0 ipcp open active
        #
        route add default pp0

3.66.1.  ppp <iface>

Display the status of the PPP interface.

3.66.2.  ppp <iface> lcp ...

These commands are used for the LCP [Link Control Protocol] configuration.

3.66.2.1.  ppp <iface> lcp close

Shutdown the PPP interface.

3.66.2.2.  ppp <iface> lcp local ...

These commands control the configuration of the local side of the  link. If an  option is specified, the parameters will be used as the initial values in configuration requests.  If not specified, that option will not be requested. 

For each of these options, the allow parameter  will  permit  the  remote  to include  that option in its response, even when the option is not included in the request.  By default, all options are allowed.

3.66.2.2.1.  ppp <iface> lcp local accm [ <bitmap> | allow [on | off] ]

Display or set the Async Control Character Map.  The default is 0xffffffff.

3.66.2.2.2.  ppp <iface> lcp local authenticate [ pap | none | allow [on | off] ]

Display or set the authentication protocol.  The default is none.

3.66.2.2.3.  ppp <iface> lcp local compress address/control [ on | off | allow [on | off] ]

Display or set the option to compress the address and control fields  of  the PPP HLDC‑like  header.   This  is  generally desirable for slow asynchronous links, and undesirable for fast or synchronous links.  The default is off.

3.66.2.2.4.  ppp <iface> lcp local compress protocol [ on | off | allow [on | off] ]

Display or set the option to compress the protocol field of the PPP HLDC‑like header. This is generally desirable for slow asynchronous links, and undesirable for fast or synchronous links. The default is off.

3.66.2.2.5.	ppp <iface> lcp local magic [ on | off | <value> | allow [on | off] ]

Display or set the initial Magic Number.  The default is off (zero).

3.66.2.2.6.	ppp <iface> lcp local mru [ <size> | allow [on | off] ]

Display or set the Maximum Receive Unit.  The default is 1500.

3.66.2.2.7.	ppp <iface> lcp local default

Reset the options to their default values.

3.66.2.3.	ppp <iface> lcp open active | passive

Wait for the physical layer to come up.  If  active,  initiate  configuration negotiation.  If passive, wait for configuration negotiation from the remote.

3.66.2.4.	ppp <iface> lcp remote ...

These commands control the configuration of the remote side of the link.  The options are identical to those of the local side.  If an option is specified, the parameters will be  used  in  responses  to  the  remote's  configuration requests.  If not specified, that option will be accepted if it is allowed.

For each of these options, the allow parameter  will  permit  the  remote to specify that option in its request.  By default, all options are allowed.

3.66.2.5.  ppp <iface> lcp timeout [<seconds>]

Display or set the interval to  wait  between  configuration or termination attempts.  The default is 3 seconds.

3.66.2.6.  ppp <iface> lcp try ...

These commands are used for the various counters.

3.66.2.6.1.  ppp <iface> lcp try configure [<count>]

Display or set the number of configuration requests sent.  The default is 10.

3.66.2.6.2.  ppp <iface> lcp try failure [<count>]

Display or set the number of bad  configuration  requests  allowed from the remote.  The default is 5.

3.66.2.6.3.  ppp <iface> lcp try terminate [<count>]

Display or set the number of termination requests sent before shutdown. The default is 2.

3.66.3.  ppp <iface> ipcp ...

These commands are used for the IPCP  [Internet  Protocol  Control  Protocol] configuration.

The close, open, timeout and try sub‑commands are identical to the LCP (described above).

3.66.3.1.  ppp <iface> ipcp local ...

These commands control the configuration of the local side of the  link. If an  option is specified, the parameters will be used as the initial values in configuration requests. If not specified, that option will not be requested.

For each of these options, the allow parameter  will  permit  the  remote  to include  that option in its response, even when the option is not included in the request.  By default, all options are allowed.

3.66.3.1.1.  ppp <iface> ipcp local address [ <hostid> | allow [on | off] ]

Display or set the local address for negotiation purposes.  If an address  of 0  is  specified,  the  other  side  of the link will supply the address.  By default, no addresses are negotiated.

3.66.3.1.2.  ppp <iface> ipcp local compress [ tcp <slots> [<flag>] | none  |
allow [on | off] ]

Display or set the compression protocol.  The default is none.

The tcp <slots> specifies the number of "conversation" slots, which must be 1 to  255.   (This  may be limited at compilation time to a smaller number.)  A good choice is in the range 4 to 16.

The tcp <flag> is 0 (don't compress the slot number) or 1 (OK to compress the slot number).  KA9Q can handle compressed slot numbers, so the default is 1.

3.66.3.2.  ppp <iface> ipcp remote ...

These commands control the configuration of the remote side of the link.  The options are identical to those of the local side.  If an option is specified, the parameters will be  used  in  responses  to  the  remote's  configuration requests.  If not specified, that option will be accepted if it is allowed.

For each of these options, the allow parameter  will  permit  the  remote  to specify that option in its request.  By default, all options are allowed.

3.66.4.  ppp <iface> pap ...

These commands are used for the PAP [Password Authentication Protocol] configuration.

The timeout and try sub‑commands are identical to the LCP (described  above). However, the terminate counter is unused.

3.66.4.1.  ppp <iface> pap user [ <username> [<password>] ]

Display or set the username (the password may be  set,  but  not  displayed). When  the  username  is  specified, but no password is supplied, the ftpusers file is searched for the password.  When a username/password  is  unknown  or rejected,  a  session  will  appear  at  the  console  to  prompt  for  a new username/password.

3.66.5.  ppp <iface> trace [<flags>]

Display or set the flags that control the logging of information  during  PPP link configuration.

The flag value is 0 for none, 1 for basic, and 2 for general.  Values greater than  2 are usually not compiled, and are described in the appropriate source files where they are defined.

3.67.  ps

Display all current processes in the system. The fields are as follows:

PID ‑ Process ID (the address of the process descriptor).

SP ‑ The current value of the process stack pointer.

stksize ‑ The size of the stack allocated to the process.

maxstk ‑ The apparent peak stack utilization of this process. This is done in a  somewhat  heuristic  fashion, so the numbers should be treated as approximate. If this number reaches or exceeds the stksize  figure,  the  system  is almost certain to crash; the nos.exe program should be recompiled to give the process a larger allocation when it is started.

event ‑ The event this task is waiting for, if it is not runnable.

fl ‑ Process status flags. There are three: I (Interrupts enabled), W  (Waiting  for event) and S (suspended). The I flag is set whenever a task has executed a pwait() call (wait for event) without first disabling hardware interrupts.  Only tasks that wait for hardware interrupt events will turn off this flag; this is done to avoid critical sections and missed  interrupts.  The  W flag  indicates  that  the  process is waiting for an event; the event column will be non‑blank. Note that although there may be several runnable processes at  any  time  (shown  in the ps listing as those without the W flag and with blank event fields) only one process is actually running at any  one  instant (The  Refrigerator  Light  Effect  says that the ps command is always the one running when this display is generated.)

3.68.  pwd [<dirname>]

An alias for the cd command.

3.69.  rarp <subcommand>

This uses the reverse address resolution protocol.

3.69.1.  rarp query <iface> <callsign>

This starts a reverse resolution request via iface to find the IP address for callsign.  It  counts  down  for 10 seconds before giving up listening for an answer.

3.70.  record [off | <filename>]

Append to filename all data received on the current session.   Data  sent  on the  current session is also written into the file except for Telnet sessions in remote echo mode. The command record off stops recording and closes the file.

3.71.	remote [‑p <port>] [‑k <key>] [‑a <kickaddr>] <hostid> exit | reset | kick

Send a UDP packet to the specified host commanding it to exit  the  Nos  program, reset the processor, or force a retransmission on TCP connections.  For this command to be accepted, the remote system must  be  running  the  remote server  and  the  port  number specified in the remote command must match the port number given when the server was started on the remote system.   If  the port numbers do not match, or if the remote server is not running on the target system, the command packet is ignored.  Even if the command is accepted there is no acknowledgement.

The kick command forces a retransmission timeout on all TCP connections  that the remote node may have with the local node.  If the ‑a option is used, connections to the specified host are kicked instead. No key is required for the kick subcommand.

The exit and reset subcommands are mainly useful for restarting the nos  program  on  a  remote  unattended  system after the configuration file has been updated.  The remote system should invoke the Nos program automatically  upon booting,  preferably in an infinite loop.  For example, under MS‑DOS the boot disk should contain the following in autoexec.bat:

        :loop
        nos
        goto :loop

3.71.1.  remote ‑s <key>

The exit and reset subcommands of remote require a password.  The password is set on a given system with the ‑s option, and it is specified in a command to a remote system with the ‑k option. If no password is set with the ‑s option, then the exit and reset subcommands are disabled.

Note that remote is an experimental feature in NOS; it is not  yet  supported by any other TCP/IP implementation.

3.72.  rename <oldfilename> <newfilename>

Rename oldfilename to newfilename.

3.73.  reset [<session>]

Reset the specified session; if no argument is given, reset the current  session.   This  command  should be used with caution since it does not reliably inform the remote end that the connection no longer exists.  (In TCP a  reset (RST) message will be automatically generated should the remote TCP send anything after a local reset has been done.  In AX.25 the DM message performs a similar  role. Both are used to get rid of a lingering half‑open connection after a remote system has crashed.)

3.74.  rip <subcommand>

These commands are used for the RIP service.

3.74.1.  rip accept <gateway>

Remove the specified gateway from  the  RIP  filter  table,  allowing  future broadcasts from that gateway to be accepted.

3.74.2.  rip add <hostid> <seconds> [<flags>]

Add an entry to the RIP broadcast table. The IP routing table will be sent to hostid  every  interval  of  seconds. If flags is specified as 1, then "split horizon" processing will be performed for this destination. That is,  any  IP routing  table  entries  pointing  to the interface that will be used to send this update will be removed from the update.  If split horizon processing is not specified, then all routing table entries except those marked "private" will be sent in each update. (Private entries are never sent in RIP packets).

Triggered updates are always done. That is, any change in the  routing  table that  causes  a  previously  reachable destination to become unreachable will trigger an update that advertises the destination with metric 15, defined  to mean "infinity".

Note that for RIP packets to be sent properly to a broadcast  address,  there must exist correct IP routing and ARP table entries that will first steer the broadcast to the correct interface and  then  place  the  correct  link‑level broadcast  address  in  the  link‑level  destination  field. If a standard IP broadcast address convention is used (eg. 128.96.0.0 or 128.96.255.255)  then chances  are  you  already  have  the  necessary  IP routing table entry, but unusual subnet or cluster‑addressed networks may require  special  attention. However, an arp add command will be required to translate this address to the appropriate link level broadcast address. For example,

arp add 128.96.0.0 ethernet ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff

for an Ethernet network (ip address is a sample only!!!), and

arp add 44.255.255.255 ax25 qst‑0

for an AX25 packet radio channel. (If multiple AX25 interfaces, make a unique address for each interface.)

3.74.3.  rip drop <dest>

Remove an entry from the RIP broadcast table.

3.74.4.  rip merge [on | off]

This flag  controls  an  experimental  feature  for  consolidating  redundant entries  in  the  IP routing table. When rip merging is enabled, the table is scanned after processing each RIP update. An entry is considered redundant if the  target(s)  it  covers  would  be routed identically by a less "specific" entry already in the table. That is, the target address(es) specified by  the entry  in  question must also match the target addresses of the less specific entry and the two entries must have the same interface  and  gateway  fields. For example, if the routing table contains

Dest            Len Interface    Gateway          Metric  P Timer  Use
1.2.3.4         32  ethernet0    128.96.1.2       1       0 0      0
1.2.3           24  ethernet0    128.96.1.2       1       0 0      0

then the first entry would be deleted as  redundant  since  packets  sent  to 1.2.3.4  will  still  be  routed correctly by the second entry. Note that the relative metrics of the entries are ignored.

3.74.5.  rip refuse <gateway>

Refuse to accept RIP updates from the specified gateway by adding the gateway to the RIP filter table. It may be later removed with the rip accept command.

3.74.6.  rip request <gateway>

Send a RIP Request packet to the specified gateway, causing it to reply  with a RIP Response packet containing its routing table.

3.74.7.  rip status

Display RIP status, including a count of  the  number  of  packets  sent  and received,  the  number  of  requests and responses, the number of unknown RIP packet types, and the number of refused RIP updates from hosts in the  filter table.  A  list  of the addresses and intervals to which periodic RIP updates are being sent is also shown, along with the contents of the filter table.

3.74.8.  rip trace [0 | 1 | 2]

This variable controls the tracing of  incoming  and  outgoing  RIP  packets. Setting  it to 0 disables all RIP tracing. A value of 1 causes changes in the routing table to be displayed, while packets that cause no changes  cause  no output.  Setting the variable to 2 produces maximum output, including tracing of RIP packets that cause no change in the routing table.

3.74.9.  rip ttl <seconds>

Displays or sets the time to live timer to seconds. Normal timeout  value  is 240  seconds.  This  is  not the ttl in a rip broadcast (16 = infinite).  Set this timer before starting rip. Change this timer only  in  cooperation  with your surrounding nodes. Default is 240 seconds.

3.75.  rlogin host

Sets up an rlogin session via port 511 to an *NIX compatible station.  Defaut terminal is an ansi (as defined with the fkeys) compatible terminal.  Default user name is guest. (Redefine with set USER= environement variable).

3.76.  rmdir <dirname>

Remove a sub‑directory from the current working directory.

3.77.  route

With no arguments, route displays the IP routing table.

3.77.1.		route add <dest_hostid>[/bits] | default <iface> [<gateway_hostid> | direct [<metric>]]

This command adds an entry to the routing table. It  requires  at  least  two more  arguments,  the  hostid  of  the target destination and the name of the interface to which its packets should be sent.  If  the  destination  is  not local,  the gateway's hostid should also be specified. (If the interface is a point‑to‑point link, then gateway_hostid may be omitted even if the target is non‑local  because  this  field  is only used to determine the gateway's link level  address,  if  any.   If  the  destination   is   directly   reachable, gateway_hostid  is  also unnecessary since the destination address is used to determine the interface link address).  If rspf is used and the system  is  a switch  /  router  to  multiple routes the keyword direct can be used i.s.o a gateway_hostid to set the metric higher as the default  1.  This  way  routes advertized by other rspf stations can be cheaper and get selected.  If direct is given but metric not, an new algoritm is used to set the metric  dependent on the number of subnet mask bits.

The optional /bits suffix to the  destination  host  id  specifies  how  many leading  bits  in the host id are to be considered significant in the routing comparisons.  If not specified, 32 bits (i.e., full significance) is assumed. With  this  option,  a single routing table entry may refer to many hosts all sharing a common bit string prefix in their IP addresses.  For example,  ARPA Class A, B and C networks would use suffixes of /8, /16 and /24 respectively; the command

route add 44/8 sl0 44.64.0.2

causes any IP addresses beginning with "44" in the first 8 bits to be  routed to 44.64.0.2; the remaining 24 bits are "don't‑cares".

When an IP address to be routed matches more than one entry  in  the  routing table,  the  entry  with  largest  bits parameter (i.e., the "best" match) is used. This allows individual hosts or blocks of hosts to be exceptions to a more general rule for a larger block of hosts.

The special destination default is used to route datagrams to  addresses not matched by any other entries in the routing table; it is equivalent to specifying a /bits suffix of /0 to any destination hostid.   Care  must  be  taken with  default  entries  since two nodes with default entries pointing at each other will route packets to unknown addresses back and forth in a loop  until their   time‑to‑live  (TTL)  fields  expire. (Routing  loops  for  specific addresses can also be created, but this is  less  likely  to  occur  accidentally).

There are two build in interfaces:  loopback  and  encap. Loopback  is  for internal  purposes  only.  The encap is an IP encapsulator interface. This is used to encapsulate a complete IP datagram into a IP datagram so that it gets "piggy‑backed". It is often used to carry ampr.org datagrams (net44) over the Internet. Note that the Internet is fully connected and that ampr.org is (at least)  very  loose.   This  way two sites can interchange net44 datagrams to each other.  Some extra notes: A Internet gateway has 2 IP addresses: one on ampr.org and one on the Internet. You should make sure that the interface connected to the Internet has the ifconfig ipaddr set correctly.  Note:  This previously only worked as gateway for other stations. There was some guessing done in picking an IP address when encap is used localy.  The guessing  takes the  worst  guess.  (always wrong with a 2.7 Murphy factor) The code now uses the local IP address as source when the route starts at the local station. If this is not what you want, you can overrule this by setting the IP address of the psuedo encap interface to what you want it to be.

Some extra notes on encap: I have 3  systems  on  an  ethernet  with  network 129.179.122.128/25.  In the office I have another net linked to the Internet. The addresses there are in the 129.179.122.0/25 range. Now i have a radio link  with  44.137.0.2  and 44.137.1.2 on respective sites. On the 44.137.0.2 system i have route add 44.0.0.0/8 encap 44.137.1.1 99. On a next system  on my local ethernet i have 44.137.0.1 / 129.179.122.129.  To get from that system to say 44.62.0.1 i have to add an encap to my local  gateway  with  route add 44.0.0.0/8 encap 129.179.122.130. A route add default ec0 129.179.122.130 gives me access to the Internet. Otherwise  it  will lookup the address for the interface to be used to reach 129.179.122.130 and will use 129.179.122.129. Now 44.62.0.1 will NEVER know where it came from. So adding the encap on the second system solves the problem.

Here are some examples of the route command:

# Route datagrams to IP address 44.0.0.3 to SLIP line #0.
# No gateway is needed because SLIP is point‑to point.
route add 44.0.0.3 sl0

# Route all default traffic to the gateway on the local Ethernet
# with IP address 44.0.0.1
route add default ec0 44.0.0.1

# The local Ethernet has an ARPA Class‑C address assignment;
# route all IP addresses beginning with 192.4.8 to it
route add 192.4.8/24 ec0

# The station with IP address 44.0.0.10 is on the local AX.25 channel
route add 44.0.0.10 ax0

# An encapsulation link to 192.4.8.12 where the subnet 44.64.0.0 is
accessible. The internet does not know where we are but we just use them
with what they know:
route add 44.64.0.0/16 encap 192.4.8.12 4

3.77.2.  route addprivate <dest hostid>[/bits] |  default  <iface>  [<gateway
hostid> [<metric>]]

This command is identical to route add except that it also marks the new entry as private; it will never be included in outgoing RIP updates.

3.77.3.  route drop <dest hostid>

route drop deletes an entry from the table. If a packet arrives for the deleted address and a default route is in effect, it will be used.

3.78.  rspf <subcmd>

RSPF is the Radio Shortest Path First protocol. Each station listens for  RRH (Router  to  Router Hello) messages. When such a RRH message is received, Nos will figure out if the link is bi‑directional by pinging the  other  station. The protocol is described in the RSPF 2.1 specification.

3.78.1.  rspf interface <interface> <quality> <horizon>

<interface> is the required interface rspf should use. quality is from 1 to 127  horizon  is between 1 to 255 End nodes should have the quality set to 1. Immediate nodes normaly set the quality to 8. The normaly used value for horizon is 32.

3.78.2.  rspf mode [vc | datagram | none]

Without arguments, displays the preferred mode for RSPF. Modes are VC (Virtual Cirquit) and Datagram. none resets the preferred mode.

3.78.3.  rspf rrhtimer [seconds]

Without arguments, displays the rrh timer value.

3.78.4.  rspf suspecttimer [seconds]

Without arguments, displays the suspect timer value.

3.78.5.  rspf timer [seconds]

Without arguments, displays the update timer value.

To activate RSPF, do the following. Set the broadcast address for the destination interface, example ax0.
	ifconfig ax0 broadcast 44.255.255.255

This automatically creates a routing entry for 44.255.255.255 in the  routing table. If intend to use RSPF on more than one interface, those interfaces must each have different broadcast adresses. Else the routing entries will be overwriten by the next definition.

Configure ax0 as an RSPF interface with horizon 32 and a quality of 1 (hops). This is typical for an end node. replace the 1 with an 8 for immediate nodes.

	rspf interface ax0 1 32
 Set the interval between RRH messages.
	rspf rrhtimer 900
 Define how long it takes until an idle link is suspected to be bad.
	rspf suspecttimer 2000
 Set the interval between routing updates.
	rspf timer 900

3.79.  sccstat

Display the defined PE1CHL scc driver statistics.

3.80.  session [[<session>] [flowmode [on | off]]]

Without arguments, displays the list of current sessions,  including  session number,  remote TCP or AX.25 address and the address of the TCP or AX.25 control block.  An asterisk (*) is shown next  to  the  current  that  session. Entering  a session number as an argument to the session command will put you in converse mode with that session.  If the Telnet session; entering a  blank line at this point puts you in converse mode with server is enabled, the user is notified of an incoming request and  a  session  number  is  automatically assigned.  The user may then select the session normally to converse with the remote user as though the session had been  locally  initiated.   Adding  the flowmode  displays  or enables / disables setting of *more* handling for that session. This is handy for example by long directory listings comming from an ftp  session.  Escaping  to  command  mode before issuing the dir command and entering "session # flowmode on" gives a page at a time to look  at.  At  any time  you  can escape out again and switch flowmode off. Note that a ftp session has it's own flow command now buildin.  See FTP commands later  in  this manual.

3.81.  shell [

Suspends Nos and executes a sub‑shell  ("command  processor"  under  MS‑DOS). When the sub‑shell exits, Nos resumes (under MS‑DOS, enter the exit command). Note: see the COMSPEC environement variable.  When Background  activity  (FTP servers,  etc)  is also suspended while the subshell executes. Note that this will fail unless there is sufficient unused  memory  for  the sub‑shell and whatever command  the user tries to run.  When shelled out, Mailbox Operator connects and ttylink incomming connections are refuced. A  System  unattended message is send to the "connector" of that socket.

3.82.  skick #socket

This is a shorthand for the various kick subcommands. This one searches the socket for correct type and kicks the transport layer.

3.83.  smtp <subcommand>

These commands are used for the Simple  Message  Transport  Protocol  service (that is, mail).

3.83.1.  smtp batch [yes | no]

If set smtp will batch the commands into one frame. When off only one command is  send and a response is waited for. Some old and flaky smtp servers cannot handle more than one command at a time. Nos can handle multiple. If  you  are not hindered by an old smpt server, setting batch reduces bandwith.

3.83.2.  smtp gateway [<hostid>]

Displays or sets the host to be used as a "smart" mail relay. Any  mail  sent to  a host not in the host table will instead be sent to the gateway for forwarding.

3.83.3.  smtp kick

Run through the outgoing mail queue and attempt to deliver any pending  mail. This  command  allows the user to "kick" the mail system manually.  Normally, this command is periodically invoked by a timer whenever Nos is running.

3.83.4.  smtp kill [<jobid>]

Kill the job and delete the message.

3.83.5.  smtp list

List the current jobs. A "L" means locked and in progress.  It is wise to add in autoexec.bat a "del /spool/mqueue/*.lck" command

3.83.6.  smtp maxclients [<count>]

Displays or sets the maximum number of simultaneous  outgoing  SMTP  sessions that will be allowed. The default is 10; reduce it if network congestion is a problem.

3.83.7.  smtp mode [queue | route]

Sets the smtp delivery mode. If queue, all messages are left in /spool/rqueue for  external forwarding and handling. If route, messages are handled, if for local, appended to a mailbox or if remote, they are forwarded.

3.83.8.  smtp mxlookup [yes | no]

Displays or sets a flag enabling or disabling MX record lookups. This can be enabled if a domain server is available in the near distance (reachable). It should be disabled (default) if no domain server is in reach to  satisfy the MX  query.  Note that MX record handling is very limited in NOS. If an answer from a domain name server comes in it is taken to be the destination.

3.83.9.  smtp quiet [yes | no]

Enables or disables the message that new mail arrived at this system.

3.83.10.  smtp timer [<seconds>]

Displays or sets the interval, between scans of the outbound mail queue. For example,  smtp  timer  600  will  cause the system to check for outgoing mail every 10 minutes and attempt to deliver anything it finds, subject of course to the smtp maxclients limit. Setting a value of zero disables queue scanning altogether, note that this is the default!  This  value  is  recommended for stand alone IP gateways that never handle mail, since it saves wear and tear on the floppy disk drive.

3.83.11.  smtp trace [<value>]

Displays or sets the trace flag in the SMTP client, allowing you to watch SMTP's  conversations as it delivers mail. Zero (the default) disables tracing.

3.84.  socket [[<socket #>] [flowmode [yes | no]]]

Without an argument, displays all active  sockets, giving their index and type,  the address of the associated protocol control block and the and owner process ID and name. If the index to an active socket is supplied, the status display  for  the appropriate protocol is called.  For example, if the socket refers to a TCP connection, the display will be that given by the tcp  status command  with  the  protocol control block address.  Flow mode can be set or cleared on a session if so wanted. This comes in handy when a large directory is  displayed  by ftp. Escaping from the session just before entering dir and setting flowmode and returning to that session, gives a screen full at a time with ‑more‑ processing.

3.85.  source <filename>

Read subsequent commands from filename until EOF. Then  resume  reading  commands from the previous stream. This can be used to keep routing statements in a separate file, wich can be read at some point in autoexec.nos.

3.86.	start ax25 | convers | discard | echo | finger | ftp | lpd | netrom | nntp | pop | pop2 | pop3 | remote | rip | smtp | telnet | tip | ttylink

Start the specified Internet server, allowing remote connection requests.

3.87.  status

Displays load information on Nos. When started, how long running, open files etc.

3.88.	stop ax25 | convers | discard | echo | finger | ftp | lpd |  netrom | nntp | pop | pop2 | pop3 | remote | rip | smtp | telnet | tip | ttylink

Stop the specified Internet server, rejecting any further remote connect requests. Existing connections are allowed to complete normally.

3.89.  tail <filename>

This does a more on the last couple of lines of file filename.

3.90.  tcp <subcommand>

These commands are used for the Transmission Control Protocol service.

3.90.1.  tcp access <permit|deny|delete> <dest addr>[/bits] <lowport> [<highport>]

Set or display access control  for  TCP  connection  requests.  This  command implements  tcp  access control to NosFp. Permit enables dest‑addr packets of type tcp to be routed trough to the tcp layer. Deny disables those.   If  low port is given as the keyword all, all socket numbers 0 to 65534 are permitted (or denied, depending on the permit /  deny  keyword).  If  only  lowport  is given,  only  that  portnumber is checked. If lowport and highport are given, checking is done according to that range. If an tcp access table is  defined, all undefined ranges will be denied. Some samples:
    tcp access permit 44.0.0.0/8 3600 3601
    tcp access deny all 3600 3601
    tcp access permit 44.137.0.0/16 all

3.90.2.  tcp irtt [<milliseconds>]

Display or set the initial round trip time estimate, in milliseconds, to be used  for  new TCP connections until they can measure and adapt to the actual value.  The default is 5000 milliseconds (5 seconds).  Increasing  this  when operating  over  slow  channels will avoid the flurry of retransmissions that would otherwise occur as the smoothed estimate settles down  at  the  correct value.  Note  that this command should be given before servers are started in order for it to have effect on incoming connections.

TCP also keeps a cache of measured  round  trip  times  and  mean  deviations (MDEV)  for current and recent destinations. Whenever a new TCP connection is opened, the system first looks in this cache. If the  destination  is  found, the cached IRTT and MDEV values are used. If not, the default IRTT value mentioned above is used, along  with a MDEV of 0. This feature is fully automatic, and it can improve performance greatly when a series of connections are opened and closed to a given destination (eg. a series of FTP file transfers or directory listings).

3.90.3.  tcp kick <tcb_addr>

If there is unacknowledged data on the send queue of the specified TCB,  this command forces an immediate retransmission.

3.90.4.  tcp mss [<size>]

Display or set the TCP Maximum Segment Size in bytes that will be sent on all outgoing  TCP  connect request (SYN segments).  This tells the remote end the size of the largest segment (packet) it may send. Changing MSS  affects  only future connections; existing connections are unaffected.

3.90.5.  tcp reset <tcb_addr>

Deletes the TCP control block at the specified address.

3.90.6.  tcp rtt <tcb_addr> <milliseconds>

Replaces the automatically computed round trip time in the specified TCB with the  rtt in milliseconds.  This command is useful to speed up recovery from a series of lost packets since it provides a manual bypass  around  the  normal backoff retransmission timing mechanisms.

3.90.7.  tcp status [<tcb_addr>]

Without arguments, displays several TCP‑level statistics, plus a  summary  of all  existing  TCP connections, including TCB address, send and receive queue sizes, local and remote sockets, and connection state. If tcb_addr is  specified,  a more detailed dump of the specified TCB is generated, including send and receive sequence numbers and timer information.

3.90.8.  tcp syndata [yes | no]

Display or set the tcp syn + data pigybacking flag. Some tcp  systems  cannot handle syn + data together.

3.90.9.  tcp timertype [linear | exponential]

Displays the current setting or sets the timer type backoff algoritm.

3.90.10.  tcp trace [yes | no]

Display or set the tcp trace flag on or off.

3.90.11.  tcp window [<size>]

Displays or sets the default receive window size in bytes to be used by TCP when creating new connections. Existing connections are unaffected.

3.91.  telnet <hostid> [<port>]

Creates a Telnet session to the specified host and enters converse mode. If <port> is given that number is used. Default port is 23.

3.92.  test

Start an internal test for an overflow problem that might appear in the clock function of some AT computers.

3.93.  third‑party [yes | no]

This is a restriction setter  for  some  countries  where stations are not allowed to handle thirth party mail traffic.

3.94.  ttylink <hostid> [<port>]

Creates a Telnet session to the specified host and enters converse mode. If <port>  is  given that number is used. Default port is 87.  This uses a split screen interface for easy conversation.

3.95.  tip <iface>

Creates a tip session that connects to the specified interface in "dumb  terminal"  mode.   The interface must have already been attached with the attach command.  Any packet traffic (IP datagrams,  etc)  routed  to  the  interface while this session exists will be discarded.  To close a tip session, use the reset command. It will then revert to normal slip, nrs or kiss mode operation.

This feature is primarily useful for manually establishing SLIP  connections. At present, only the built‑in "com" ports can be used with this command.

3.96.  trace [<iface> [off | <btio> [<tracefile>]]]

Controls packet tracing by the interface drivers. Specific bits enable  tracing  of the various interfaces and the amount of information produced.  Trace output to the screen is only send to the command screen, when  in  a  session tracing to the screen is suspended. (From version 2.0l) Tracing is controlled on a per‑interface basis; without arguments, trace gives a list of all defined interfaces and their tracing status.  Output can be limited to a single interface by specifying it, and the control flags can be change by specifying them as well. The flags are given as a hexadecimal number which is interpreted as follows:

  O ‑	Enable tracing of output packets if 1, disable if 0
  I ‑	Enable tracing of input packets if 1, disable if 0
  T ‑	Controls type of tracing:
	  0 ‑	Protocol headers are decoded, but data is not displayed
	  1 ‑	Protocol headers are decoded, and data (but not the headers themselves) are displayed as ASCII characters, 64 characters/line. Unprintable characters are displayed as periods.
	  2 ‑	Protocol headers are decoded, and the entire packet (headers AND data) is also displayed in hexadecimal and ASCII, 16 characters per line.
  B ‑	Broadcast filter flag. If set, only packets specifically addressed to this node will be traced; broadcast packets will not be displayed.

If tracefile is not specified, tracing will be to the console.

3.97.  udp status

3.98.  verbose [0 | 1 | 2 | 3]

Set or display the level of message output in file transfers. Verbose 0 gives the least output, and verbose 3 the most, as follows:

  0 ‑	Display error messages only.
  1 ‑	Display error messages plus a one‑line summary after each transfer giving the name of the file, its size, and the transfer time and rate.
  2 ‑	Display error and summary messages plus the progress messages generated by the remote FTP server. (This setting is the default.)
  3 ‑	Display all messages. In addition, a "hash mark" (#) is displayed for every 1,000 bytes sent or received.

If a command is sent to the  remote  server  because it is not recognized locally,  the response is always displayed, regardless of the setting of verbose.  This is necessary for commands like pwd (display  working  directory), which  would otherwise produce no message at all if verbose were set to 0 or 1.

Displays the status of all UDP receive queues.

3.99.  upload [<filename>]

Opens filename and sends it on the current session as though it were typed onthe terminal.

3.100.  watch

Displays the current software stopwatch values, with min and max readings for each. This facility  allows  a  programmer to measure the execution time of critical sections of code with microsecond resolution. This command is  supported only on the IBM PC, and the meaning of each stopwatch value depends on where the calls have been inserted for test purposes; the  distribution copy of nos usually has no stopwatch calls.

3.101.  watchdog [on | off]

Enables or disables the watchdog timer. If internal operations cease for 300 second  and  watchdog is enabled, a system reset is performed. See the remote command for setting up autoexec.bat.

3.102.  ?

Same as the help command.

4.  Attach Commands

This chapter details the attach commands for the various  hardware  interface drivers.  Not all of these drivers may be configured into every Nos binary; a list of the available types may be obtained by entering the command attach ?.

Some parameters are accepted by several drivers. They are:

4.0.1.  <bufsize>

For asynchronous devices (eg. COM ports operating in SLIP or NRS  mode)  this parameter  specifies  the  size  of the receiver's ring buffer.  It should be large enough to hold incoming data at full line speed for  the  longest  time that  the system may be busy in MS‑DOS or the BIOS doing a slow I/O operation (eg. to a floppy disk). A kilobyte is usually more than sufficient.

For synchronous devices (eg. the scc, hs, pc100,  hapn  and  drsi  interfaces operating  in  HDLC mode), the bufsize parameter specifies the largest packet that may be received on the interface.  This should be set by  mutual  agreement  among  stations  sharing the channel. For standard AX.25 with a maximum I‑frame data size of 256 bytes, a value of 325  should  provide  an  adequate safety  margin. On higher speed channels (eg. 56kb/s) larger values (eg. 2K bytes) will provide much better performance  and  allow  full‑sized  Ethernet packets to be carried without fragmentation.

4.0.2.  <ioaddr>

The base address of the interface's control registers.This might be specified in hex as 0xnnn or decimal. (nnn is the hexadecimal number).

4.0.3.  <vector>

The interface's hardware interrupt (IRQ) vector, in decimal. When a vector is followed  by the character 'c' then the vector is added in a interrupt chain. This way multiple devices can share the same interrupt  vector  (hardware changes might be nessesary). A sample is the use of a 4 port comm board sharing the same vector. The first attach command has a plain vector and the following  have  the  c  appended.  Note  that  the highest speed port should be defined last (as it is served first by the chaining).  Do NOT specify the c with the first attach statement in that group as unpredictable results will occure.
 attach asy 0x3f8 4 ax25 ax25 2048 256 1200
 attach asy 0x3f0 4c ax25 ax25 2048 256 9600

4.0.4.  <iface>

The name (an arbitrary character string) to be assigned to this interface. It is used to refer to the interface in ifconfig and route commands and in trace output.

4.0.5.  <mtu>

The Maximum Transmission Unit size, in bytes.   Datagrams  larger  than  this limit  will  be  fragmented at the IP layer into smaller pieces. For AX.25 UI frames, this limits the size of the information field.  For AX.25  I  frames, however,  the  ax25  paclen  parameter  is also relevant.  If the datagram or fragment is still larger than paclen, it is  also  fragmented  at  the  AX.25 level (as opposed to the IP level) before transmission.  (See the ax25 paclen command for further information).

4.0.6.  <speed>

The speed in bits per second (eg. 2400).

4.1.  attach 3c500 <ioaddr> <vector> arpa <iface> <qlen> <mtu> [<ip_addr>]

Attach a 3Com 3C501  Ethernet  interface.   qlen  is  the  maximum  allowable transmit  queue  length.   If  the  ip_addr parameter is not given, the value associated with a prior ip address command will be used.

The use of this driver is not recommended; use the  packet driver interface with the loadable 3C501 packet driver instead.

4.2.	attach asy <ioaddr> <vector> ax25 | nrs | ppp  |  slip  |  raw  <iface> <bufsize> <mtu> <speed> [<vf>]

Attach a standard  PC  "com  port" (asynchronous  serial  port), using the National  8250  or 16550A chip.  Standard values on the IBM PC and clones for ioaddr and vector are 0x3f8 and 4 for COM1, and 0x2f8 and 3 for COM2.  If the port  uses  a  16550A chip, it will be detected automatically and the FIFOs enabled.

4.2.1.  ax25

Similar to slip, except that an AX.25 header and a KISS  TNC  control  header are added to the front of the datagram before SLIP encoding.  Either UI (connectionless) or I (connection‑oriented) AX.25 frames can  be  used;  see  the mode command for details.

4.2.2.  nrs

Use the NET/ROM asynchronous framing technique for communication with a local NET/ROM TNC.

4.2.3.  ppp

Point‑to‑Point‑Protocol.  Encapsulates datagrams in an HDLC‑like frame. This is  a new Internet standard for point‑to‑point communication, compatible with CCITT standards.

4.2.4.  slip

Serial Line Internet Protocol. Encapsulates IP datagrams directly  in  SLIP frames  without  a link header. This is for operation on point‑to‑point lines and is compatible with 4.2BSD UNIX SLIP.

4.2.5.  raw

Raw serial line without protocol , special for lpd server.

4.2.6.  <vf>

The optional flags are a string of the characters "vf":  v enables Van Jacobson TCP/IP Header Compression, and is valid only for SLIP.  f forces the fifo on for 16550AFN compatible chips not hindered by the  original  "design  bug" and not needing the work‑around. Unfortunate these good chips don't get their fifo enabled. Specifying f on the attach line forces the  fifo  to  be  used. (unpredictable results occure when specified on a non 16550 type chip).

4.3.  attach axip <iface> <mtu> <ip_addr> <callsign>

This creates a RFC1226 compatible AX.25 frame encapsulator  for  transmission of  AX.25  frames over the Internet. Iface will be the name of the interface, ip_addr the address of the remote system and callsign the AX.25 callsign this station is listening on for frames to digipeat.  Note that each attached axip interface should have a different callsign to listen to and this should also be different from other callsign's used on this station.

4.4.  attach drsi <ioaddr> <vector> ax25 <iface> <bufsize> <mtu> <ch_a_speed>
<ch_b_speed>

N6TTO driver for the Digital Radio Systems PCPA 8530 card. Since there are two  channels  on the board, two interfaces are attached.  They will be named iface with 'a' and 'b' appended. bufsize is  the  receiver  buffer  size  in bytes;  it  must be larger than the largest frame to be received. ch_a_speed and ch_b_speed are the speeds, in bits/sec, for the A and B channels, respectively.

4.5.  attach eagle <ioaddr> <vector> ax25 <iface> <bufsize> <mtu> <speed>

WA3CVG/NG6Q driver for the Eagle Computer card (Zilog 8530).

4.6.  attach hapn <ioaddr> <vector> ax25 <iface> <bufsize> <mtu> csma | full

KE3Z driver for the Hamilton Amateur Packet  Network  adapter  (Intel  8273). The  csma  | full parameter specifies whether the port should operate in carrier sense multiple access (CSMA) mode or in full duplex.

4.7.  attach hs <ioaddr> <vector> ax25 <iface> <bufsize> <mtu>  <keyup_delay> <p>

Attach a DRSI PCPA or Eagle Computer interface card  using  a  special  "high speed"  8530  driver.   This  driver uses busy‑wait loops to send and receive each byte instead of interrupts, making it  usable  with  high  speed  modems (such  as  the WA4DSY 56kb/s modem) on slow systems.  This does have the side effect of "freezing" the system whenever the modem transmitter or receiver is active.   This  driver  can  operate only in CSMA mode, and it is recommended that no other interfaces requiring small interrupt latencies be attached to the same machine.

The keyup_delay parameter specifies the transmitter keyup delay in byte  time intervals.  The  p  value  specifies the transmitter persistence value in the range 1‑255; the corresponding slot time is fixed at one hardware clock tick, about 55 ms on the PC.

As with the other 8530 drivers, this driver actually attaches two interfaces, one for each 8530 channel.

4.8.  attach packet <intvec> <iface> <txqlen> <mtu>

Driver for use with separate software "packet  drivers" meeting the FTP Software,  Inc,  Software  Packet Driver specification. The driver must have already been installed before the attach command is given. Packet drivers in the Ethernet, ARCNET, SLIP, SLFP, and KISS/AX25 classes are supported.

intvec is the software interrupt vector used for communication to the  packet driver,  and  txqlen is the maximum number of packets that will be allowed on the transmit queue.

4.9.  attach pc100 <ioaddr> <vector> ax25 <iface> <bufsize> <speed>

Driver for the PACCOMM PC‑100 (Zilog 8530) card. Only AX.25 operation is supported.

4.10.  attach scc <devices> init <addr>  <spacing>  <Aoff>  <Boff>  <Dataoff>
<intack> <vec> [p | r]<clock> [<hdwe>] [<param>]

PE1CHL driver to initialize a generic SCC (8530) interface board prior to actually attaching it. The parameters are as follows:

4.10.1.  <devices>

The number of SCC chips to support.

4.10.2.  <addr>

The base address of the first SCC chip (hex).

4.10.3.  <spacing>

The spacing between the SCC chip base addresses.

4.10.4.  <Aoff>

The offset from a chip's base address to its channel A control register.

4.10.5.  <Boff>

The offset from a chip's base address to its channel B control register.

4.10.6.  <Dataoff>

The offset from each channel's control register to its data register.

4.10.7.  <intack>

The address of the INTACK/Read Vector port. If none, specify 0 to read from
RR3A/RR2B.

4.10.8.  <vec>

The CPU interrupt vector for all connected SCCs.

4.10.9.  <clock>

The clock frequency (PCLK/RTxC) of all SCCs in hertz. Prefix with 'p' for PCLK, 'r' for RTxC clock (for baudrate gen).

4.10.10.  <hdwe>

Optional hardware type. The following values are currently  supported: 1 ‑ Eagle  card,  2  ‑  PACCOMM PC‑100, 4 ‑ PRIMUS‑PC card (DG9BL), 8 ‑ DRSI PCPA card.

4.10.11.  <param>

Optional extra parameter. At present, this is used only with the  PC‑100 and PRIMUS‑PC cards to set the modem mode. The value 0x22 is used with the PC‑100 and 0x2 is used with the PRIMUS‑PC card.

The attach scc ... init command must be given before the interfaces are actually attached with the following command.

4.11.  attach scc <chan> slip | kiss | nrs | ax25 <iface> <mtu> <speed> <buf‑
size> [<call>]

Attach an initialized SCC port to the system. The parameters are as follows:

4.11.1.  <chan>

The SCC channel number to attach, 0 or 1 for the first chip's A or B port, 2 or 3 for the second chip's A or B port, etc.

4.11.2.  slip | kiss | nrs | ax25

The operating mode of the interface. slip, kiss and nrs all operate the port hardware in asynchronous mode; slip is Internet‑standard serial line IP mode, kiss generates SLIP frames containing KISS TNC commands and AX.25 packets and nrs uses NET/ROM local serial link framing conventions to carry NET/ROM packets. Selecting ax25 mode puts the interface into synchronous HDLC  mode  that is suitable for direct connection to a half duplex radio modem.

4.11.3.  <speed>

The interface speed in bits per second (eg. 1200).  Prefix with 'd'  when  an external divider is available to generate the TX clock. When the clock source is PCLK, this can be a /32 divider between TRxC and RTxC. When the  clock  is at  RTxC,  the TX rate must be supplied at TRxC. This is needed only for full duplex synchronous operation. When this arg is given as 'ext',  the  transmit and  receive  clocks are external, and the internal baud rate generator (BRG) and digital phase locked loop (DPLL) are not used.

4.12.  Attach Examples

Here are some examples of the attach command:

# Attach a 3Com Ethernet controller using the standard 3Com address and
# vector (i.e., as it comes out of the box) to use ARPA‑standard encapsulation.
# The receive queue is limited to 5 packets, and outgoing packets larger
# than 1500 bytes will be fragmented
attach 3c500 0x300 3 arpa ec0 5 1500

# Attach the PC asynch card normally known as "com1" (the first controller)
# to operate in point‑to‑point slip mode at 9600 baud, calling it "sl0".
# A 1024 byte receiver ring buffer is allocated. Outgoing packets larger
# than 256 bytes are fragmented.
attach asy 0x3f8 4 slip sl0 1024 256 9600

# Attach the secondary PC asynch card ("com2") to operate in AX.25 mode
# with an MTU of 576 bytes at 9600 baud with a KISS TNC, calling it "ax0".
# By default, IP datagrams are sent in UI frames
attach asy 0x2f8 3 ax25 ax0 1024 576 9600

# Attach a axip wormhole
attach axip ai0 256 129.179.122.10 pa0gri‑11
# on the other side of the wormhole
attach axip ai0 256 129.179.122.130 pa0gri‑12
# Now assume 129.179.122.10 has a AX.25 interface with callsign pa0gri‑10
# and 129.179.122.130 a interface with callsign pa0gri‑8
# Now a AX.25 frame like:
# pe1chl‑>pa0gri‑11‑>pa0gri‑8‑>pe1dna [ data]
# Received by pa0gri‑11, set the has‑been‑digipeated change the interface
# callsign with the one it realy came in from and ecapsulates it
# in a IP frame type 93 and ships it to 129.179.122.130
# pe1chl‑>pa0gri‑10*‑>pa0gri‑8‑>pe1dna [ data]
# Arived at 129.179.122.130 the next digi is searched for and found.
# The frame is changed into:
# pe1chl‑>pa0gri‑10*‑>pa0gri‑12*‑>pe1dna [ data]
# so that on the way back the frame will find the "right" interface.

# Attach the packet driver loaded at interrupt 0x7e
# The packet driver is for an Ethernet interface
attach packet 0x7e ethernet 8 1500

5.  FTP Subcommands

During converse mode with an FTP server, everything typed on the  console is first  examined  to see if it is a locally‑known command. If not, the line is passed intact to the remote server on the control channel. If it is one of the following commands, however, it is executed locally. (Note that this generally involves other commands being sent to the remote server on the control channel.)

5.1.  dir [<file> | <directory> [<local file>]]

Without arguments, dir requests that a full directory listing of the remote server's  current  directory  be  sent  to  the terminal. If one argument is given, this is passed along in the LIST command; this can be a specific file or  subdirectory  that  is meaningful to the remote file system. If two arguments are given, the second is taken as the local file into which the  directory  listing should be put (instead of being sent to the console). The PORT command is used before the LIST command is sent.

5.2.  flow [off|on]

Displays or sets the ‑more‑ processing on the current ftp session. When set to  on,  a ‑more‑ prompt is displayed after each screen full of data. You can do the same with a session # flow command. Note that this is a local extension to the standard ftp command set.

5.3.  get <remote file> [<local file>]

Asks the remote server to send the file specified in the first argument. The second argument, if given, will be the name of the file on the local machine; otherwise it will have the same name as on the remote machine.  The PORT and RETR commands are sent on the control channel.

5.4.  hash

A synonym for the verbose 3 command.

5.5.  ls [<file> | <directory> [<local file>]]

ls is identical to the dir command except that the "NLST" command is sent to the  server  instead  of  the  "LIST" command. This results in an abbreviated directory listing, i.e., one showing only the file names  themselves  without any other information.

5.6.  mget <file> [<file> ...]

Fetch a collection of files from the server. File names may include wild card characters; they will be interpreted and expanded into a list of files by the remote system using the NLST command. The files will have the  same name on the local system that they had on the server.

5.7.  mkdir <remote directory>

Creates a directory on the remote machine.

5.8.  mput <file> [<file> ...]

Send a collection of files to the server. File names may include wild card characters;  they  will  be expanded locally into a list of files to be sent. The files will have the same name on the server as on the local system.

5.9.  put <local file> [<remote file>]

Asks the remote server to accept data, creating the file named in  the  first argument.  The second argument, if given, will be the name of the file on the remote machine; otherwise it will have the same name as on the local machine. The PORT and STOR commands are sent on the control channel.

5.10.  rmdir <remote directory>

Deletes a directory on the remote machine.

5.11.  type [a | i | l <bytesize>]

Tells both the local client and remote server the type of file that is to  be transferred. The default,  (wich can be changed with the ftype command) is 'a', which means ASCII (i.e., a text file). Type  'i'  means image,  i.e., binary. In ASCII mode, files are sent as varying length lines of text in ASCII separated by cr/lf sequences; in IMAGE mode, files are sent exactly as they appear in the file system.  ASCII mode should be used whenever transferring text between dissimilar systems (e.g., UNIX and MS‑DOS) because of their different end‑of‑line  and/or end‑of‑file conventions. When exchanging text files between machines of the same type, either mode will work but IMAGE mode is usually faster. Naturally, when exchanging raw binary files (executables, compressed archives, etc) IMAGE mode must be used. Type 'l' (logical  byte size) is used when exchanging binary files with remote servers having oddball word sizes (e.g., DECSYSTEM‑10s and  20s).  Locally  it  works  exactly  like IMAGE,  except that it notifies the remote system how large the byte size is. bytesize is typically 8.  The type command sets the local transfer  mode and generates the TYPE command on the control channel.

5.12.  verbose [0 | 1 | 2 | 3]

Set or display the level of message output  in  file  transfers. Verbose 0 gives the least output, and verbose 3 the most, as follows:

  0 ‑	Display error messages only.
  1 ‑	Display error messages plus a one‑line summary after each transfer giving the name of the file, its size, and the transfer time and rate.
  2 ‑	Display error and summary messages plus the progress messages generated by the remote FTP server. (This setting is the default.)
  3 ‑	Display all messages. In addition, a "hash mark" (#) is displayed for every 1,000 bytes sent or received.

If a command is sent to the  remote  server  because it is not recognized locally,  the response is always displayed, regardless of the setting of verbose.  This is necessary for commands like pwd (display  working  directory), which  would  otherwise produce no message at all if verbose were set to 0 or 1.

6.  Dialer Subcommands

Each dialer command may (should) have a  different dialer file. The file resides in the configuration directory, as specified in the Installation section (see chapter 1). A typical dialer file might be:

        # Set the speed, and toggle DTR to ensure modem is in command mode.
        control down
        wait 3000
        speed 2400
        control up
        wait 3000
        # Dial, and wait for connection
        send "atdt555‑1212\r"
        wait 45000 "CONNECT " speed
        wait 2000
        # PAD specific initialization
        send "\r"
        wait 15000 "Terminal ="
        send "ppp\r"
        wait 10000 "\r\n"

6.0.1.  control down | up

Control asy interface. The down option drops DTR and RTS. The up option asserts DTR and RTS.

6.0.2.  send "string"

This dialer command will write the specified string to the interface. The string quote marks are required, and the string may not contain embedded control characters.  However, the standard C string escape sequences are  recognized (\0 should not be used).

6.0.3.  speed [ 9600 | 4800 | 2400 | 1200 | 300 ]

This dialer command will set the speed of the interface to one of the  available  speeds.   If  the  speed is missing, the speed will be displayed in the dialer session window.

6.0.4.  wait <milliseconds> [ "test string" ] [ speed ]

If only the time is specified, the dialer pauses for the  desired number of milliseconds.

Otherwise, the dialer reads until the test string is detected on the interface. If the string is not detected within the desired time, the autodialer will reset. The string quote marks are required, and the string may not contain embedded control characters. However, the standard C string escape sequences are recognized (\0 should not be used).

Finally, if the speed parameter is specified, the  dialer  will  continue  to read  characters until a non‑digit is detected.  The string read is converted to an integer, and used to set the interface speed.   If  the  trailing  non‑digit  is not detected within the desired time, or the integer value is not a valid speed, the autodialer will reset.

7.  Installation

Nos uses the following file and directory structure:

        ~/alias
        ~/autoexec.nos
        ~/dialer
        ~/domain.txt
        ~/ftpusers
        ~/net.rc
        ~/netron.sav
        ~/popusers
        ~/finger/
        ~/etc/printcap
        ~/etc/lpdperms
        ~/etc/log
        ~/spool/areas
        ~/spool/mail.log
        ~/spool/net.log
        ~/spool/forward.bbs
        ~/spool/history
        ~/spool/rewrite
        ~/spool/help/
        ~/spool/mail/
        ~/spool/mqueue/
        ~/spool/news/
        ~/spool/news/active
        ~/spool/news/pointer
        ~/spool/news/info
        ~/spool/news/help
        ~/spool/news/history
        ~/spool/news/forward
        ~/spool/news/poll
        ~/spool/rqueue/
        ~/spool/signatur/
        ~/spool/lpd/

The ~ in front of all files is a  directory  offset  definable  with  the  ‑d option  on the Nos command line. Any name may be chosen and is default empty. (eg. just /) If for example  ‑d  /net  is  given,  the  structure  shifts  to /net/...   The  alias,  autoexec.nos, dialer, domain.txt net.rc, popusers and ftpusers configuration files are located here. The netrom.sav file will be created there.

The "/spool" directory and its sub‑directories are used by the bbs, SMTP and NNTP  services.  The areas, forward.bbs, history, mail.log and rewrite configuration files are located here.  The /spool/news  directory  can  have  many subdirectories  and each subdirectory can have subdirectories. Newsgroups are split into heirarchical directory structures. A  news  article  in  newsgroup rec.amateur.radio.packet will end up in /spool/news/rec/amateur/radio/packet.txt.

7.1.  The /ftpusers File

Since MS‑DOS is a single‑user operating system (some might say it is a glorified bootstrap loader), it provides no access control; all files can be read, written or deleted by the local user.  It is usually undesirable to give such open  access to a system to remote network users.  Net therefore provides its own access control mechanisms.

The file ftpusers controls remote FTP and mailbox access.  The FTP default is no  access;  if this file does not exist, the FTP server will be unusable.  A remote user must first "log in" to the system with the  USER  and  PASS  commands,  giving a valid name and password listed in ftpusers, before he or she can transfer files.

Each entry in ftpusers consists of a single line of the form

username password /path permissions ip_address

There must be at least four fields, and  there  must  be  exactly  one  space between  each  field.   Comments  may be added after the last field.  Comment lines begin with '#' in column one.

username is the user's login name.

password is the required password.  Note that this is in plain  text;  therefore it is not a good idea to give general read permission to the root directory.  A password of '*' (a single  asterisk)  means  that  any  password is acceptable.

/path is the allowable prefix on accessible files.  Before any file or directory  operation,  the current directory and the user‑ specified file name are joined to form an absolute path name in "canonical" form (i.e., a  full  path name  starting at the root, with "./" and "../" references, as well as redundant /'s, recognized and removed).  The result MUST begin with the  allowable path  prefix;  if not, the operation is denied.  This field must always begin with a "/", i.e., at the root directory.  Multiple directories can be specified by separating them with a ";" caracter and no whitespace around them.

permissions is a decimal number granting  permission  for  read,  create  and write  operations.  If the low order bit (0x1) is set, the user is allowed to read a file subject to the path name prefix restriction.   If  the  next  bit (0x2)  is  set,  the  user  is  allowed  to  create a new file if it does not overwrite an existing file. If the third bit (0x4) is set, the user is allowed  to write a file even if it overwrites an existing file, and in addition he may delete files.  Again, all operations are allowed subject to the path  name  prefix restrictions. Permissions may be combined by adding bits, for example, 0x3 (= 0x2 + 0x1) means that the user is given read  and  create permission, but not overwrite/delete permission.

Additional permission bits used by the mailbox and PPP are:

  1   Read files
  2   Create new files
  4   Overwrite and delete existing files
  8   AX.25 gateway operation allowed
  16  Telnet gateway operation allowed
  32  NET/ROM gateway operation allowed
  64  Remote sysop access allowed (DANGEROUS)
  128 This user is banned from BBS access (illegal user)
  256 Priv bit for PPP connection
  512 Priv bit for peerID/pass lookup
 1024 disallow send commands (except to SYSOP)
 2048 disallow read commands
 4096 disallow 3rd party mail
 8192 This station is a known BBS

ip_address is used for PPP only and is the remote IP address of the connected system.

A username of univperm has special meaning in the  validation  meganism. If univperm  is  included as a valid user in ftpusers then any unknown user (not in ftpusers) will be mapped into univperm and get  its  permission  bits  and file path. If univperm is not included in ftpusers unknown users are not permitted nor validated.

For example, suppose ftpusers on machine pc.ka9q.ampr.org contains the line

friendly test /testdir 7

A session using this account would look like this:

net> ftp pc.ka9q.ampr.org
Resolving pc.ka9q.ampr.org... Trying 128.96.160.1...
FTP session 1 connected to pc.ka9q.ampr.org
220 pc.ka9q.ampr.org FTP version 900418 ready at Mon May 7 16:27:18 1990
Enter user name: friendly
331 Enter PASS command
Password: test [not echoed]
230 Logged in
ftp>

The user now has read, write, overwrite and delete privileges for any file under /testdir; he may not access any other files.

Here are some more sample entries in ftpusers:

karn foobar / 7         # User "karn" with password "foobar" may read,
                        # write, overwrite and delete any file on the
                        # system.

guest bletch /g/bogus;/public 3
                        # User "guest" with password "bletch" may read
                        # any file under /g/bogus and its subdirectories,
                        # and /public and its subdirectories,
                        # and may create a new file as long as it does
                        # not overwrite an existing file. He may NOT
                        # delete any files.

anonymous * /public 1   # User "anonymous" (any password) may read files
                        # under /public and its subdirectories; he may
                        # not create, overwrite or delete any files.

This last entry is the standard convention for keeping a repository of public files; in particular, the username "anonymous" is an established ARPA convention.

7.2.  The /popusers File

Here are the username / password combinations defined for the POP users. It has a simple convention:

user:password:

for every POP user such a line has to be added. The user and password  fields sould  match  the  pop  userdata statement of the remote user.  Both user and password have to be delimited with a colon character.

7.3.  The /net.rc File

The net.rc file is a fast login file for known ftp stations. Each line starts with the name of the ftp station. Following are a user and password statemend to be send to the server for validation.  The name,  user  and  password  are separated  with a space. Not a tab or more than 1 space character.  Following is a sample net.rc file.

ucsd.edu anonymous gvdg@gvdgpc.cdh.cdc.com
ka9q.ampr.org guest pa0gri

7.4.  The /domain.txt File

Nos translates domain names (eg. "pc.ka9q.ampr.org")  to  IP  addresses  (eg. 128.96.160.3) through the use of an Internet Domain Name resolver and a local "cache" file, domain.txt.  Whenever the user specifies a domain name, the local cache is searched for the desired entry.  If it is present, it is used; if not, and if domain name server(s) have been configured, a  query  is  sent over  the  network to the current server. If the server responds, the answer is added to the domain.txt file for future  use. If the server does not respond, any  additional  servers  on  the  list  are tried in a round‑robin fashion until one responds, or the retry limit is  reached  (see  the  domain retry  command). If domain.txt does not contain the desired entry and there are no configured domain name servers, then the request immediately fails.

If a domain name server is available, and if all references  to  host‑ids  in your  /autoexec.nos  file  are  in  IP address format, then it is possible to start with a completely empty domain.txt file and have Nos build it for  you. However,  you  may wish to add your own entries to domain.txt, either because you prefer to use symbolic domain names in your  /autoexec.nos  file  or  you don't  have  access to a domain server and you need to create entries for all of the hosts you may wish to access.

Each entry takes one line, and the fields are separated by tabs. For example:

pc.ka9q.ampr.org.       IN      A       128.96.160.3

IN is the class of the record. It means Internet, and it will be found in all entries. A is the type of the record, and it means that this is an address record. Domain name pc.ka9q.ampr.org therefore has Internet address 128.96.160.3.

Another possible entry is the CNAME (Canonical Name) record.  For example:

ka9q.ampr.org.          IN      CNAME   pc.ka9q.ampr.org.

This says that domain name "ka9q.ampr.org" is actually an alias for the  system  with  (primary,  or  canonical)  domain name "pc.ka9q.ampr.org."  When a domain name having a CNAME record is given to Nos, the  system  automatically follows  the reference to the canonical name and returns the IP address associated with that entry.

Entries added automatically by Nos will have an additional field between the domain name and the class (IN) field.  For example:

pc.ka9q.ampr.org.       3600    IN      A       128.96.160.3

This is the time‑to‑live value, in seconds, associated with the record received  from the server. Clients (such as Nos) caching these records are supposed to delete them after the time‑to‑live interval has expired, allowing for  the  possibility that the information in the record may become out of date.

This implementation of Nos will decrement the  TTL  to  zero, but will not delete  the  record unless the "clean" flag is on (see the domain cache clean command).  When a remote server is not available, the old entry will be used.

When the TTL value is missing (as in the examples  above),  the  record  will never  expire, and must be managed by hand.  Since domain.txt is a plain text file, it may be easily edited by the user to add, change or delete records.

Additional types of records, include NS  (name  server)  and  SOA  (start of authority)  may  appear in domain.txt from remote server responses. These are not currently used by Nos but are retained for future  development  (such  as the incorporation of a domain name server into Nos itself).

7.5.  The /alias file.

SMTP server ALIAS file. This is for resolving a given target address into a single or multiple entry mail list.
  Format:
    mail_list_name call_1@host_1 [call_2@host_2]......# comments

    pa0gri gvdg@fridley.cdh.cdc.com
    kelvin g1emm@g1emm.ampr.org
    #
    bob    gb3xp@gb3xp.ampr.org
    ian    g3rra@g3rra.ampr.org
    jim    g1wkk@g1wkk.ampr.org
    john   g5ds%gb3kp@gb3xp.ampr.org
    ted    gb3kp%gb3kp@gb3xp.ampr.org
    ron    g6vug@g6vug.ampr.org
    tim    g4uqe@g4uqe.ampr.org
    gareth g6kvk%gb7spv@gb3xp.ampr.org
    bolton gb7tcp%gb7crg@gb3xp.ampr.org
    julian g7efe%gb7cfb@gb3xp.ampr.org
    #
    world  g3rra@g3rra.ampr.org gb3xp@gb3xp.ampr.org g1plt@g1plt.ampr.org
       g1wkk@g1wkk.ampr.org g8kwi@g8kwi.ampr.org g6kvk%gb7spv@gb3xp.ampr.org
       g1ttg@g1ttg.ampr.org g6vug@g6vug.ampr.org g6kqz@g6kqz.ampr.org
       g4uqe@g4uqe.ampr.org g8ogr@g8ogr.ampr.org g4xwv@g4xwv.ampr.org
    #
    locals g3rra@g3rra.ampr.org g1wkk@g1wkk.ampr.org g8kwi@g8kwi.ampr.org
       g4bio@g4bio.ampr.org g1plt@g1plt.ampr.org g4uqe@g4uqe.ampr.org
       g6kqz@g6kqz.ampr.org g4tnu@g4tnu.ampr.org g6xqb@g6xqb.ampr.org

Note that it is reaonable, and sometimes desiable, to have alias records in the form:

   area  area dest1 dest2

As the /alias file is scanned only once, this does not result in an infinite recursion.

7.6.  The /spool/areas file.

This file is a header file shown to a mailbox user when he requests the a display. It should show all public mailboxes to read. Here is a sample:

    ‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑  Public  ‑‑  Mail  ‑‑  Areas  ‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑
                                                            |
    General    ‑‑    Any old chit‑chat that is clean.       |
    TcpIp      ‑‑    General Tcp/Ip messages. NOS etc.      |
    Bugs       ‑‑    Where to report bugs in Ka9q‑NOS       |
    Updates    ‑‑    Info ‑ NOS version UPDATES by G1EMM.   |
                                                            |
    ‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑‑

7.7.  The /spool/forward.bbs file.

The mailbox reads a forwarding file,  spool/forward.bbs.  Here  is  a  sample
file.
    wb0ttw 0006
    ax25 ax0 wb0ttw
    wb0ttw
    w0tn
    mspbul
    all
    ‑‑‑‑‑‑
    wb0gdb
    netrom #msparh
    ..c msparh
    all
    ‑‑‑‑‑‑ The first word on the first line in a  forwarding  record is the name  of the BBS to forward to. This should be the same type of name which is shown by the mbox status command. The second word is optional. It specifies a range  of  hours  when  forwarding may take place. 0006 means that there will only be forwarding to this station between midnight and 6am.

The second line specifies how to establish the connection. It should start with  the  protocol (ax25, connect, tcp, telnet or netrom) and be followed by all the parameters which are nessesary when Nos has to  establish  a  connection.

Directly after the second line, there may be lines that  start  with  a  dot. What follows after the dot will be send to the remote BBS as soon as the connection is established.

Then follows the names of a number  of  message  areas,  publib  or  private. Finally,  there  should  be a couple of '‑' signs to separate one  forwarding record from another. Also terminate the file with a last line of dashes.

7.8.  The /spool/rewrite file.

Read the rewrite file for lines where the first word is a regular  expression and the second word are rewriting rules.  An optional third field, containing just the letter "r", when present, instructs Nos to restart the rewrite file using  the  new destination address.  The special character '$' followed by a digit denotes the string that matched a '*' character. The '*' characters are numbered from 1 to 9.  Example: the line "*@*.* $2@$1.ampr.org" would rewrite the address "foo@bar.xxx" to "bar@foo.ampr.org".
    #
    *@g1emm.ampr.org $1
    *@g1emm.ampr $1
    *@g1emm $1
    #
    *!*!*!*!*!*!* $7%$6@$5@$4@$3@$2@$1
    *!*!*!*!*!* $6%$5@$4@$3@$2@$1
    *!*!*!*!* $5%$4@$3@$2@$1
    *!*!*!* $4%$3@$2@$1
    *!*!* $3%$2@$1
    *!* $2@$1
    !* $1 r
    #
    # The End

8.  Setting Bufsize, Paclen, Maxframe, MTU, MSS and Window

Many Nos users are confused by these parameters and do not know  how  to  set them  properly. This chapter will first review these parameters and then discuss how to choose values for them. Special emphasis  is  given  to  avoiding interoperability  problems  that  may  appear when communicating with non‑Nos implementations of AX.25.

8.1.  Hardware Parameters

8.1.1.  Bufsize

This parameter is required by most of Nos's built‑in HDLC drivers (eg.  those for  the  DRSI  PCPA  and  the  Paccomm PC‑100). It specifies the size of the buffer to be allocated for each receiver port. HDLC frames larger than this value cannot be received.

There is no default bufsize; it must be specified in the attach command for the interface.

8.2.  AX25 Parameters

8.2.1.  Paclen

Paclen limits the size of the data field in an AX.25 I‑frame. This value does not  include  the  AX.25  protocol header (source, destination and digipeater addresses).

Since unconnected‑mode (datagram) AX.25 uses UI frames, this parameter has no effect in unconnected mode.

The default value of paclen is 256 bytes.

8.2.2.  Maxframe

This parameter controls the number of I‑frames that Nos may send on an  AX.25 connection  before  it  must stop and wait for an acknowledgement.  Since the AX.25/LAPB sequence number field is 3 bits wide, this number cannot be larger than 7.

Since unconnected‑mode (datagram) AX.25 uses  UI  frames that do not have sequence numbers, this parameter does not apply to unconnected mode.

The default value of maxframe in Nos is 1 frame.

8.3.  IP and TCP Parameters

8.3.1.  MTU

The MTU (Maximum Transmission Unit) is an interface parameter that limits the size  of  the largest IP datagram that it may handle.  IP datagrams routed to an interface that are larger than its MTU are each split  into  two  or  more fragments.  Each fragment has its own IP header and is handled by the network as if it were a distinct IP datagram, but when it arrives at the  destination it  is held by the IP layer until all of the other fragments belonging to theoriginal datagram have arrived. Then they are reassembled back into the  complete,  original  IP  datagram.  The  minimum  acceptable interface MTU is 28 bytes: 20 bytes for the IP (fragment) header, plus 8 bytes of data.

There is no default MTU in Nos; it must be explicitly specified for each interface as part of the attach command.

8.3.2.  MSS

MSS (Maximum Segment Size) is a TCP‑level parameter that limits the amount of data  that  the  remote  TCP will send in a single TCP packet. MSS values are exchanged in the SYN (connection request) packets that open a TCP connection. In the Nos implementation of TCP, the MSS actually used by TCP is further reduced in order to avoid fragmentation at the local IP interface. That is, the local TCP asks IP for the MTU of the interface that will be used to reach the destination. It then subtracts 40 from the MTU value  to  allow  for  the overhead of the TCP and IP headers. If the result is less than the MSS received from the remote TCP, it is used instead.

The default value of MSS is 512 bytes.

8.3.3.  Window

This is a TCP‑level parameter that controls how much data the local TCP  will allow the remote TCP to send before it must stop and wait for an acknowledgement. The actual window value used by TCP when deciding how much more data to send  is  referred  to  as  the effective window.  This is the smaller of two values: the window advertised by the remote TCP minus the unacknowledged data in  flight, and the congestion window, an automatically computed time‑varying estimate of how much data the network can handle.

The default value of Window is 2048 bytes.

8.4.  Discussion

8.4.1.  IP Fragmentation vs AX.25 Segmentation

IP‑level fragmentation often makes it possible to interconnect two dissimilar networks,  but it is best avoided whenever possible.  One reason is that when a single IP fragment is lost, all other fragments belonging to the same datagram are effectively also lost and the entire datagram must be retransmitted by the source.  Even without loss, fragments require the  allocation of temporary buffer memory at the destination, and it is never easy to decide how long to wait for missing fragments before giving up and discarding those  that  have already arrived.  A reassembly timer controls this process. In Nos it is (re)initialized with the ip rtimer parameter (default 30 seconds)  whenever  progress  is made in reassembling a datagram (i.e., a new fragment is received).  It is not necessary that all of the fragments belonging  to  a  datagram  arrive  within a single timeout interval, only that the interval between fragments be less than the timeout.

Most subnetworks that carry IP have MTUs of 576 bytes or more,  so  interconnecting  them  with subnetworks having smaller values can result in considerable fragmentation. For this reason, IP implementors working  with  links  or subnets having unusually small packet size limits are encouraged to use transparent fragmentation, that is, to  devise  schemes  to  break  up  large  IP datagrams  into  a  sequence  of  link  or subnet frames that are immediately reassembled on the other end of the link or subnet into the  original,  whole IP datagram without the use of IP‑level fragmentation. Such a scheme is provided in AX.25 Version 2.1. It can break a large IP or NET/ROM datagram into a series of paclen‑sized  AX.25 segments (not to be confused with TCP segments), one per AX.25 I‑frame, for transmission and reassemble them into a single datagram at the other end of the link before handing it up to the IP or NET/ROM module. Unfortunately, the segmentation procedure  is  a  new feature  in  AX.25  and is not yet widely implemented; in fact, Nos is so far the only known implementation. This creates  some  interoperability  problems between  Nos and non‑Nos nodes, in particular, standard NET/ROM nodes being used to carry IP datagrams. This problem is discussed further in the  section on setting the MTU.

8.4.2.  Setting paclen and bufsize

The more data you put into an AX.25 I frame, the smaller  the  AX.25  headers are  in  relation  to  the  total  frame  size. In other words, by increasing paclen, you lower the AX.25  protocol  overhead.  Also,  large  data  packets reduce  the overhead of keying up a transmitter, and this can be an important factor with higher speed modems. On the other hand, large frames make bigger targets  for noise and interference. Each link has an optimum value of paclen that is best discovered by experiment.

Another thing to remember when setting paclen is that the AX.25  version 2.0 specification  limits  it  to  256 bytes. Although Nos can handle much larger values, some other AX.25 implementations (including digipeaters) cannot and this may cause interoperability problems. Even Nos may have trouble with certain KISS TNCs because of fixed‑size buffers. The original KISS TNC code  for the  TNC‑2  by  K3MC can handle frames limited in size only by the RAM in the TNC, but some other KISS TNCs cannot.

Nos's built‑in HDLC drivers (SCC, PC‑100, DRSI, etc) allocate receive buffers according  to  the maximum expected frame size, so it is important that these devices be configured with the correct bufsize. To do this, you must know the size of the largest possible frame that can be received. The paclen parameter controls only the size of the data field in an I‑frame and not the total size of  the  frame  as it appears on the air. The AX.25 spec allows up to 8 digipeaters, so the largest possible frame is (paclen + 72) bytes. So you  should make bufsize at least this large.

Another important consideration is that  the  more  recent  versions  of  NOS improve  interrupt  response by maintaining a special pool of buffers for use by the receive routines.  These buffers are currently fixed in size  to  2048 bytes  and  this can be changed only by editing config.h and recompiling NOS. This limits bufsize; in fact, attempting to set a larger value may cause  the driver  not  to  work  at  all. This situation can be detected by running the memory status command and looking for a non‑zero count  of Ibuffail events, although these events can also occur occasionally during normal operation.

One of the drawbacks of AX.25 that there is no way for one station to tell another  how  large a packet it is willing to accept.  This requires the stations sharing a channel to agree beforehand on a maximum packet size.  TCP is different, as we shall see.

8.4.3.  Setting Maxframe

For best performance on a half‑duplex radio channel, maxframe  should  always be set to 1. The reasons are explained in the paper Link Level Protocols revisited by Brian Lloyd and Phil Karn, which appeared in the proceedings of the ARRL 5th Computer Networking Conference in 1986.

8.4.4.  Setting MTU

TCP/IP header overhead considerations similar to those  of  the  AX.25  layer hen  setting paclen apply when choosing an MTU.  However, certain subnetwork types supported by Nos have well‑established MTUs, and these should always be used  unless you  know  what you're doing: 1500 bytes for Ethernet, and 508 ytes for ARCNET.  The MTU for PPP is automatically negotiated, and  defaults of 1500. Other subnet  types,  including  SLIP and AX.25, are not as well tandardized.

SLIP has no official MTU, but the most common implementation (for  BSD  UNIX) ses  an MTU of 1006 bytes.  Although Nos has no hard wired limit on the size of a received SLIP frame, this is not true for other systems.  Interoperability problems may therefore result if larger MTUs are used in Nos.

Choosing an MTU for an AX.25 interface is more complex.  When  the  interface perates  in  datagram  (UI‑frame) mode, the paclen parameter does not apply. he MTU effectively becomes the paclen of the link.   However,  as  mentioned arlier,  large packets sent on AX.25 connections are automatically segmented nto I‑frames no larger than paclen bytes.  Unfortunately, as also  mentioned arlier, Nos is so far the only known implementation of the new AX.25 segmentation procedure. This is fine as long as all of the NET/ROM  nodes along a ath  are  running  Nos, but since the main reason Nos supports NET/ROM is to llow use of existing NET/ROM networks, this is unlikely.

So it is usually important to avoid AX.25 segmentation when running IP over ET/ROM.   The way to do this is to make sure that packets larger than paclen re never handed to AX.25.  A NET/ROM transport header is 5 bytes long and a NET/ROM  network header takes 15 bytes, so 20 bytes must be added to the size of an IP datagram when figuring the size of the AX.25 I‑frame data field. If paclen is 256, this leaves 236 bytes for the IP datagram. This is the default MTU of the netrom pseudo‑interface, so as long as  paclen is at least 256 bytes,  AX.25  segmentation can't happen. But if smaller values of paclen are used, the netrom MTU must also be reduced with the ifconfig command.

On the other hand, if you're running IP directly on top of AX.25, chances are all  of  the  nodes  are running Nos and support AX.25 segmentation. In this case there is no reason not to use a larger MTU and let AX.25 segmentation do its  thing. If you  choose an MTU on the order of 1000‑1500 bytes, you can largely avoid IP‑level fragmentation and reduce TCP/IP‑level header overhead on  file transfers to a very low level.  And you are still free to pick what ever paclen value is appropriate for the link.

8.4.5.  Setting MSS

The setting of this TCP‑level parameter is somewhat less critical than the IP and  AX.25 level parameters already discussed, mainly because it is automatically lowered according to the MTU of the local interface when a connection is  created.  Although this is, strictly speaking, a protocol layering violation (TCP is not supposed to have any knowledge  of  the  workings  of  lower layers)  this  technique  does  work  well  in  practice.  However, it can be fooled; for example, if a routing change occurs after the connection has been opened  and  the new local interface has a smaller MTU than the previous one, IP fragmentation may occur in the local system.

The only drawback to setting a large MSS is that  it  might  cause  avoidable fragmentation  at  some  other point within the network path if it includes a "bottleneck" subnet with an MTU smaller than that  of  the  local  interface. (Unfortunately,  there  is  presently  no  way to know when this is the case. There is ongoing work within the Internet Engineering Task Force  on  a  "MTU Discovery"  procedure to determine the largest datagram that may be sent over a given path without fragmentation, but it is not yet complete.)  Also, since the  MSS  you specify is sent to the remote system, and not all other TCPs do the MSS‑lowering procedure yet, this might cause the remote system to generate IP fragments unnecessarily.

On the other hand, a too‑small MSS can result in a  considerable  performance loss,  especially  when operating over fast LANs and networks that can handle larger packets. So the best value for MSS is probably 40 less than the  largest  MTU  on your system, with the 40‑byte margin allowing for the TCP and IP headers. For example, if you have a SLIP interface with a 1006 byte  MTU  and an  Ethernet  interface  with  a  1500  byte MTU, set MSS to 1460 bytes. This allows you to receive maximum‑sized Ethernet packets, assuming  the  path to your system does not have any bottleneck subnets with smaller MTUs.

8.4.6.  Setting Window

A sliding window protocol like TCP cannot transfer  more  than  one  window's worth  of data per round trip time interval. So this TCP‑level parameter controls the ability of the remote TCP to keep a long "pipe" full. That is, when operating  over  a path with many hops, offering a large TCP window will help keep all those hops busy when you're  receiving  data.  On  the  other  hand, offering  too  large a window can congest the network if it cannot buffer all that data. Fortunately, new algorithms for dynamic controlling the  effective TCP  flow  control window have been developed over the past few years and are now widely deployed.  Nos includes them, and you can  watch  them  in  action with  the  tcp  status  <tcb> or socket <sockno> commands.  Look at the cwind (congestion window) value.

In most cases it is safe to set the TCP window to a small integer multiple of the  MSS,  (eg.  4times),  or  larger  if  necessary  to fully utilize a high bandwidth*delay product path. One thing to keep in  mind,  however,  is  that advertising a certain TCP window value declares that the system has that much buffer space available for incoming data.  Nos does not actually  preallocate this space; it keeps it in a common pool and may well "overbook" it, exploiting the fact that many TCP connections are idle for long periods and gambling that  most  applications will read incoming data from an active connection as soon as it arrives, thereby quickly freeing the buffer memory. However, it is possible to run Nos out of memory if excessive TCP window sizes are advertised and either the applications go to  sleep  indefinitely  (eg.  suspended Telnet  sessions)  or  a  lot of out‑of‑sequence data arrives.  It is wise to keep an eye on the amount of available memory and to decrease the TCP  window size (or limit the number of simultaneous connections) if it gets too low.

Depending on the channel access method and link level protocol, the use of a window  setting  that exceeds the MSS may cause an increase in channel collisions. In particular, collisions between data packets and returning acknowledgements during a bulk file transfer may become common. Although this is, strictly speaking, not TCP's fault, it is possible to work around the problem at the TCP level by decreasing the window so that the protocol operates in stop‑and‑wait mode. This is done by making the window value equal to the MSS.

8.5.  Summary

In most cases, the default values provided by Nos for each of these parameters will  work  correctly  and give reasonable performance. Only in special circumstances such as operation over a very poor link or experimentation with high speed modems should it be necessary to change them.