You are about to receive version 1.81 of the PFC BULLETIN. BULLETIN is public domain software. (I will gladly accept recommendations for new features, not for changes that are due to "personal" preference.) NOTE: The following commands can be sent to BULLETIN@NERUS.PFC.MIT.EDU: SEND ALL Sends all bulletin files. SEND filename Sends the specified file. BUGS Sends a list of the latest bug fixes. HELP or INFO Sends a brief description of BULLETIN. There is also a documentation file written by Chris Tanner from Chalk River Nuclear Labs which can be used as handout. To obtain this, request the file BULLETIN.DOC. NOTE: An old bug might have changed the protection on the BULLETIN data files. The protection on all data files (i.e. B*.DAT, *.BULLFIL, and *.BULLDIR) should be (RWED,RWED,,). This version includes all necessary modifications to work under VMS V5.0. However, it will still be necessary to reassemble the ALLMACS.MAR source under V5 and relink. The V4 version will not be installable under V5 due to a change in a shared library which BULLETIN uses. However, relinking by itself will not be enough. You MUST also reassemble ALLMACS.MAR. If you only relink, BULLETIN can cause your system to crash (the BULLCP process will do this because it uses the routines in ALLMACS.MAR). If you are running a version of BULLETIN older than 1.52, this version will modify the format of some of the data files. (This will be done automatically when the new version is run). After successful installation, the older versions of these files can be removed. This format change can take a significant amount of time if the folder is large. If your site has large folders, it is suggested that the new version be installed during off peak hours. NOTE: Problems can occur if the old version of BULLETIN is run after the data files have been modified. Such a situation is possible on a cluster where each node has installed the executable separately. To help installation, a new command procedure INSTALL_REMOTE.COM has been included. This can be used to install BULLETIN on several nodes from a single node. Read the comments in the file for information on how to use it. NOTE: The BULLCP process should be stopped using the BULLETIN/STOP command before the new version of BULLETIN is installed. It can then be restarted using the BULLETIN/STARTUP command. (The INSTALL_REMOTE.COM command procedure does this automatically for remote nodes.) You will be receiving 17 files (NOT NECESSARILY IN THIS ORDER!): 1) BULLETIN.FOR 2) BULLETIN0.FOR 3) BULLETIN1.FOR 4) BULLETIN2.FOR 5) BULLETIN3.FOR 6) BULLETIN4.FOR 7) BULLETIN5.FOR 8) BULLETIN6.FOR 9) BULLETIN7.FOR 10) BULLETIN8.FOR 11) BULLETIN9.FOR 12) ALLMACS.MAR 13) BULLCOMS1.HLP 14) BULLCOMS2.HLP 15) BULLET1.COM 16) BULLET2.COM 17) PMDF.COM (They will be identified in the SUBJECT header.) BULLET1.COM and BULLET2.COM are command procedures which when run, will create several small files. After you run them, you can delete them. If you have PMDF at your site, you should also run PMDF.COM. Otherwise, you can delete it. Read AAAREADME.TXT for installation instructions. NOTE: When creating these files (using the EXTRACT command) from the VMS MAIL utility, you will have to strip off any mail headers that are present, including blank lines. A command procedure is included at the end of this message which can be run which uses EDT to do this for you. MRL@NERUS.PFC.MIT.EDU ------------------------------------------------------------------------ V1.81 Extensive modification to make BULLETIN/LOGIN run faster. V1.80 Modify folder compression algorithm to avoid attempting compression if not enough disk space to create temporary files, which must be the same size as the original files. V1.79 RESPOND will not add RE: to the subject if the subject of the message being responded to already starts with RE: A bug was present in the PMDF software which could cause the message's owner's name to be incorrectly stored. This would happpen if in the header, a continuation line was present after the From: line. (I.e. If one of the header lines was too long to fit on one line, and continued to the next, that continuation was thought to be part of the From: line.) V1.78 DIR/FOLDER would not show remote folders for a non-privileged user. If STRIP was enabled for a folder, if the subject line contained a tab, it would not be converted to spaces but would remain a tab, thus causing faulty output on a DIRECTORY command. Also, if the first line of the message started with a word followed by a colon, i.e. SIRS:, that line would be incorrectly flagged as part of the header and be deleted. /EXTRACT would not work if /EDIT was not explicitly specified when adding a message, even if /EDIT was present on the BULLETIN command line. V1.77 /EXTRACT is now a synonym of /TEXT where /TEXT is used (to be consistent with MAIL). Fixed bug which causes a message added to a remote folder with /BROADCAST to have an extra FROM: line added to the top of the message when it is broadcasted. V1.76 Fixed problem which caused BULLETIN to hang when attempting to send several notifications to a disconnected decserver port. This seems to occur only in a cluster environment, but might be possible in a stand alone system. The problem is that the system runs out of buffer space for the broadcasts and thus BULLCP goes into a wait for resource mode. This prevents anyone from using BULLETIN since BULLCP has the data files opened without sharing. The solution was to simply disable resource wait mode. V1.75 A bug in the data file cleanup algorithm was fixed which destroys the acls on the folder files, therefore wiping out private and semiprivate designations. This was introduced several versions back in order to fix a problem with a user whose BULL_DIR directory had SET DIRECTORY/VERSION=1 was set, as the previous algorithm created temporary files with the same name as the old data files. The temporary files are now creating with a different name, which was not causing the acls to be propagated. A subroutine has been added to copy the acls. V1.74 Added /ALL qualifier on BULLETIN command. This suppresses the automatic setting of NOLOGIN for users which have DISMAIL set. It also removes the NOLOGIN setting if any account already has it set. Fixed bug in BBOARD digest code. Crash would occur if the FROM line was empty in the digested message. Modified BULLETIN_MASTER to send message to POSTMASTER in the event that PMDF mail was sent to a non-existant folder. Previously, the mail would simply disappear without any recording of the error. Fixed bug which caused entering command SHOW FOLDER/ALL to crash BULLETIN. V1.73 Modified the affect of the SET STRIP command. It now strips all headers which appear at the top of the message. Previously it stopped stripping headers as soon as it encountered a blank line. Fixed the MAIL command. It was unable to accept a quote (") in the username. It also was unable to send mail to more than one user (even though it accepted a username list.) Fixed the conversion routines which upgraded file formats from older bulletin versions (i.e. circa 1986). V1.72 Corrected the corrections I applied in V1.71. There were a few minor bugs, one of which can cause BULLETIN_MASTER to crash. Fixed bug which prevented the POST and RESPOND commands from working if the subject line contained a quotation mark ("). Fixed bug in POST which caused message to be sent to owner of message if /EDIT/TEXT is specified. Fixed bug in MOVE command which prevented messages from being deleted from original folder if a range of messages is specified. V1.71 The PMDF interface was not placing the proper address into the owner field of the message. The last forwarding address was being entered rather than the address in the From: field of the message. This has been fixed. Also, if a Reply-to: field exists, it will be used as the owner rather than the From: address. Additionally modified code to correctly store usernames in digested folders so that messages can be RESPOND'ed to. Rebuild both BULLETIN and BULLETIN_MASTER sources, and remember to relink and reinstall BULLETIN_MASTER.EXE in order for these changes to be installed. V1.70 Added /REVERSE qualifier for SEARCH command. Added ability to specify a nodename when using the /SHUTDOWN option. This is useful in a cluster environment. Normally, the message would be deleted only after the node on which the message was added was rebooted. Now, any node on the cluster can now be specified.