Freq

This page describes how to create a FTN style FREQ (FileREQ) and send it to a destination system. There are at least two methods this can be done with. Currently we will describe only one of those methods.

The first step is to create a .req file. This file contains the filenames of the files you are requesting, one filename per line.

eg:

echo filenameiwant.foo >> /sbbs/tmp/myfreq.req
echo anotherfile.bar >> /sbbs/tmp/myfreq.req

Now that we have the filenames in a .req file, we want to send it to a destination system. One way this is done is to add myfreq.req to a .FLO file. This requires some understanding of how BSO (Binkley Style Outbound) works so we can determine the proper FLO file name of the destination system. Basically, the zone is determined by the outbound directory in your BSO tree. The outbound directory for your default zone has no extension. The extensions on your other outbound directories are zero padded to three HEX characters. The net and node of the destination are zero-padded HEX to four places.

eg: 1:3634/12 breaks down like this.

the zone     : blank or .001
the net 3634 : 0e32
the node 12  : 000c

So we would create or update a file named 0e32000c.flo in our outbound directory for fidonet zone 1. Inside this file we would list myfreq.req. If our default zone is zone 1 and our BSO is outbound, then we would create or update the file like so.

echo ^/sbbs/tmp/myfreq.req >> /sbbs/ftn/outbound/0e32000c.flo

If our default zone is not zone fidonet zone 1, then the outbound directory will be outbound.001 and we'd create our flo file there.

echo ^/sbbs/tmp/myfreq.req >> /sbbs/ftn/outbound.001/0e32000c.flo

The '^' (caret) tells your BSO mailer to delete the req file after it has been sent.

When your BSO mailer scans its outbound directories and sees the file 0e32000c.flo, it will attempt to connect to 1:3634/12 and deliver the myfreq.req file. If 1:3634/12 has FREQ enabled, it will read the filenames from the .req file and queue them to send back to you during the current connection.

If the destination system is in another zone, then the outbound directory for that zone has an extension like we show above where outbound.001 is the outbound for zone 1 if you are not in zone 1. Let's say we want to send a FREQ to a system in Micronet. Micronet is zone 618. In HEX that is 26a and since the extensions in BSO are limited to three charcters, the outbound would be outbound.26a.

So, a request to 618:3634/12 would look like this.

echo ^/sbbs/tmp/myfreq.req >> /sbbs/ftn/outbound.26a/0e32000c.flo

NOTE: In the above you will note that we used the “>>” method of redirection to add the echoed data to the files. This is so we do not destroy what may already be in them.

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