FSC-0027 The Distribution Nodelist by Ben Baker, 1:100/76 updated by Rick Moore, 1:115/333 December 4, 1988 Copyright 1986, 1987, 1988 International FidoNet Association. All rights reserved. Duplication and or distribution permitted for non-commercial purposes only. This document is a proposed update for the document known under the names of FSC002-4, FSC-0002, and FTS-0002. This document defines the format and content of the nodelist for the Public FidoNet Network (PFN) as published each Friday. The PFN is an international network of independently owned electronic mail systems, most with interlocking electronic bulletin board systems. The distribution nodelist, or simply "nodelist," is the glue which holds the network together. It is the PFN's "phone book" and it defines the top-level network structure. The nodelist is published as an ASCII text file named NODELIST.nnn, where nnn is the day-of-year of the Friday publication date. This file is packed into an archive file (by System Enhancement Associates' ARC utility) named NODELIST.Ann, where nn are the last two digits of day-of-year. A companion file, COORD.nnn, lists the coordinators of the various regions and local networks which constitute the PFN. This file may be created from NODELIST.nnn by the program COORD.EXE, distributed by many PFN bulletin boards. As stated above, NODELIST.nnn is an ASCII text file. It contains two kinds of lines, comment lines and data lines. Each line is terminated with an ASCII carriage return and line feed character sequence, and contains no trailing white-space (spaces, tabs, etc.). The file is terminated with an end-of-file character (EOF = decimal character value 26). Comments lines contain a semicolon (;) in the first character position followed by zero or more alphabetic characters called "interest flags." A program which processes the nodelist may use comment interest flags to determine the disposition of a comment line. The remainder of a comment line (with one exception, treated below) is free-form ASCII text. There are five interest flags defined as follows: ;S This comment is of particular interest to Sysops. ;U This comment is of particular interest to BBS users. Page 1 ;F This comment should appear in any formatted "Fido List." ;A This comment is of general interest (shorthand for ;SUF). ;E This comment is an error message inserted by the nodelist generating program MakeNL. ; This comment may be ignored by a nodelist processor. The first line of a nodelist is a special comment line containing identification data for the particular edition of the nodelist. The following is an example of the first line of a nodelist: ;A FidoNet Nodelist for Friday, July 3, 1987 -- Day number 184 : 15943 This line contains the general interest flag, the day, date, and day-of-year number of publication, and ends with a 5-digit decimal number with leading zeros, if necessary. This number is the decimal representation of a check value derived as follows: Beginning with the first character of the second line, a 16-bit cyclic redundancy check (CRC) is calculated for the entire file, including carriage return and line feed characters, but not including the terminating EOF character. The check polynomial used is the same one used for many file transfer protocols: 2**16 + 2**12 + 2**5 + 2**0 The CRC may be used to verify that the file has not been edited. The importance of this will become evident in the discussion of NODEDIFF, below. CRC calculation techniques are well documented in the literature, and will not be treated further here. The content of the remaining comments in the nodelist are intended to be informative. Beyond the use of interest flags for distribution, a processing program need not have any interest in them. A nodelist data line contains eight variable length "fields" separated by commas (,). No space characters are allowed in a data line, and underscore characters are used in lieu of spaces. The following discussion defines the contents of each field in a data line. Field 1: Keyword The keyword field may be empty, or may contain one of the following: Zone -- Begins the definition of a geographic zone and define its coordinator. All the data lines following a line with the "Zone" keyword down to, but not including the Page 2 next occurrence of a "Zone" keyword, are regions, nets and nodes within the defined zone. Region -- Begins the definition of a geographic region and defines its coordinator. All the data lines following a line with the "Region" keyword down to, but not including the next occurrence of a "Region" or "Host" keyword, are independent nodes within the defined region. Host -- Begins the definition of a local network and defines its host. All the data lines following a line with the "Host" keyword down to, but not including the next occurrence of a "Region" or "Host" keyword, are local nodes, members of the defined local network. The difference between a region and a local network is in the routing of messages. A message addressed to a member of a region is sent direct to the addressee, while a message to a member of a local network is sent to the network host. Hub -- Begins the definition of a routing subunit within a multilevel local network. The hub is the routing focal point for nodes listed below it until the next occurrence of a "Hub", "Region", "Host", or "Zone" keyword. The hub entry MUST be a redundant entry, with a unique number, for one of the nodes listed below it. This is necessary because some nodelist processors eliminate these entries in all but the local network. Pvt -- Defines a private node with unlisted number. Private nodes are only allowed as members of local networks. Hold -- Defines a node which is temporarily down. Mail may be sent to it and is held by its host or coordinator. Down -- Defines a node which is not operational. Mail may NOT be sent to it. This keyword may not be used for longer than two weeks on any single node, at which point the "down" node is to be removed from the nodelist. -- Defines a normal node entry. Field 2 - Net/Node number Page 3 This field contains only numeric digits and is a number in the range of 0 to 32767. If the line had the "Zone", "Region", or "Host" keyword, the number is the zone, net, or region number, and the node has an implied node number of 0. Otherwise, the number is the node number. The zone number, region or net number, and the node number, taken together, constitutes a node's FidoNet address. Zone numbers must be unique. Region or net numbers must be unique within their zone. Other numbers must be unique within their respective units. Field 3 - Node name This field may contain any characters except commas and spaces. Underscores are used to represent spaces. This is the name by which the node is known. Field 4 - Location This field may contain any characters except commas and spaces. Underscores are used to represent spaces. This field contains the location of the node. In the USA it is typically "City_ST where ST is the standard two-letter abbreviation for the state. Field 5 - Sysop name This field may contain any characters except commas and spaces. Underscores are used to represent spaces. This is the name of the system operator. Field 6 - Phone number This field contains at least three and usually four numeric subfields separated by dashes (-). The fields are country code (1 for USA and Canada), city or area code, exchange code, and number. The various parts of the phone number are frequently used to derive cost and routing information, as well as what number is to be dialed. A typical example of the data in a phone number field is 1-800-555-1212, corresponding to country 1 (USA), area 800 (inward WATS), exchange 555, and number 1212. Alternatively, this field may contain the notation "-Unpublished-" in the case of a private node. In this case, the keyword "Pvt" must appear on the line. Field 7 - Baud rate This field contains one of the values: 300, 1200, 2400, or 9600, and defines the maximum baud rate supported by the node. Field 8 - Flags Page 4 This optional field contains data about the specific operation of the node, such as file requests, modem protocol supported, etc. Any text following the sixth comma on a data line is taken collectively to be the flags field. The required format is zero or more subfields, separated by commas, consisting of a flag, possibly followed by a value. The following flags define special operating conditions: Flag Meaning CM Node accepts mail 24 hours a day MO Node does not accept human callers The following flags define modem protocols supported: Flag Meaning CT1 CCITT V21 300 bps CT2 CCITT V23 1200/75 split bps rate CT3 CCITT V22 1200 bps full duplex HAY Hayes V9600 HST USR Courier HST MAX Microcom AX/96xx series PEP Telebit TrailBlazer V32 CCITT V32 V33 CCITT V33 V34 CCITT V34 NOTE: Many V22 modems also support Bell 212A. If no modem flag is given, Bell 212A is assumed for 1200 bps systems, CCITT V22bis is assumed for 2400 bps systems. The following flags define type of error correction available. A separate error correction flag should not be used when the error correction type can be determined by the modem flag. For instance, a modem flag of HST implies MNP. Flag Meaning MNP Microcom Networking Protocol error correction V42 LAP-M error correction w/fallback to MNP The following flags define the type(s) of compression of mail packets supported. Flag Meaning Page 5 MN No compression supported NOTE: The only compression method supported by FidoNet at this time is SEA's ARC, as defined by the specs for ARCMail 0.6. When other types of mail compression are adopted, indicators for them will be added. For now, the absence of a compression flag indicates that ARCMail 0.6 compression is supported. The following flags indicate the types of file/update requests supported. Flag Meaning XA Bark and WaZOO file/update requests XB Bark file/update requests, WaZOO file requests XP Bark file/update requests XR Bark and WaZOO file requests XW WaZOO file requests The following flag defines gateways to other domains (networks). Flag Meaning Gx Gateway to domain 'x' where 'x` is a value from 'A' to 'Z` or `1' to '9'. NOTE: Valid values of 'x' are assigned by the FidoNet International Coordinator. Current valid values of 'x' may be found in the notes at the end of the current FidoNet nodelist. The following flags define the dedicated mail periods supported. They have the form "#nn" or !nn where nn is the UTC hour the mail period begins, # indicates Bell 212A compatibility and ! indicates incompatibility with Bell 212A. Flag Meaning #02 Zone 2 mail hour (02:30 - 03:30 UTC) #09 Zone 1 mail hour (09:00 - 10:00 UTC) #18 Zone 3 mail hour (18:00 - 19:00 UTC) NOTE: When applicable, the mail period flags may be strung together with no intervening commas, eg. "#02#09". Only mail hours other than that standard within a node's zone should be given. Since Page 6 observance of mail hour within one's zone is mandatory, it should not be indicated. The following flag defines user-specific values. If present, this flag MUST be the last flag present in a nodelist entry. Flag Meaning Ux..x A user-specified string, which may contain any character except blanks. This string may contain one to thirty-two characters of information that may be used to add user-defined data to a specific nodelist entry. This string may not contain any flags already defined in this document. FTSC makes no guarantee that it will not assign an unused letter/number to new flags. Certain unused flags are already reserved - see the list below. The following flags are reserved for future planned expansion of existing flags: Mx and Px (where 'x' is any valid character). This is not meant to imply that FTSC will not use any to use any other character sequences, and FTSC reserves the right to assign any flag deemed necessary. The FTSC recognizes that the FidoNet International Coordinator is the ultimate authority over what appears in the FidoNet nodelist. Also, the FTSC is by definition a deliberative body, and adding or changing a flag may take a considerable amount of time. Therefore, the FidoNet International Coordinator may temporarily make changes or additions to the flags as defined in this document. The FidoNet International Coordinator will then consult with the FTSC over the changes needed to this document to reflect these temporary changes. The following are examples of nodelist data lines: Host,102,SOCALNET,Los_Angeles_CA,John_Doe,1-213-874-9484,2400,XP ,101,Rainbow_Data,Culver_City_CA,Don_Brauns,1-213-204-2996,2400, With more than a thousand nodes, the nodelist, even in archive form, is a substantial document (or file). Since distribution is via electronic file transfer, this file is NOT routinely distributed. Instead, when a new nodelist is prepared, it is compared with the previous week's nodelist, and a file containing only the differences is created and distributed. Page 7 The distribution file, called NODEDIFF.nnn, where nnn is the day-of-year of publication, is actually an editing script which will transform the previous week's nodelist into the current nodelist. A definition of its format follows: The first line of NODEDIFF.nnn is an exact copy of the first line of LAST WEEK'S nodelist. This is used as a first-level confidence check to insure that the right file is being edited. The second and subsequent lines are editing commands and editing data. There are three editing commands and all have the same format: is a 1-letter command; A, C, or D. is a decimal number greater than zero, and defines the number of lines to be operated on by the command. Each command appears on a line by itself. The commands have the following meanings: Ann - Add the following nn lines to the output file. Cnn - Copy nn unchanged lines from the input to the output file. Dnn - Delete (or skip) nn lines from the input file. The following illustrate how the first few lines of NODEDIFF.213 might look: ;A Friday, July 25, 1986 -- Day number 206 : 27712 D2 A2 ;A Friday, August 1, 1986 -- Day number 213 : 05060 ;A C5 This fragment illustrates all three editing commands. The first line is the first line from NODELIST.206. The next line says "delete the first two lines" from NODELIST.206. These are the identification line and the line following it. The next command says "add the next two lines" to NODELIST.213. The two data lines are followed by a command which says "copy five unchanged lines" from NODELIST.206 to NODELIST.213. Notice that the first line added will ALWAYS contain the new nodelist's CRC. Since only the differences will be distributed, it is important to insure the accuracy of the newly created nodelist. This is the function of the CRC mentioned above. It is sufficient for a program designed to perform the above edits to pick the CRC value from the first line added to the output file, then compute the CRC of the rest of the output file. If the two CRCs do not agree, one of the input files has been corrupted. If they do agree, the probability is very high (but not 100%) that the output file is accurate. Page 8 For actual distribution, NODEDIFF.nnn is packed into an archive file named NODEDIFF.Ann, where nn are the last two digits of day-of-year. Page 9