Subj : Re: It seems there are various different ideas floating around:
To   : John Dovey
From : Wilfred van Velzen
Date : Thu May 27 2021 11:48 am

Hi John,

On 2021-05-27 00:49:08, you wrote to All:

 JD> 6. Is the Nodelist a "List of BBS Systems"?

No. It's a list of FTN capable nodes.

 JD> If so, what services do they offer? eg Telnet (port?), SSH (Port?,
 JD> Rlogin (Port?), USENET News, etc

That information doesn't belong in the nodelist.

 JD> Relying on your outbound directory as a "monitor" means you are only
 JD> monitoring the sites you send mail to. I'm guessing that the
 JD> PING/TRACE flags in the nodelist are sysops giving explict permission
 JD> to send netmail to them to find out exactly this info.. as well as the
 JD> path taken. The spec suggests that each system along the route is
 JD> supposed to report back safe arrival of the mail.

Not "each system along the route". Just the ones that have the TRACE flag.

 JD> As far as I'm aware, pinging any address on the network is entirely
 JD> acceptable. Using some sort of ping for the host being reachable
 JD> shouldn't be at all controversial. Pinging specific ports on the other
 JD> hand can often be interpreted as potentially hostile if done too
 JD> aggressively, but no-one who has any computer attached to the internet
 JD> should be surprised when this happens. Running through the nodelist
 JD> with echo-ping or the like to indicate that the system is alive would
 JD> give at least the basic info that the host is up and reachable.

If you advertise in the nodelist you for instance accept (CM) incoming binkp 
connections on the given port. It's acceptable that someone tries to make such 
a connection to that port on the system. As long as this isn't excessive (like 
once a week), nobody could object to this.

 JD> The further points about what services the host provides. Synchronet
 JD> already has something built in which figures that out and reports back to
 JD> Vert with that info. If you look at his Systems list, it is reconfigured
 JD> every night and goes so far as to do an automatic screen capture of the
 JD> login screen. Take a squizz at https://synchro.net/sbbslist.html for that
 JD> output.

Apparently Synchronet sysops don't object to this information being published? 
Or is it optional?

 JD> I think it's just how we approach it which makes it doable or not.
 JD> Deciding what the real need is, figuring out what the concerns are etc
 JD> and addressing those.

It's all nice to think about and discuss, but if there isn't anyone to 
implement it, it's all futile...


Bye, Wilfred.

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