Q: Is there any documentation for ifgate and ifcico?
A: No, sorry.  Only README files and example configuration file.  And
   this FAQ list, of course.

Q: Will ifcico work in multiline environment?
A: Hopefully yes, though the mechanism of skipping locked files is
   not well tested.

Q: How do I create a nodelist?
A: You need not.  Take a fresh nodelist from a nearby FidoNet node.

Q: How do I compile the nodelist?
A: With ifindex program.  You also need to keep the original nodelists.

Q: How do I compile a nodediff?
A: With nlpatch program.

Q: The diffs to getty_ps do not fit, and besides that, ifcico cannot
   originate call while uugetty is active on the dialin line.  Any ideas?
A: Take getty_ps version later than 2.0.7c, versions prior to 2.0.7b are
   unusable.

Q: When I start ifcico without parameters, it displays banner and does
   noting.  Ctrl-C, Ctrl-\ etc. do not help.  What's on?
A: This is correct behavior in slave mode.  To make outgoing calls, start
   it with "-r1" parameter.  If you unintentionally started it in slave
   mode, just wait several minutes, and it will finish.

Q: Do directories in config file need ending "/" ?
A: No.  But it won't do any harm.

Q: How do I create an alias in the database?
A: You need not.  It is created automatically as mail goes from Internet
   to FidoNet.

Q: In fact, I think I did not understood at all what alias (ifdbm) is for.
   When do you built it ? When do you use it ?
A: When a message from "jsmith@some.where.net (John Smith)" passes from
   Internet to Fidonet, fidonetters see the message from "John Smith of
   your:fido/addr".  When fidonetters make replies, their replies go to
   "John Smith of your:fido/addr".  To forward the message to the correct
   Internet address, ifmail needs to remember that "John Smith" is actually
   "jsmith@some.where.net".  That's why the database is needed.  When
   messages pass from Internet to Fidonet, it is filled, and when replies
   come from Fidonet, it is used to forward them to Internet.

Q: How do I monitor as the things happen?
A: tail -f <wherever is iflog> or if you use syslog logging, direct
   log_local0 to a virtual screen (see man 5 syslog.conf)

Q: How do I tell ifcico to poll a node?
A: Either create an empty .flo or start ifcico with the node address in the
   command line.

Q: How do I arrange a coninious poll of a node until a successfull session 
   occurs?
A: #!/bin/sh
   while :
   do
     if /usr/lib/ifmail/ifcico f123.n456
     then
       exit 0
     fi
     sleep 30
   done

Q: How do I send a message with just this specific AKA in the From:?
A: Either modify your config file to make it primary address, or forge
   customized "From:" header in the RFC-822 message before feeding it
   to MTA (or ifmail).

Q: When I run ifunpack (iftoss) packets disapper but nothing is passed 
   to sendmail/rnews.  What's on?
A: You probably specified -N.  Your mail/newsbatches are now in
   /tmp/ifmail directory.

Q: Why doesn't ifmail accept addresses in fido-format (2:283/315.38) ?
A: Because.

Q: Why do I get a warning about the out-of-date nodelist index so often?
A: The warning is issued when any of the source nodelists *OR* any of
   the config files is younger than the index.

Q: How can I allow file request from outside people ?
A: Define the public keyword in config file to a directory at which
   ifcico can read.

Q: When ifcico receives a file request, does it perform a subdirectory
   seach?
A: No.  But remember that in UN*X files may have more than one link.
   But you can have sub-directories; the requestor has to include them
   (eg:  Linux/communications/ifmail-2.8c-tx2.tar.gz).
   The "root" (/) in requests is relative to the directory defined 
   by the public keyword. 

Q: How can I define magic words ?
A: define the magic directory in config file; then write a file, with the
   name you want to be the magic one. The file must be readable (but not
   executable) by ifcico.
   The content of the file is tha same as what the requestor should have
   written in his *.req file to receive the final(s) file(s).
   (eg:  fidonet/nodelists/nodediff.z55 )

Q: How do I create a file request?
A: Make an FTS-0006 compatible file in the outbound directory with the
   name XXXXYYYY.req, where XXXX is a hexadecimal net number, and YYYY
   is a hexadecimal node number.  In the simplest case, it would contain 
   just file names (one at a line).
   Or just use the ifman utility.

Q: How do I create a file attach?
A: Either send a mail with the header "X-FTN-FLAGS: ATT" and the file
   name in the subject (path starting from the `public' directory, and
   it should be on its place until sent), or put the file name (full
   path, starting from `/') into the file XXXXYYYY.flo in the outbound
   directory, where XXXX is a hexadecimal net number, and YYYY is a
   hexadecimal node number.

Q: I put "X-FTN-FLAGS: ATT" but the file isn't attached
A: You _must_ have the file in a directory defined in ifgate/attach.c
   (protinbound and public. If you compile with -DRELAXED there is all the
   other inbounds too), path relative to it.
   All the directories must be executables for the user that sends the mail
   (chmod a+x .... should do the trick), and finally, the file must be readable
   by that user. 

Q: How do I specify the "To:" field in the news article to be passed to
   FidoNet?
A: Use "X-Comment-To:" header (or simply "Comment-To:")

Q: How do I get rid of the RFC headers converted to that silly kludges
   in the FidoNet messages?
A: You cannot.  The author insists on *always* keeping the header
   information.  There is a Good Reason to keep them, trust me!
   The root idea of ifmail gateway is that the gateway has no right to
   drop information that it does not understand.  If you like, think of
   it as of my religious views.  I am pretty convinced that the best
   thing you can do with someone other's information that you agreed to
   carry is to pass it untouched.  If a guy chose to put his telephone
   number into X-Phone: header, he has a right to have it delivered to
   the readers, no difference if they are on "this" or "that" side of
   the gateway.  Of course, there are many and many cases when this
   requirement is not met.  For example, in the former Soviet Union the
   KGB thought that it had a right to prelustrate mail (real "paper"
   mail), and decide if the particular letter should be delivered or
   not.  That was common practice for international mail.  But you
   should agree that this is unfair practice.  Another example: open the
   cowling of your car (or case of your VCR) and remove details which
   function you do not understand.

Q: But the other sysops are complaing about the unnecessary (for them)
   load, they will simply kick me out of Fido!
A: They have no right to do it.  You do not violate any standarts.  You
   do not violate policy.  So, there is no legal reason for punishment.
   If they take action against you, complain to the superior
   coordinator, and you have a good chance to win.

Q: How do I achieve default FidoNet routing - either "direct" or "host",
   "hub", "zonegate" routing?
A: Generally, this is MTA's responcibility.  ifroute program, that can
   be used as a "queryprogram" in Smail, is under development (and very
   well may stay in this state forever).

Q: When I link ifcico, I get an unresolved reference: yy???.o.  Any hints?
A: Try adding "-ll" (or "-lfl" if you are using flex) to the LIBS in the
   CONFIG file.

Q: All articles I receive from my FidoNet uplink are routed back (as I see
   in the cnews log, and in the cnews "togo" file).  Why?
A: Because in the cnews "sys" you specified the site name in a format
   other than recommended "fNNN.nMMM" (or "pLLL.fNNN.nMMM").

Q: Is it possible to have FidoNet correspondents look like internettes
   in Internet, i.e. have "From: User.Name@Inter.net.domain" instead of
   "From: User.Name@pNN.fMM.nLL.zX.something.org"?
A: In many cases this can be done with the "domtrans" configuration verb.

Q: After calling a Fido node I find these lines in iflog:
   "tcsetattr(0,TCSADRAIN,clocal) return -1 \n\terrno=5 : I/O error"
   Should I be worried about these errors?
A: No.  On some systems, kernel does not allow any tty I/O after hangup,
   thus preventing ifcico from resetting the modem after call.

Q: On SCO UNIX, ifcico cannot obtain device for dialout.  What's on?
A: Probably this is a permission problem creating a LCK file: either
   make /usr/spool/uucp world-writable or make uucico owned by uucp.

Q: The first name and surname of the netmail recipients are always
   starting with lower case although I enter them with upper case.
   What's wrong?
A: Ifmail does not change the case of the recipients name. Probably it
   is your MTA. In case of sendmail this can be changed by adding the
   'u' flag to the flag list (F=....) in the definiton of your fido
   mailer specs (in sendmail.cf).

Q: My fidonet neighbours are complaining about the format on ^aMSGID
   kludge in my messages.  They ask me to put my FTN address there.
   Should I do it, and if yes, how?
A: Probably you should not.  If you do, a single message of Internet
   origin will get _different_ ^aMDGID's when gatewayed to Fidonet at
   different gateways, which is incorrect.  Also, the FTS standart says
   that the ^aMSGID should contain the address of the originating
   network, which won't be true if the gateway's address is substituted.

Q: When I poll a node, even though the session is competely correct,
   ifcico considers the call as failed (apparently, there is a problem
   with a SIGHUP coming too early...).
A: Some fidonet mailers do not finish Zmodem session cleanly, with ZFIN.
   If they don't, there is *no* way to distinguish accidental hangup
   from the session completion.  Ifcico prefers to be suspitions and
   interpret unclear situation as failure.

Q. I just found a bug in ifmail: when there is only a *.req file in
   outb, ifcico won't call the destination node.
A. This is not a bug, this is a feature :-) If you need to poll the node
   to get a file, create an empty .flo together with a .req.  If you get
   thru to the node, but it says that it does not support freqs at the
   moment, the .req file stays in the queue (so you don't need to create
   it again next time), but the .flo file is deleted (as the session was
   successfull), so ifcico does not continiously poll the node (which
   would be annoying).

Q: First I want to say that I read FAQ and know about tty_put status
   error message :) But... Who can explain me why sometimes ifcico
   continues writing to the log file during the night and in the morning
   one can find out that the size of log file is over 300 Mb?
A: This happens when ifcico does not catch SIGHUP.  That may happen if
   you have wrong modem setup (AT&C0), or wrong cable (with CD signal
   always ON), or wrong device management (e.g. old-style getty keeping
   the serial line open while ifcico tries to use it).

Q: On my Linux XXX, I cannot compile with HAS_NDBM_H because ndbm.h
   appears to be missing.  Where can I get it?
A: It seems that some linux distribution has ndbm.h file missing.  Just
   install it in /usr/include (it can be taken from any gdbm
   distribution).  Also note that if some distributions ndbm.h is either
   broken or is from BSD DB rather than gdbm.  You need gdbm, or you
   should specify -DHAS_BSD_DB and compile with bsd db library.

Q: On my Linux XXX compilation fails due to "already defined" macros,
   ndbm.h being included more than one time.
A: It is a problem of some distributions of ndbm, the ndbm.h isn't 
   protected against more than one inclusion. To solve it edit the
   /usr/include/ndbm.h file and add, at the very top of the file, these
   two lines:
        #ifndef _NDBM_H_
        #define _NDBM_H_
   and at the very end of the file this single one:
        #endif /* _NDBM_H_ */
   then all programs including ndbm.h should compile fine.

Q: When I connect over TCP/IP to a node running a fidonet mailer on OS/2
   with vmodem, session is established normally, but file transfers fail
   with CRC error or such.  What's up?
A: That's vmodem.  Ifcico uses clean TCP stream, while vmodem provides
   telnet(1) stream emulation, in which some codes are escaped.  There
   are a few `hack' solutions of the problem floating around, including
   patches to ifcico source and wrapper programs.  The "right" solution
   is to convince vmodem author to provide transparent mode of operation
   with his program.
   A TCP mailer for OS/2 exists, called Fmailerd. Its author is Jean-Louis
   Noel <jln@habcnx.stben.be>

Q: When I compile Linux whith IP_MASQUERADING support ifcico on TCP/IP
   doesn't work anymore. Why ?
A: IP_MASQUERADING assignes several ports for itself; by default it takes 
   from 60000 on; but ifcico uses 60179 !
   So you need to edit the file linux/include/net/ip_masq.h and change the
   value of PORT_MASQ_BEGIN to a value greater than the greater port you
   use. A value of 6200 should be good enough.
   (It is fixed on Linux 2.0.22)

Q: Will ifmail ever run on MS/DOS?
A: No.