Netmail 101 - What is it, how does it work in fsxNet?

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Introduction
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Think of netmail as a 'mostly private' message sent from person to person 
between two bulletin board systems (BBS). That message may either be sent
directly between those two BBS or be routed via a number of BBS to make it to
its final destination after several hops. 

The term 'mostly private' is given in that if the netmail is routed there 
is a chance that any system that handles your netmail may read it. 
In the authors view 99.9% of sysops usually set their BBS up to simply 
pass in-transit netmail onwards, uninspected and untouched. The BBS community
is pretty good in that respect. Still, be aware that unless you're sending
direct between two systems your message may be intercepted and read by
someone else who intentionally wants to. 

Every netmail has both a sender and a receiver and both have addresses
constructed using the format ZONE:NET/NODE.POINT 

In fsxNet we use Zone 21 and run five NETs (21:1/xxx , 21:2/xxx , 21:3/xxx ,
21:4/xxx and 21:5/xxx). All nodes are assigned a unique node number that
associates them with one of those NETs e.g. 21:1/101 is Agency BBS in 
New Zealand.

For example if Paul Hayton (Avon) at Agency BBS wants to send a private
netmail to Alan Ianson (Al) at The Rusty Mailbox BBS then Paul is sending 
his netmail from himself at 21:1/101 and addressing it to Alan at 21:4/106

Netmail Routing (Zone 21)
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All fsxNet nodes are asked to set their systems up to route netmail they
send via their NET HUB so Agency BBS (21:1/101) would send netmail to 
The Rusty Mailbox (21:4/106) via the NET 1 it was connected to 21:1/100

The HUBs in turn route the netmail to the correct NET and then send the
netmail to the node.

So in the example we're using the netmail travels across the network like
this:

Sender 21:1/101 > HUB(NET1) 21:1/100 > HUB(NET4) 21:4/100 > Receiver 21:4/106

Netmail Routing (Fidonet)
=========================

Fidonet currently uses Zones 1 - 4 so BBS that are members of that network
will have addresses using the syntax 1:xxx/xxx or 2:xxx/xxx etc.

As of late July 2018 it's now possible for fsxNet nodes to send netmail 
to a Fidonet netmail address from within fsxNet Zone 21. The netmail 
is routed via fsxNet HUBs to a gateway system 3:770/1 within Fidonet that
in turn sends the netmail onwards to systems within Fidonet.

Likewise, Fidonet systems that wish to send netmail to a fsxNet node can
do so by routing their Zone 21 netmail via 3:770/1 which will in turn
relay it on to the fsxNet HUBs to send onwards to the receiving node.

This is still experimental and mileage may vary - but hey, it's fsxNet and
we're all about experimentation here - so give it a go and report how you
get on :)

Final Thoughts
==============

Mystic Configuration

If you are a node in fsxNet wishing to send netmail to Fidonet nodes via
your fsxNet HUB you need to make a change to your BBS setting to ensure
you let your BBS software know you wish it to send Fidonet addressed 
netmail to be routed via your Zone 21 HUB e.g. 21:1/100 if your in NET 1

For Mystic BBS systems that means updating the 'Route Info' section of
your fsxNet HUB echomail node settings by adding the following 

1:* 2:* 3:* 4:* 21:*

e.g.

█▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀ Echomail Node (ID 7) ▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▀▄
█ Active         │ Yes                                       1:GENERAL  █
█ Description    │ Mystic HUB (fsxNet NET1)                  2:Security █
█ SysOp Name     │                                           3:Groups   █
█ Address        │ 21:1/100                                  4:BinkP    █
█ Domain         │ fsxnet                                    5:FTP      █
█ Session Type   │ BinkP                                     6:Dir Toss █
█ Archive Type   │ ZIP                                                  █
█ Export Type    │ Crash                                                █
█ Route Info     │ 1:* 2:* 3:* 4:* 21:*                                 █
█ Max PKT Size   │ 512                                                  █
█ Max ARC Size   │ 2048                                                 █
█ Use Filebox    │ No                                                   █
█ Filebox Dir    │ \                                                    █
█                │                                                      █
█                │                                          Page 1 of 6 █
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This says to Mystic - send netmail to anything addressed to Zone 1-4 or in
Zone 21 via this echomail node - in this example the NET 1 fsxNet HUB 
at 21:1/100

Now if you already have a Fidonet HUB (and address) you may elect not to
set things up this way and just use your respective fsxNet and Fidonet
HUBs to route the respective network netmail via. But if you're either
not a member of Fidonet or wanting to run your setup in a way that you
send your Fidonet netmail via your fsxNet HUB you should now be able to :)

Echomail vs Netmail

This catches folks out all the time. Echomail is a public posted 
message that is shared between member BBS on any given message network.
Hence the phrase echo. BBS subscribe to networks like fsxNet and carry
a selection of echomail areas for their users to read and post to.
The areas are often themed by topics for discussion etc.

The gotcha is that sometimes people (often the sysop running the BBS)
will in error post what they think is a private netmail message to someone
when in fact they are posting in a public echomail area.

The lesson - check that your intended netmail is in fact being posted in
a netmail message base. If your sending to 'All' and the BBS *not* asking
you for an address to send your netmail to... then chances are very good 
you're about to look silly. It's happened many times before and will I'm
sure happen again. We learn by doing in the end :)

The Future

All going well there are plans to extend this idea to include othernets
for even further netmail routing flexibility.

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Author: Paul Hayton (Avon) - Jan 2021
Rev   : 1.0 - July 2018
        1.1 - Jan 2021 
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