Echomail nodes are the the external systems your Mystic BBS communicates with in order to send and/or receive echomail, netmail and other files.

This section of the Mystic BBS Configuration System allows you to add/remove Echomail nodes and configure how they are set up.

From the opening screen you can see EchoMail Node that have already been created.

                          EchoMail Nodes 
 ID   Active  Description                                   Network 
 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 
 1       Yes  fsxNet HUB                                   21:1/100 
 2       Yes  Agency HUB (FidoNet)                          3:770/1 
 ────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────────── 
                    Press / for command list                      

The / key reveals a command list menu.

                              I Insert           
                              C Copy             
                              D Delete           
                              E Exports          

This menu allows you to add or remove EchoMail Nodes from the system. You can also copy an existing EchoMail Node and paste (or move) the copied nodes to elsewhere on the list. The 'Exports' option allows you to define which Echomail message bases you want to link to the EchoMail Node.

Pressing the Enter key on an existing EchoMail Node (or a new EchoMail node) reveals the following screen. In this example an EchoMail Node has been set up for the fsxNet HUB (21:1/100) to send/receive Echomail and Netmail to/from.

  Description │ fsxNet HUB               Zone │ 21
       Active │ Yes                       Net │ 1
 Archive Type │ ZIP                      Node │ 100
  Export Type │ Crash                   Point │ 0
    AllFix PW │ *******                Domain │ fsxnet
 PKT Password │
 Session Type │ BinkP
   Route Info │ 21:*
 Max PKT Size │ 512
 Max ARC Size │ 2048
  Use FileBox │ No
      FileBox │
 TIC Password │ *******                 Session Options

There are a number options you can set here.

Define the name of the system you are connecting with.

A simple yes/now setting - unless you set this to 'Yes' it will be ignored by Mystic, Fidopoll and MUTIL when various processes are run.

Leave this blank if you wish to send raw uncompressed message packets (.PKT) files. Otherwise define the compression archive type you would like Mystic to use when creating bundles of message packets in your outbound directory. The common archive type to use is ZIP but you can define others here if you wish.

There are several options you can set here. These determine how Mystic will treat the messages it is creating to send to this EchoMail Node. Should it send them as soon as it can, wait for the EchoMail Node to poll your system to collect Echomail and/or Netmail etc.

The options are:

• Crash - High priority. Send messages to echonode ASAP next outbound / inbound connection occurs
• Direct - Messages can only be sent direct to this echonode and not routed elsewhere
• Hold - Hold all messages for echonode to collect when they next poll your Mystic BBS
• Normal - Regular priority traffic

This is the password you would set if the EchoMail Node system you are setting up, was to send your Mystic BBS a Allfix or Filefix netmail. Mystic would check the password sent in the netmail addressed to it from this system matched the password set here before acting on the inbound netmail request.

This is an optional password you can set so that messages sent to/from this EchoMail Node contain an additional layer of security when transferring them between your Mystic system and this EchoMail Node.

If set, MUTIL will not toss (import) messages in to your Mystic BBS that do not have a matching password contained in the message packets it has received from this system. Likewise any messages you send to this EchoMail Node will also be sent with this password added to every message packet.

Set if you need to, but otherwise leave blank. It's usually enough to just set a session password in your 'Session Options' section of the EchoMail Node configuration.

There are three options to choose from:

Binkp FTP Directory

Depending on the option you choose here, the 'Session Options' screen and settings you need to define will differ.

Routing info is defined in the format of addresses separated by spaces and uses an asterisk (*) as a wildcard. In addition to an address, a “NOT” can be applied to each address by appending a ! and another address mask to it which will then be excluded.

For example if you have are a FidoNet node in zone 1 and you want to route all netmail posted to zones 1 through 5 to a specific downlink, you'd configure the following Routing Info for that echomail node:

Routing Info | 1:* 2:* 3:* 4:* 5:*

For most cases that will do. For networks that only have one zone you'd simply route just that zone. e.g. fsxNet Zone 21 would just have

Routing Info | 21:*

and you are done. But…

If for example, you had two FidoNet uplinks one at (1:123/1) and you wanted to route all Netmail to your first uplink EXCEPT for Netmail specifically addressed to your second uplink's NET you'd do this for your primary uplink:

Routing Info | 1:*!1:123/* 2:* 3:* 4:* 5:*

This will cause ALL zone 1-5 netmail to be routed to that uplink EXCEPT for netmail with a destination to 1:123/*. And then you'd configure your second uplink to route ONLY net 123:

Routing Info | 1:123/*

As usual with routing it can be confusing when you have very specific routing needs but if you have only single uplinks then it can be pretty straight forward.

Netmail messages do not export from MUTIL if their destination address is one of your configured AKA addresses.

NetMail message bases do not need to be linked to any Echomail nodes in order for Mystic to attempt exporting.

Mystic, when routing Netmail, will first compare the destination address against all configured echomail nodes. If there is a direct match Mystic will route the Netmail automatically to that node without reviewing the Route Info.

If there is no direct match, Mystic will then look at the Route Info for each Echomail node (starting at the first entry) until it finds a match and redirect netmail through that system.