# What's New in Synchronet v3.11

## Contents

- Platform-Specific Changes
  - Win32
    - Synchronet Control Panel (GUI)
  - UNIX
- Servers
- SCFG
- Telnet/RLogin
- FTP Server
- Mail Server
- Synchronet Services
- JavaScript-Related Changes
  - Object Model
  - JSexec (Brand New!)
- SBBSecho
- Miscellaneous

## Win32-specific Changes

- Switched from Win32 Mutex to xpdev pthread_mutex_t (which is implemented using Win32 critical sections) - faster, lighter weight
- Doubled the size of the Telnet/RLogin I/O ring buffers from 10000 to 20000 bytes. This allows for up to 10000 byte blocks from external programs with plenty of room for telnet IAC, CRLF, or color-code expansion. Win32 named pipes, for example, will send up to 8096 byte blocks (before CR to CRLF expansion). Size of Win32 named pipes now specified (override 4K default). Using WaitForSingle/MultipleObject now to detect terminated processes (rather than looping on GetExitCodeProcess with sleep/yield). Using WaitForMultipleObjects to immediately continue loop on remote input (terminate 100ms wait) - experiments with local output_event (set by sbbsexec.dll on writes) yielded no perceived performance improvement (and named pipes, for example, would not benefit from such a mechanism).

## UNIX-specific Changes

- New sysop monitor/control application for UNIX (src/sbbs3/umonitor)
- Several filename case-insensitivity fixes for Unix file systems
- Changed default DOSemu path on Linux to /usr/bin/dosemu.bin (per runderwo)
- Signals should work correctly in Linux (Finally!)
- Fix stack overflow in JS on FreeBSD - s3 shell now runs
- Installer: -f option now enables FTP-verbose (debug) mode (-v is already in use)
  -n option now disables FTP-download of distribution list

## Synchronet Control Panel (Win32 GUI) Specific Changes

- Configurable maximum log length (auto-truncation point)
- Client window: Now prompts operator before filtering IPs
- Client window: Changed popup menu option from "Close" to "Close Socket"
- MailServer configuration dialog: Added AuthViaIpCheckBox which allows authentication (for relay) via POP3 or other protocol within the last 60 minutes (this was previously always enabled if authenticated-relay was allowed, but now that we have real SMTP AUTH support, this less-secure method is optional)
- Node window timer tick event now (again) locks node record before reading (but using a non-blocking locking call) - does not report lock or read errors. This is necessary due to the use of advisory locks on Unix nodes
- Configuration Wizard can now accurately query the primary DNS server replaces old method (kludge) of shelling out and running "ipconfig /all"
- Configuration Wizard now automatically converts Windows timezone to SMB format on new install. Supports non-standard timezones (as configured in SCFG
- Use single left click to restore from tray icon, double-click has some weird problem where a click is sent to adjacent icons
- Spy form window now clears the terminal when it detects a form-feed character (Ctrl-L)
- Spy terminal window now auto-wraps
- Added support for OutbufHighwaterMark and OutbufDrainTimeout "tweaking" registry keys
- Created BBS->Preview menu item (to preview ANSI files)
- Lots of new "File->Edit and BBS->Edit" file menu items to easily edit, preview, and compile various text files
- Sysop chat: Added use of utime() to insure NFS/smbfs compatibility with node/chat.dab (shared-write) files. New look (green on black, System font) simulates Telnet interface. Ctrl-V (paste) and other unexpected control keys are now filtered

## All Servers

- Silently-filtered IP address (using ip-silent.can) are truely silent now (no sounds or log entries)
- New SemFileCheckFrequency value in .ini file (both global and per-server) (previously hard-coded to 2 seconds in most cases), defaults to 5 seconds
- New table-driven 16-bit CRC calcution function (much faster)
- Added support for new global TempDirectory key (used by BBS events thread and FTP server)
- Added support for TCP_NODELAY socket option in ctrl/sockopts.cfg
- Backup functions now renames/copies filename.ext to filename.#.ext rather than filename.ext.# (making the backup files easier to sort, copy, etc)

## Synchronet Configuration Utility (SCFG)

- Change name of "Sysop Chat Requirements" option to "Sysop Chat Override". Hopefully this more clearly describes what this feature is used for
- Updated descriptions of file/byte ratio ARS keywords
- fcopy function (used by backup function) releases time-slices every 10 kbytes
- New System->Toggle Option: automatic toggle of daylight savings time bit in system timezone value (for display purposes only)
- Bugfix: When importing a subs.txt into an existing message group (over existing subs with the same internal codes), the original pointer index is maintained. This fixes a problem with importing a subs.txt over existing sub-boards causing duplicate pointer indexes when the BBS is re-initialized

## Telnet/RLogin Server

- Ringbuf lib now supports optional highwater semaphore (used to control output block size average)
  Default OutputHighwaterMark value to 1024
- output_thread termination stats displays average block size in log
- Now clears the screen before executing an external editor (assumes fullscreen). Solves problem with SyncEdit and Windows telnet.exe.
- Added option to disable events thread entirely (in sbbs.ini and sbbsctrl checkbox)
- No longer converts filenames to uppercase before adding to or retrieving from file databases
- Bugfix: Threading while in reading messages in "find mode" didn't work
- Bugfix: JavaScript User class was using temporary scfg pointer which would be overwritten by subsequent logins on other nodes. When the other nodes logged off, the pointer was bad so a call to the User constructor would cause a segfault
- Fix for e-mail attachments uloaded with Unix rz: if attached file isn't found in upload dir, but is found in temp dir, move it
- New 32-bit ports of ANS2MSG and MSG2ANS (to convert files to/from ANSI and Ctrl-A format), now named ANS2ASC and ASC2ANS (to reduce new sysop confusion)
- ctrl/text.dat BulkUploadDescPrompt now displays file size in kilobytes rather than bytes
- TUSER @-code now displays accurate number of users (not included deleted/inactive slots)
- Upload events (testing files and extracting embedded descriptions) now run with EX_OFFLINE mode bit set (don't care if user hung-up)
- Increased time-out (waiting for nodes) during exclusive events from 60 to 90 minutes, allowing clock to be adjusted 60 minutes (auto-DST) without issue
- Creates a log entry when time has been reduced due to upcoming event.
- ctrl/text.dat ReducedTime entry now may display the time the event will run
- Reintroduced EVENT @-code (date/time of pending exclusive event)
- IRC command (from default chat menu module) now prompts for server and channel (with new default value)
- LZH encode/decode routines are now thread-safe (no longer using global variables)
- Using message number instead of time to determine which e-mails should be deleted after QWK-packing
- Improved Guru realism, particularly when in "local chat" with Guru: Guru won't repeat himself/herself and waits for user to stop typing (including word wrap) before responding
- Bugfix: DOSXTRN.RET is only used for non-native programs (run with DOSXTRN)
- Don't allow new user's alias to match anything already in the ctrl/alias.cfg
- Allow user to enter more than the maximum password length (currently 8 chars when verifying the password, alerts user to >8 char password errors
- More descriptive error message if SHELL/COMSPEC environment variable can't be found
- send_telnet_cmd() does nothing on an RLogin connection (RLogin clients do not use or recognize telnet commands)
- Reduce the amount of disk I/O in privchat() loop - only check node.dab once every second of inactivity
- Added use of utime() to insure NFS/smbfs compatibility with node/chat.dab (shared-write) files

## FTP Server

- Bugfix: in send_thread() that could send partial files if the last block was retried because of a EWOULDBLOCK error (new bug due to non-blocking socket use)
- Bugfix: No longer stops send_thread when send() reports a short packet (still logs a error/warning message)
- Only reports data send error if send returns < 1. Apparently its normal on Linux for send to send short data (on non-blocking sockets)
- No longer converts filenames to uppercase before adding to or retrieving from file databases
- Implemented support for directory exemption ARS (finally)
- Support SITE EXEC command for sysop logins
- Added new directory toggle option to prevent transfers to/from that directory to be included in the system's upload and download statistics
- Bugfix: wasn't closing ctrl/ftpalias.cfg under some circumstances (file handle/descriptor leak)
- Added current PID to FTP temporary filenames (for more uniqueness)
- Gets current user information after each FTP command, making external changes to security, credits, etc. immediately effective
- Removed unnecessary time-slice yields

## Mail (SMTP/POP3) Server

- QWKnet NetMail messages can now routed over SMTP using qwk-id!user@domain addressing (only single hops are currently supported)
- Bugfix: 100% CPU utilization in sendmail thread when no mail database exists
- Bugfix: RSET and MAIL commands were not correctly resetting (truncating) the recipient list file
- sockreadline() function terminates at sole LF (fix for broken TCP apps - e.g. some Perl mail script)
- Support for folded RFC822 header fields
- Support for SMTP authentication protocols: LOGIN (used by Outlook Express), CRAM-MD5, and PLAIN
- New "SMTP AUTH via IP" toggle option (defaults to OFF) - this option must be enabled to allow POP-before-SMTP type authentication
- Support for POP3 APOP authentication
- POP3 server thread reads all msg indices and headers before reporting initial OK or ERR reponse after authentication
- Strip control chars from received SMTP commands - apparently some newer spammer technique involves embedding a carriage return character in the MAIL FROM address
- If an SMTP message is received for an address in the ctrl/spambait.cfg file, the message is refused and the IP address of the sender is added to ctrl/spamblock.cfg for later auto-blocking of spammers
- An SMTP-authenticated client is automatically exempt from DNSBL-based mail tagging, ignoring, or reporting "bad user"
  (DNSBL-based "session refusal" occurs before SMTP authentication can take place)
- Added new option: DNSBL_CHKRECVHDRS which checks all of the Received: from header IPs against the DNS blacklists.
- Added new mail server option: NO_NOTIFY, to disable user notification telegrams for received SMTP mail (for all users)
- SMTP and POP3 servers now return termporarily failures if the mail database is currently locked (for packing)
- Mail server now uses .ini-formatted recipient list file (much more flexible)
- Added support for mail processing command-line specifers: %h, %i, and %u (see ctrl/mailproc.cfg for details). Fixed %v (version specifier)

## Synchronet Services

## JavaScript-specific Changes

- Now using thread-safe build of Mozilla JavaScript Engine for improved reliability when multiple simultaneous JavaScripts modules are being executed
- Upgraded JavaScript engine to JavaScript-C (SpiderMonkey) 1.5 RC 5a for improved relability
- Static global objects are now created as read-only: prevents inadvertent reasignment by script author accidentally using object name as local variable
- Bugfix: (finally) JavaScript object initialization segfaults when the JS runtime "max_bytes" value is insufficient for the number of configured items: by defining dynamically created objects and arrays as properties of child objects of the global object immediately after such objects are created, they are "implicitly rooted", protecting them from (unexpected) garbage collection. Now the initialization will simply fail with a nice "out of memory" error. This was a long-standing bug that rarely occurred in the wild
- Bugfix: if a node record could not be unlocked, the JavaScript context initialization could segfault while creating the system.node_list array.
- JavaScript context stack size is now configurable
- Using JS_NewNumberValue for full 32-bit integer support (bitfields mostly)

## JavaScript Object Model

- Added support for ROT13 text string translation (encode or decode) as global and File class methods
- Global method yield() method now accepts an optional boolean forced argument (default is true), a non-forced yield will not lower the CPU utilization of a busy loop, but will yield to tasks of equal or higher priority
- Global method load() now clears pending exceptions before compiling script and returns bool (true if script compiled and executed without error). An error in the loaded script no longer terminates the calling script
- Global strftime() now uses current time if not specified (without warning)
- New global mtehod: ctrl() to return an ASCII control character (as a string) that represents the character string (or ASCII value) passed. Example: ctrl('C') returns '\3'
- New global method: html_encode() which converts a passed buffer to HTML escaped text (using standard HTML character entities) - optionally converting IBM ex-ASCII chars too
- New global methods: file_copy() and file_backup()
- New global method: resolve_ip(), returns IP address (as string) of specified hostname
- New global method: file_getname(), returns filename portion of path string
- New global method: file_utime() to set a file's last-accessed and modification times to the specified times or the current time (if unspecified)
- New global method: html_decode()
- New global methods: word_wrap() and quote_msg()
- New global methods: base64_encode() and base64_decode()
- New global method: md5_calc(), returns base64 or hex-encoded MD5 digest of specified string
- Renamed global methods: crc16(), crc32(), and chksum() to crc16_calc(), crc32_calc(), and chksum_calc()
- New File properties: chksum, crc16, crc32, base64, md5_base64, and md5_hex
- New File property: uue, when set to true, read and write methods automatically base64 encode and decode
- New File property: base64, when set to true, read and write methods automatically uuencode and uudecode (respectively)
- New File property: yenc, to enable automatic yEnc encode/decode on read and write calls
- File.error property now resolves to errno if file is not open
- File.read() now defaults to reading the entire file from the current file position
- New File property: network_byte_order, for reading-from/writing-to big-endian binary files on little endian machines (e.g. PCs)
- A whole suite of File.iniGet methods - really nice stuff for using .ini based config files for JS modules
- New method: system.exec() which can be used to execute any native system/shell command from any JS-enabled system/service
- New methods: system.get_node_message() and system.get_telegram()
- New method: system.username() - returns name of specified user number
- system.stats.total_users property now reports only active user records
- New property: system.lastuser to get last user record number (number of user slots)
- system.secondstr() now returns null if no argument specified
- bbs.timeleft property is now an alias for time_left.
- New property: bbs.event_time
- Bugfix: bbs.smb_* properties (blank strings and wrong sub_num)
- New method: console.handle_ctrlkey()
- MsgBase.save_msg() method now support header and body args in either order. The other MsgBase.get/put methods now return null/false correctly if no msg id/offset/number was specified
- MsgBase.savemsg() function now does auto-threading (reply chaining) if the thread_orig head field is initialized by the caller
- MsgBase.savemsg() will look-up the thread_orig (via reply_id) if unspecified
- MsgBase.savemsg() now supports LZH-compressed message bases
- MsgBase header object (in put_msg_hdr and save_msg methods) supports new properties: to_org, replyto_org, to_agent, from_agent, and replyto_agent
- New method: MsgBase.get_msg_index() to retreive *just* a message's index record (faster than retrieving a complete message header)
- MsgBase.last_error property is now officially renamed to MsgBase.error (old name aliased for backwards compatibility)
- Bugfix: MsgBase.retry_time property was being set as boolean rather than int
- New MsgBase.retry_delay property (number of milliseconds between lock/read attempts
- Socket.last_error property is now officially renamed to MsgBase.error (old name aliased for backwards compatibility)
- New Socket.is_writeable property (read-only), TRUE if/when the socket writeable
- msg_area, file_area, xtrN_area areas configured with non-blank access requirements will no longer be visible to scripts with no user logged in (e.g. fingerservice.js)
- New msg_area.sub property that contains all the sub-boards the user has access to in a single object (associative array)
- New file_area.dir property that contains all the file directories the user has access to in a single object (associative array)
- New xtrn_area.prog object containing all external programs as properties (associative array)
- Socket.recvline() method terminates at first linefeed even if its the first character of the string (for broken TCP apps that send LF-terminted lines)
- Socket.connect() method now supports an optional timeout value parameter (in seconds) default is 10 seconds

## JSexec

- This is a new program used to execute JavaScript modules in a separate process outside of Synchronet
  (run `jsexec -?` for usage syntax)
- Can be used to execute JavaScript timed events (e.g. newslink.js) in the background (asynchronous to other timed events)
- Can be used to execute JavaScript modules (e.g. nodelist_html.js) as web server CGI scripts (using a 3rd party web server)
- Can be used to execute some static Synchronet services (e.g. ircd.js) externally from Synchronet

## SBBSecho (FidoNet NetMail/EchoMail Program)

- Added "Truncate Bundles" toggle option in ECHOCFG, adds TFS instead of KFS flag to bundle attachment netmail messages
- Now adds 2+ packet data to packed netmail packets (for FLO mailers) - needed for proper point operation
- Added NOCHECKPATH option (to .cfg file and ECHOCFG) to optionally disable circular path detection
- If all uplinks are removed via areafix, free's uplink list and doesn't try to realloc it

## Miscellaneous

- FIXSMB overhaul (v2.0): no-longer re-numbers message base by default. Instead, the index is sorted to guarantee message numbers are indexed sequentially. The message base may still be re-numbered using the -renumber command-line option (not recommended). The /m command-line option has been removed since the SMB_EMAIL status bit has been supported for many years now
- Baja v2.33: Changed command-line options to use -opt instead of /opt (for better Unix compatibility)
  Added support for -p, pause-on-error command-line option
- ADDFILES now uses chk_ar() from userdat.c to select the correct file extractor based on the platform ARS (e.g. pkunzip for DOS/Win32 and unzip for Unix)

## Changes in v3.11b (Beta)

- Baja bug-fix: expected `!included`files to be in current directory, now looks in directory of `.src` file
  (this fixes the problem with the SBBSCTRL:BBS->Edit and Compile Baja Source... menu option)
- Baja feature: Include directory may be over-ridden with the new `-i` command-line option
- Mail server: Added DNSBL_THROTTLE option to throttle receipt of messages from DNSBL-listed servers (in `sbbs.ini` only)
  (this feature needs to be added to the Synchronet Control Panel at a later date)
- BBS bug-fix: sysop "BULKMAIL" function didn't set message's when_written date/time/zone
- BBS bug-fix: when using internal editor to edit a file larger than the allowed maximum number of lines, would display error message, free buffer and still read file contents into buffer causing A/V or segfault
- BBS bug-fix: when using internal editor, and quote buffer exceeded lines-per-message limit for user, would read max bytes and then add null terminator, one byte beyond the buffer bounds, causing a later free of the buffer to assert failure
- BBS bug-fix: Baja `PRINTF` and `PRINT <var>` functions no longer expand @-codes
  (potential security risk when displaying variables containing user-supplied strings)
- BBS bug-fix: pack_rep() no longer leaves console with local echo enabled causing subsequent QWK packing events to spew unintended output strings into the event log
- BBS bug-fix: cursor movement functions (e.g. `cursor_left`) should do nothing if passed a count less than 1 - this indirectly fixes a bug in `getstr()` when hitting Ctrl-X when already at the first character in the string
- BBS bug-fix: `getfname()` would return a pointer to a sub-directory (instead of the filename) if passed a path that included both forward and back-slashes (reported side-effect was the failure to display menu files in Baja modules that called the `MENU` function with a path that contained a back-slash and the configured text directory contained a forward-slash)
- BBS enhancement: turn on/off local console output when packing REP packets
- BBS enhancement: improved internal daily checking of inactive/expired user accounts: skipping user #1, better error handling, etc.
- BBS enhancement: enable TCP Nagle algorithm when running socket-based external programs
  (improving performance for socket doors that don't perform their own buffering)
- BBS enhancement: socket options (configured in `ctrl/sockopts.cfg`) are re-applied to client sockets when returning from external programs (which could have modified them)
- JS bug-fix: `user.limits` object wasn't be created for dynamically-created user objects - users created with `new User()` constructor
- JS bug-fix: `user.limits` properties were indexed by user number rather than level - causing errorneous values (e.g. `user.limits.lines_per_message` as witnessed when posting via `nntpservice.js`)
- JS bug-fix: `system.new_user()` method no longer creates `system.user` object (harmless bug
- JS bug-fix: `msg_area.sub` object (associative array) contained sub-board's is_moderated properties (bool) rather than the sub-board objects themselves
- JS bug-fix: support for full 32-bit `system.uptime` value
  (cause of invalid uptime numbers after early January 2004)
- JS bug-fix: support for full 32-bit file date/times in the FTP server's HTML index
- JS feature: created more named constants for standard (Unix `errno.h`) socket error values
  (e.g. `ECONNREFUSED`, `ENOTCONN`, `ENOBUFS`, `EADDRINUSE`, etc.)
- JS enhancement: `printf`-style functions now convert any non-number (integer or float) arguments, including bools, to strings
  (this prevents accidental crashes due to printing a bool variable with "%s", for example
)
- NewsLink feature: filter incoming messages to or from names in the `twitlist.cfg` file
- NewsLink feature: `newslink.cfg` option "interface" to specify a different network interface IP address to bind to for outbound NNTP sessions
- NewsLink bug-fix: using variable name "host" for server hostname instead of "server" to resolve conflict with internal global "server" object
- NewsLink docs: new documentation file (`docs/newslink.txt`)
- DynDNS bug-fix: enforce a maximum of 10 command/response pairs, avoiding potential infinite loop
- Services feature: each service may have a separately-configured network interface (configured with the "interface" key in the `ctrl/services.ini` file) - defaults to use the services network interface specified in `sbbs.ini` or Synchronet Control Panel
- SBBSecho bug-fix: double memory free (segfault/AV) when exporting echomail
- SBBSecho bug-fix: if packed-message header can't be read (end of packet?), don't report/log message as "grunged"
- SBBSecho bug-fix: when processing AreaFix messages, expected kludge lines to terminate in line-feed instead of carriage-return
  (bug introduced in rev 1.105)
- SBBSecho enhancement: only check NetMail attributes (e.g. Local, Orphaned, Already Received), if from `.msg` file (not `.pkt`)
- SMBLIB bug-fix: smb_hfield() and smb_hfield_append() no longer adjust msg->hdr.length since this value is needed by smb_putmsghdr() to accurately detect an illegal header length increase (exceeds allocated space for header) - the header length is now calculated each time for each call to smb_hfield/hfield_append()

Copyright © 2004 Rob Swindell
$Id: v311_new.html,v 1.4 2004/02/28 01:25:33 rswindell Exp $