[FADCA] Update on NEW bbs program

[Bill Sinbine]

Hi All

I just got this message from Jeff on his workings with the new bbs program 
that he is working on. I wanted to send this out for comments. Please reply 
to the list and lets see what you think and I'll compile your comments and 
send them on to Jeff for his thoughts. From what he has said, he has done a 
LOT of work on this program already. Once I get a alpha copy (or is there 
something before alpha!!)  up and running I'll let everyone know how it is 
working..

 From what he is saying below it almost sounds like he might be able to 
build in a FPAC switch. I'll have to ask him about that. That would work 
out GREAT for us that run co located devises.



73, Bill N4XEO


With the loadable modules, they're implemented as Windows DLL's, so they're
always available, but never loaded into memory unless you are actively using
them.

I'm making it so you select an interface (com port, ethernet, whatever) and
then attach to it a device driver to create a port (which would be a kiss
tnc, regular tnc or serial connection), then configure the port with a
number of channels using whatever protocols you want to run on the port.  At
the next level you configure static connections to other systems using the
ports.  These could be axip/axudp, tcpip encap, straight ax25, netrom, or
whatever.  Basically, to configure it, all you do is type in the name you
want to give the interface, select the physical device that it uses, tell it
what physical device is hooked to it (tnc type,kiss tnc, serial cable, or
network card), bind whatever protocols you want to it, and define the number
of channels you want to have available and the characteristics of each
channel.  Once you see it you'll see that it's really way easier than trying
to configure fbb, or bpq.  The config will be all in one place kind of like
AGW.

I'm putting in a feature on each port/channel called "route discovery" which
builds a both a protocol specific dynamic routing table and a global dynamic
routing table with information it learns through discovery on the
ports/channels you define.  By doing it this way it enables you to define
static routes (permanent) and also let the system discover routes on it's
own.  The tables are maintained separately for flexibility and to enable you
to "lock in" certain paths.

I've also started to do the same thing on the message routing.  I want to be
able to build a routing table for message forwarding based on what the
system sees in message R lines.  From that information it will learn both
path information and assign a routing "cost" based on the number of hops and
the difference in the time stamps from one R line to another.

The version I've been working on is strictly Win32, so it won't run on an
older DOS system, but I may be able to do a compile that will work on those
systems also.  So far I've been able to get the base program without any
modules to load on Windows 95, 98, 2000, and XP.  A couple of more features
and I should be able to send you a very early copy to check out.