Files used by the system

The following does not describe the detailed structure of the separate records contained in the files used by the system, but is more concerned with the way the files are used, and the way they are interrelated.

Directory structure

For the purpose of the following discussion, we will assume that you are running your system from a subdirectory on your hard disk C, called BBS. All files will therefore be somewhere underneath C:\BBS. There are some directories underneath that are REQUIRED by the system. The BBS directory itself will contain the actual BBS program itself (on BBS.COM) and the program overlays (on BBS.000 and BBS.001). It will also contain utility programs such as the conversion programs for PCboard.

The CONFIGURATION file

This file contains various system parameters and lives in the top (C:\BBS) directory. The format of this file will usually change from release to release; if you are using a new release then you should always run the CFGBBS program first to make sure that you have the right version of this file (the BBS program will warn you if an upgrade is needed, but it's best to run the program anyway)

The USERS files

The USERS files live in the C:\BBS\MAIN directory. There are three, USERS.IDX, USERS.DAT and USERS.IDN. These files belong together, and MUST always be backed up and restored at the same time. This is because every user has a 'record' in both files, and these records must be at the same relevant position in each. The index file contains two bytes per user, with a special key that is used to look up users in the USERS.DAT file. The USERS.IDN file is only four bytes long and is used to track the external user number (see ExternRef in the user record definition).

The actual content of the users file may be checked by referring to the description in the GLBDEF.PAS file in the source directory.

NOTE!!! The users file is central to the operation of the system. Any time you back up the users file then you should also back up the message files for EVERY conference, and also the FILDIR file. This is because the message files and file directory do not in fact record user names, but only record numbers in the users file. If you lose or change the users file then you MUST make sure that you don't try and use your message files until the problem is corrected. Recommended procedure is to backup everything in the MAIN subdirectory at the same time. This will save you a lot of trouble in the long run.

The MESSAGE files

There are three message files for each conference, MTEXT.nn, MESSAGE.nn and MINDEX.nn. nn is zero for the main board, and will otherwise be the same as the conference number. They live in the MAIN subdirectory too, and as noted above are dependent upon the USERS files for correct operation. Each message will have an entry in each of the files: the MINDEX file contains a two-byte message number, used for looking up the message, the MESSAGE file contains the message header, and the MTEXT file contains the actual text of the message. Refer to the description of the message header in the GLBDEF.PAS module for a description of the separate fields in the message header.

Although you may NOT restore the users file with an old version without at the same time restoring all the message files to the same version or an older one, you can make separate backups of the message files at less frequent intervals than you save your users file. A workable backup procedure would be to make a daily save of the USERS files, 2 or 3 conferences, and the file directory file FILDIR, while saving the other conferences only once a week. You would then lose up to a week of messages in these conferences if your disk crashed.

The main message here is that whatever else you back up, the USERS file must ALWAYS be backed up at the same time!

The FILE DIRECTORY file

This also resides in the MAIN subdirectory, and contains the data for all files you have set up for download, either by installing using the SYSOP menu, or by uploading. The notes above for the message files apply in exactly the same way.

The CALLERS file

This is not a file you really need to back up, as it is not essential to the correct working of the system. It's still put into the MAIN subdirectory, in that it is updated while the system is running - for a complete save of your entire system status then this file may also be included in the backup procedure.

The MENU and HELP files

These are not changed while the system is running, and to make the backup procedure easier, have been separated into their own MENUS subdirectory, in that there is no need for them to be saved. The Help files are named HLPxxxx, where xxxx is the subject the help relates to. HLPL is the main help screen. The names of the other files should tell you reasonably clearly what they are for. To personalize your system, you will need to go through all of these files and change the texts to those you would like your users to see while running the system. Two of the files must be mentioned in particular, however:

CONFER   : list of available conferences
DIRLIST  : list of available file directories

These two files SHOULD be changed to reflect what you did when you configured the system, even if you change none of the others.

You should probably also change some or all of the BULLETx files as they will not necessarily be relevant to your system.