On 30 Dec 2023, apam said the following...

The tricky part is distribution, everyone expects an ftp server that
can dynamically create a QWK file to download on request. In my mind
it would have made more sense to use HTTP, then you could just have a
php script or something create the qwk packet - but I don't know the history.

The history goes back to dial-up days when you had to dial in and have
the dialing software run a script to exchange packets with the hub. Some BBSes may have had a more automated way of doing that, but it predates
the internet.

I was talking about the history of synchronet and why ftp was chosen over http. Deon has corrected me as http is also supported.

Andrew

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Re: Re: 2023 > 2024
By: fusion to deon on Sun Dec 31 2023 02:31 pm

Howdy,

mystic can use qwkpoll to import qwk packets that were previously wget-ed. so you're not stuck with qwkpoll doing ftp internally.. it just wouldn't be as automagic .. i think mystic by default will do "qwkpoll all" which would do nothing for a default config, but just automatically work if you add a qwk hub in mystic -cfg.. whereas you'd have to replace that event with a script to wget the packet, import it, check it was imported correctly.. have the script pass along the exitstatus so mystic is happy.. not as clean but certainly not venturing into hackish territory.

For something like mystic, it might just be even more simpler to use binkp...?

I'd could even set up to wget normal packets (I actually have all the ground work in place to do this), so that it negates the need to use a mailer/binkp, and I think this would only be worthwhile if you were in scripting territory anyway (like if you were using a non-mailer BBS and didnt want to spin up a mailer to get/send packets)...?


...δεσ∩
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