convers <subcommands>
These commands configure the network conference server. The conference server is similar to IRC keyboard chat.
convers channel [<default_chan_number>] Displays or sets the default channel number, that is the initial channel to which new users are assigned. Default: 0 - Example:
convers channel 2
convers drop [<addr>] Drop the remote convers link to <addr>. See also 'convers link'. If <addr> is not given, all links are dropped. Example:
convers drop 44.26.1.19
convers filter Set how the convers node will respond to connect requests.
convers filter mode [accept | refuse] Sets or displays the filter mode. 'filter mode accept' allows links from only the hosts in the filter list. 'filter mode refuse' allows links from all hosts except those in the list. Default: refuse (nobody)
convers filter [ipaddress | hostname] Adds the host to the filter list used in conjunction with the 'convers filter mode' command.
convers host <name> Displays or set the convers hostname used when announcing the system to conference users or remote links. Maximum length is 10 chars. To stay compatible with early JNOS.EXE based convers servers use a maximum of 8 character for the convers host name (per JNOS-v1.03 or earlier).
If the 'hostname' is set and the 'convers host' isn't set yet, it will be set to the first 10 chars of the 'hostname'. After this, if any sub domains (i.e. periods) exist in the hostname, the convers hostname will be terminated at the right-most period. For Example: If 'converse host' is not set, and 'hostname jnos.wg7j.ampr.org' is set, then after this the converse hostname will be 'jnos.wg7j'. Example:
convers host Corvallis
convers interface [<iface>] [on|OFF] Displays or sets the active convers interfaces. Default is off. This command needs to be given for each interface that which will allow connections to the conference call (see 'convers mycall'); e.g., this command can be used to allow conference call access only on the user ports but not on the backbone/linking ports. This can also be useful to avoid confusion when different nodes have the same conference call. (Locally, we use the call 'QSO' for the conference server for different nodes, and ran into problems when a user tried to connect to it from a backbone node. All of a sudden two nodes were answering the connect!) Example: convers interface port1 on
convers link [<addr> [port] [name]] When no parameters are given, display the list of linked nodes with link status and statistics indicated. When <addr> is given, a new convers link to another (remote) conference server is added.
<addr> is the ip address or hostname of the remote server. A link will be established to this IP if the remote station answers. It is always safe to establishe one link, if more than one link is established some danger of looping exists and converse is at risk of instability.
[port] is the tcp port number to use for the server connection. [port] defaults to 3600 if the "link" option is used, and 3601 if the "xlink" option is used.
[name] is the optional name that will show up in the links listing when the link has not yet been established. [name] can be a maximum of 10 characters; the first character must be a non-integer. After the link has been established, the name will be set to the name with which the remote system introduced itself.
Example:
convers link 44.26.1.19 Testing
convers xlink ... This variation in the converse command (instead of "link") to establish a remote link causes LZW-compressed to be negotiated for conference traffic text (it also requires #define XCONVERS at compile-time).
convers[u|h] maxq [<bytes>] Display or set the upper limit for the number of bytes that can be queued up waiting for transmission on a connection to another server. If there is more data than this limit, the connection to the other server will be closed. Default values are umaxq of 1024 and hmaxq of 5120. If <bytes> is set to 0, there is no limit applied. Normally connections will be reset if there is more than the maxq value data outstanding on the connection. The connections will be RESET instead of gracefully closed.
The sysop able to set individual limits for users with "convers hmaxq ..." and hosts with "convers umaxq ...".
NOTE that any changes will only affect new connections, not existing connections.
convers maxwait [<seconds>] Default: 10800. Display or set the upper limit for the time the system will wait to reestablish a disconnected convers link that originated at this system. Time is given in seconds. Example:
convers maxwait 600
convers mycall <mycall> Display or set the 'conference call'. If set, users can connect to it to get immediately connected to the conference bridge. Conference call connections to <mycall> bypass the regular node interface.
<mycall> is a separate ax.25 callsign. However, each port or interface that this call should be allowed on should be enabled with the 'convers interface' command. This is independent from the settings of 'mbox convers' or whether the network conference server has been started. See also 'convers t4'.
Example:
convers mycall QSO
convers online [long | call | @host] Display a list of convers users known to the convers server. This is the same report as a /who listing made from within the convers facility. The default report is a "quick" format listing of the connected users. The "long" option specified a long-format report, which can be restricted to a particular "call" or "host". Example:
conv on @luzana -or- conv on wu3v -or- conv on
convers setinfo [yes | NO] Display or the set the ability of conference users to change their personal info as stored in /finger/dbase.dat. This sub-command is only available when #define CNV_CHG_PERSONAL when JNOS was compiled.
convers t4 [<seconds>] Default: is 7200 (ie 2hrs). Display or the set the conference call connection T4 timer. The t4 is the 'redundancy timer' for ax.25 connections to the conference server. This allows you to set a different inactivity time-out for ax25 node and conference connections. Example:
convers t4 900
convers tdisc [<seconds>] Default: 0 (i.e. disable idle timeouts). Display or the set the conference call general redundancy timer that applies to all connections to the conference server. Connections which are idle longer than <seconds> will be disconnected. Example: convers tdisc 1200
NOTE: Converse users often wonder why the /help report is not complete. This is because the default compilation options for convers.c include "noblocking". This results in JNOS dropping data destined for any output queue that exceeds certain length limits, and thus ensures that JNOS will not run low on buffer space due to the inability of a slow RF link to process the output queue fast enough. The limits at which lossage occurs depends on how a user connects to JNOS: telnet users are limited by the tcp window size, ax.25 users are limited by the JNOS 'ax25 window' setting, and the local console is limited by the LOCSFLOW constant (2048). The convers.c source could be edited to #undef noblocking, and recompiled in an attempt to rectify this limitation, but (worse?) instability might result!