-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- - -------- Forwarded message -------- Date: Mon, 5 Dec 1994 12:11:58 -0500 (EST) From: Michelle Montpetite <michelle@americast.com> To: skaplin@mirage.skypoint.com Subject: Freeport Here is the information you requested on Freeport software. Sincerely, Michelle Montpetite ****************************************************************************** *Michelle Montpetite E-MAIL: Michelle@Americast.com * *Account Manager PHONE : (216) 498-5100 * *American Cybercasting FAX : (216) 498-5101 * * http://www.americast.com * ****************************************************************************** FreePort Version 2.3 Product Overview Case Western Reserve University FreePort provides a simple, extensible, menu driven bulletin board system for Unix BSD systems. FreePort is designed to be used by people with little or no knowledge of computers yet still provide all of the benefits of today's powerful, computer based information systems. The more sophisticated computer users may bypass some of the basic functions of FreePort in order to streamline their access. In this way FreePort is adaptable to users of all levels of expertise. Features Accessible from any asynchronous terminal or microcomputer Except as noted here, all functions are available from any asynchronous terminal or any computer with terminal emulation software. If the user's terminal has intelligent cursor-control, FreePort supports full-screen (in addition to line) editing and cursor-based selection of menu items. Support for some devices may require editing of a configuration file. File transfers require the user to have a computer. Menu interface The menu interface presents information and FreePort functions as a hierarchy of menus. Menu selection is the user's basic navigation tool. Commonly accessed menus may be assigned aliases for direct jumping to the desired menu. Some system-wide functions, including context-sensitive on-line help are available from any menu. Your system administrator defines the individual menus and linking among menus to correspond to your view of your information. Selecting a menu item launches the menu or Unix program associated, by that menu, with that item. User Profile Access rights are configurable by user group. Anonymous users have read-only access (e.g. they cannot post to the bulletin boards nor send e-mail); registered users have full normal access; and authorized bulletin-board operators have additional privileges to manage the portions of the information hierarchy delegated to them. Additional privileges may be defined by your system administrator. Each registered user has an electronic mail address and mailbox, a modifiable user profile, and a disk work area. Portions of the profile (e.g. name, e-mail address, and interest keywords) are searchable by other FreePort users. The work area is for temporary storage of files saved from the bulletin board, mail, and file transfer systems. Electronic Mail Users may send (and receive) electronic mail to other FreePort users. If the system is connected to a TCP/IP network, electronic mail extends to any user@host reachable through that network. Mail is received into the user's private mailbox. Users may browse the mailbox at their leisure --searching for or selecting messages to read, search, save, delete, or forward. Messages may be composed using one of the built-in text editors or uploaded from the user's computer. Bulletin Boards A bulletin board is much like a public mailbox. It is often used to implement a discussion group as well as the electronic equivalent of the traditional corkboard. Every user may read and save a copy of, but not modify, existing messages on the bulletin board. Users may post their own messages through an e-mail-like interface. On an open bulletin board, posted messages immediately appear for reading by all. On a moderated board, posted messages are first filtered by a human moderator who may post to the actual bulletin board. For each user, the system remembers which messages on each bulletin board he has read (or marked as read). Multi-user Chat Users may interactively chat with others on chat areas analogous to CB radio channels. The chat system moderates and distributes the contributions of each to the others on the channel. Voting Authorized users may post issues for voting by the user community. An issue posting defines the issue text to be presented to users, and the predefined and/or free formatted answers allowed. Users may go to the voting area, select an issue, and vote through a bulletin board like interface. The system maintains running tallies which may optionally be displayed. File transfer A user may send files to other FreePort users, upload/download files to his computer using the Kermit or {XYZ}Modem serial line protocols, and transfer files to/from systems on a TCP/IP network using FTP. Gateway to other systems on a network If the FreePort system is on a TCP/IP network, "padded cell" versions of Telnet and ftp provide user connections to external administrator-selected service systems (including other FreePorts) on that network. Miscellaneous Other features include a text file viewer, a simple database system, system usage logging, an automated address taker, session time limits, and a function to get a list of on-line users. Interoperable with other systems FreePort is designed for maximum interoperability with other internet information resources. It utilizes popular publicly available layered products to implement the underlying communications services. Thus it is compatible today and will interoperate as these layered products evolve to use new standards. The layered products and standards include: * The Berkeley Unix sendmail, or compatible * C-News bulletin board service and various library routines written at the University of Toronto * Internet Relay Chat server written at University of Oulu (Finland) and client written at Boston University * Kermit serial file transfer service written at Columbia University * Telnet, ftp and various library routines written at the University of California FreePort is configured to run on a single computer system containing the above layered products. Installation by knowledgeable Unix Systems Programmers in a distributed computing services environment of multiple computer systems is possible, though not supported. Extensible The programs provided give you the tools needed to set up and run a simple bulletin board system. Without modifying any source code or recompiling any programs, you can expand the BBS as far as your imagination (and system resources) permit. The BBS software uses Ascii files and any available Unix programs to build a system that you can modify and expand. Menus can be updated and new sections added to the running system without interrupting service. System Prerequisites Hardware Prerequisites User access ports You must provide some way for your users to access the system. FreePort will work with any method (e.g. modems, serial lines, and remote login) which establishes a login session to your FreePort service system. Network connection (optional) If your FreePort system is connected to a TCP/IP network, you may participate with other information services on that network. Examples include: e-mail, file transfer, other FreePort systems, Usenet bulletin boards, remote data feeds, and remote login. Disk space You will need disk for your host Unix operating system and utilities, program maintenance, electronic mail queues, bulletin boards, user mailboxes and work areas, and the information files that you make available to your users. Disk space requirements are dominated by the data that you wish to keep on-line. * Installation and maintenance of FreePort and its prerequisite programs requires about 60MB. * Mail queue and bulletin board space depend on your anticipated e-mail traffic and the amount of information that you wish to retain in bulletinboards. Cleveland Free-Net runs the FreePort software and currently retains about 1000MB of bulletin boards alone. * Mailboxes and user work areas are quota controlled. You might use 100KB per user for an initial estimate. Performance FreePort runs on workstation or larger Unix systems. Performance of your system depends on the type of information services that you provide and on the nature of your clients' use of the system. We have found the following configurations to be satisfactory for the CWRU and Cleveland Free-Net user communities. IBM RT/115 with 8MB memory serving 10 simultaneous users IBM RT/135 with 16MB memory serving 24 simultaneous users Software Prerequisites Operating system FreePort is dependent on Unix BSD 4.3 features. It does not currently run on System 5 R3, AIX, or compatible systems. Operating systems that FreePort is known to run under include SunOS 3.5 or newer, DEC Ultrix 3.0, and IBM/4.3. Prerequisite software FreePort is distributed in source code. You will need typical Unix program development tools including an C compiler, yacc, and linker. The publicly available layered software mentioned above is available from various ftp sites on the internet, or is available from CWRU as a complete collection of the prerequisite source code. Support staff Depending on the size of your planned system, support staffing may vary from one to several full-time staff. Most of the effort in operating FreePort goes to the management of information sources and users. Staff functions include technical support, operations, administration, and user support. Installation and maintenance of the FreePort software requires an experienced Unix Systems Programmer. The technical support person requires 'root' access to install and configure the various prerequisite communications software. The system runs with little or no operator intervention. The major operations duty is filesystem backups. System administration duties include architecting the menu hierarchy, installing new menus, authorizing new Sysops and adding users, coordinating Sysops, and arbitrating usage conflicts. The Cleveland Free-Net, for example, has over 400 volunteer Sysops who each husband a delegated information area in the system. More Information Try it out. If you would like to see what FreePort can do, you may connect to the Cleveland Free-Net any time of the day or night. The Cleveland Free-Net is running FreePort plus some experimental extensions which may appear in a future release. The modem pool phone number is (216)368-3888. If you have internet access, you may telnet to one of the following addresses (the IP addresses may change without notice): node name IP address freenet-in-a.cwru.edu 129.22.8.82 freenet-in-b.cwru.edu 129.22.8.75 freenet-in-c.cwru.edu 129.22.8.76 The system will invite you to become a register user. You may "explore the system" as a visitor, or you may apply to be a registered user so that you can send mail, post messages and participate in the chat areas. Licensing A 5-year renewable FreePort 2.3 license for a nonprofit site is $850 ($2800 for-profit). The software is shipped as a "tar" file on 8mm Exabyte cartridge, or for extra cost, on 1/2" magnetic tape or DC6150 cartridge. The software is AS IS. Additional consulting services are available, as needed, from the American Cybercasting Corporation (separate Fee Required). For the license agreement and other information contact: American Cybercasting Corporation P.O. Box 575 Aurora, Ohio 44202 Phone: (216) 247-0770 FAX: (216)247-0778 Internet: USA@AmeriCast.Com Unix is a trademark of AT&T ### ============================================================================== There is only one honest impulse at the bottom of Puritanical religion, and that is the impulse to punish the man with a superior capacity for happiness. --H. L. Mencken-- ============================================================================== skaplin@skypoint.com | "...vidi vici veni" - Overheard | outside a Roman brothel. PGP encrypted mail is accepted and | preferred. | Change is the only constant in the | Universe..."Four quarters, please." E-mail key@four11.com for PGP Key or | Finger skaplin@mirage.skypoint.com | Smile!! Big brother is watching. ============================================================================== -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQEVAwUBLuPt88lnXxBRSgfNAQHENAf6A4xtufivzZZ3a3+RXNudDOQYoDSuZTN4 ctffGV0f0j/0Iy+YONixLHKT8z1KyaxeJkA1l8Ed0oFFA+PP5+Pr1jSkgt71+VYQ J8/ASYI/Msp0RMjU+E79zHQLWD/o8YCkyQGRywHGc2ZJwfzLEQdQ9A93JLB8hRMM uu5e6pfBF+LqlAQvYDuN310z8+OZ2KvARdS2pklzI2ZZvFhxIcoSxHKglqLo/EvA Ug1oEyAraHrcEosoAAzlHY5LNRhK2ZlmahEglmIFGkSGpYDA/FbpB+O4i3r0JT4R m45YMVg2IRiA+Wqla3Gzkb/baAAEdrXVhK7U+XnVwrz21vGFDrgKOw== =ve5i -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- This message digitally signed to verify the identity of the writer.