BinkP Setup

How to join an Echomail network or netmail-peer with another BBS.

Every install already has one network pre-configured and waiting:
ANotherNetwork, hub bbs.a-net.fyi, zone 1200 — see
ANotherNetwork. Everything below also applies to activating that
one; you're just filling in a node number instead of registering a
whole new network from scratch.

What you need

• Your node address assigned by the network coordinator
  (e.g. 21:1/199)
• The uplink's host, port, and session password
• A short list of echo areas you want to subscribe to
• A few free hours on a weekend

Step 1 — register the network

/admin/echomail/ → Add Network. Fields:

Optional but useful:

• CRAM-MD5 if your uplink supports it (most modern hubs do)
• TLS if the hub speaks BinkP-over-TLS

Step 2 — register echo areas

/admin/echomail/areas → Add Area. The tag must exactly match
the network's tag (BBS_SCENE, fsx_gen, etc.) — coordinator will
have a list.

Step 3 — first poll

On the network's row in /admin/echomail/ (Networks list), click
Poll Now — it runs an immediate BinkP session in the background
and flashes a confirmation; watch /admin/echomail/logs for
handshake success and "received N packets". On the first poll you'll
often get a big initial dump as the uplink catches your node up.

Step 4 — automated polling (nothing to set up)

Polling is not cron-driven — no cron entry, no external curl
call, no /admin/echomail/schedule/ page. anetbbs-web runs a
background poller thread from the moment it starts, and it polls
every active network on its own Poll Interval (a field on the
network's edit form, in minutes; default 60). Change that field if
you want faster or slower polling for a given network — there's
nothing else to configure.

Areafix

To subscribe to a new area without bothering the coordinator, send a
netmail to the AreaFix user at the uplink's address with your
AreaFix password in the Subject line (per FTS-0024 — not the
body) and one command per line in the body:

Subject: yourareafixpw

+BBS_SCENE
+SYSOP_HELP

ANetBBS has an AreaFix processor for inbound areafix requests
on your own node too — useful if other BBSes peer off you.

TIC files — file-echo distribution

BinkP doesn't only move messages — it moves files too, the same
way, via a file echo. Where a message-echo message carries the
text, a file-echo file is accompanied by a small .TIC control file
(area tag, filename, description, CRC32) that tells every hop along
the chain what the file is and where it's headed. A file dropped into
a network-attached file area (network_id set — ANotherNetwork's
9 ANN.FILES.* areas are the built-in example) gets queued for
outbound TIC distribution automatically the moment it's uploaded, no
manual "send this out" step. See TIC Processor for the full flow,
both inbound and outbound.

Hub Management vs. this page

Everything above (/admin/echomail/ and /admin/echomail/areas) is
about your own node peering out to an uplink — the normal case for
almost every install. A separate admin surface,
/admin/echomail/hub/, only appears if this install is itself
designated the network hub (REGISTRY_MODE_ENABLED=true) and is
about managing downstream nodes that peer off you — see
Sysop Control Panel and QWK for what's in there.

If you're a hub for more than one real network from this one install,
the BinkP node form grows a Hub Identity picker once a second
identity exists — see Sysop Guide, "Running more than one hub
identity." Almost no install needs this.