			Configuration Import.

This utility is a simple program to import the configuration from textfiles.
All these textfiles must have a special layout, look in the source for details.
In the distribution archive are the programs RAEXP and GEEXP. The are two
Turbo Pascal 6.0 utilities to export the configuration of RemoteAccess 2.50
and GEcho 1.11 to the textfiles needed by this program. For export of
tic file processors, you are on your own, I never did use Allfix or FileMgr.

Before seriously switch your whole bbs to Linux, make some testruns, try
the bbs yourself and make sure you're happy with the results you get. 
During this period you can make sure youre ANSI screens and menus work
fine. Btw, you must convert ANSI screens and menus manually, everyone has
such a different look for his bbs that I didn't write utilities for this job.

After converting everything you must move your message bases and files for
download to the Linux server. If you have a network this is easy, install
Samba on the Linux box, Win3.11 on your old DOS bbs and copy the files to
the right places. Anothe possibility is (what I use) is install mars on
the Linux box and let your DOS bbs run as Novell client. Place your files
and mail on the Linux side and your old bbs and this new bbs can have access
to the common files and mail areas. If you don't have a network, the fastest
thing to do is move the harddisk of your old DOS box into the Linux box and
mount this disk and copy the files from your DOS disk to the Linux disk.
Don't think of letting the files on the DOS partition and not copy the files
to a linux disk, this will not work!



I used to use Allfix for a while but it was so buggy that I wrote my own
fileprocessor, nobody else uses it so I don't include a export program.
FileMgr simply came out too late for me.

About the format, the textfiles may not contain the Carriage Return characters,
only linefeeds. The format is simple, every item on one line. Fidonet aka's
must be on four lines, zone, net node and pointnumber. You MUST include the
pointnumber even if it is zero. All records are a fixed number of lines.

Before starting your import, in mbsetup create the Fidonet Networks for all
the networks you have, it is needed by import, it will append the domain to
the fidonet aka's to get full 5d addreses. The program will abort if you
missed one or more zone's.

Also, set the number of export nodes exactly as it is in GEcho, or your import
of echomail configuration will fail.

Before converting from RA, convert all your message areas to JAM. If you use
GEcho this is an easy job. Be sure your whole DOS bbs runs JAM on all areas.

If you import your mail areas, you must first import from RA your message areas
and secondly your echomail setup from GEcho. Why, the setup of GEcho will be
written over the existing message areas, the key is the path to the JAM base.

After that, all the .jlr files contain the wrong data, but if you used RA these
files where screwed up anyway. Run import with the -fixjlr option to clear 
these files. All bbs users will start at the begin of the message bases with
their lastread pointers. Anyway, this is better that wrong lastread pointers.
Offline users hate you for this, but it's a onetime only upgrade.


This is a bit of a cruel method of converting from DOS to a real OS, but when
youre done, there is nothing in the way to connect your bbs on the internet,
install 4 modems on all 4 COM ports (ttys), plug in some ISDN cards, add a
bunch of terminal servers with modems, offer your users news and echomail, 
netmail and e-mail, a http interface and what else you can come up with.


