GremNOS v0.3
============

These are brief release notes for GremNOS v0.3.  GremNOS is a variant of
KA9Q, based on Demon Internet's version 2.16d, and was originally developed
by Graham E. Kinns up to v0.2 in November 1997.  It has subsequently been
tweaked and extended slightly by Pete Disdale and Simon Turner.

Changes between v0.2c and v0.3 are:

   1.	NNTP posting: news articles may be posted direct to the news server
	with the NNTP POST command, rather than relying on increasingly flaky
	mail2news gateways.  This is done in a manner similar to YAN;
	articles for posting are placed in ...\SPOOL\NQUEUE\*.TXT, and will
	be posted immediately after connection to the news server, before the
	download of new articles (unless the server's opening response
	indicates that it is a read-only server).  A degree of control over
	the news posting/collection process is available with the "nntp post"
	command, which has three forms:

	nntp post on	Enable NNTP posting; attempt to post all available
			articles at the next NNTP connection, then collect
			new news articles as usual (default)

	nntp post off	Disable NNTP posting; just collect new articles

	nntp post only	Enable NNTP posting, but do not collect new articles
			afterwards

	As well as the obvious ability to (a) post and collect, (b) collect
	only, or (c) post only, this system also provides a workaround for
	the occasionally-requested "post after collecting" feature (which is
	somewhat difficult to provide otherwise): start with "nntp post off"
	and do the news collection as usual, then do "nntp post only" and
	"nntp kick" to reconnect to the news server and upload your queued
	posts.

   2.	SMTP client "$smarthost" macro: if the destination system specified
	in the first line of a mail message's WRK file is the special string
	"$smarthost", the message is sent to the machine specified in the
	"smtp gateway" command in AUTOEXEC.NET.  This means that your mail
	program can create the WRK file without needing to know which ISP you
	will be using to send the mail, and the appropriate SMTP smarthost
	relay will be used at connect time to send the mail.  This should (we
	hope) work the same way as YAN's $smarthost feature.

   3.	"at" command: the full "date and time" specification has been fixed
	to deal correctly with years from 2000 onwards; and you may now
	optionally specify seconds in the "at now+..." command by using the
	format "at now+hhmmss" (the old format "at now+hhmm" is retained for
	backwards compatibility).

   4.	The SMTP server no longer relays in QUEUE mode unless relaying is
	turned on.

   5.	If unknown port logging is turned on, incoming TCP port probes are
	now noted on the display as well as just logged in NOS.LOG.  Note
	that unknown port logging is not enabled in any of the normal builds
	of GremNOS, so this change will not affect most users.

   6.	Changed the startup banner message to provide updated author and
	contact details.

Source code (all those files which have changed since GeK's 0.2 release) and
various compiled binary builds are available.  All builds have the new
NNTP_POST and SMARTHOST options turned on to enable the new features; I've
been forced to remove the MAILBOX option from the Large build to keep the
program compilable.  If anybody needs a Large build with the MAILBOX option,
contact me and we can sort something out.

The changed source code files are available in gnos03s.zip; you will also
need the full v0.2 source to compile the program.

The following binary builds are available (Zip files contain NET.EXE only):

  lrge_03.zip	Large - this is the replacement for the standard 'large'
		version of Demon KA9Q v2.16d, including NNTP posting, packet
		driver support, FTP server, RIP, Z-modem, etc. but (for v0.3)
		*excluding* the old telnet mailbox.

  lite_03.zip	Lite - this is a cut down version aimed at dialup use which
		should have considerably more free memory available than the
		Large model. It excludes packet driver support, telnet
		mailbox, FTP server, RIP, Z-modem, finger server, DOS shell,
		remote client & server, ttylink server, DNS server, packet
		tracing and IP filter but includes additional dialler logging
		commands and John Washington's http URL grabber.

  twlt_03.zip	TW-Lite - this is the TextWin version of the Lite model;
		feature list is otherwise exactly the same as Lite.

  pklt_03.zip	PK-Lite - this is the Lite build with packet driver support
		added.

  tplt_03.zip	TP-Lite - this is the TextWin version of the PK-Lite build.

I'm sure this is obvious, but please note that the "Packet + Lite" build of
GremNOS, which is called "PK-Lite", has nothing to do with PKWARE's
executable compression software PKLite.

Send e-mail to <gremnos@twoplaces.co.uk> if you have any queries, requests,
suggestions etc.


Simon Turner
8 April 2002