Falcon CBCS UserPurge V1.15 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ (c) David Dustin / ECLIPSE Software 6 December, 1992 Preface ~~~~~~~ The programs and files in this distribution are freely distributable, but are also Copyright (c) David Dustin. They may be freely distributed as long as no more than a minimum fee is charged to cover time and copying costs. Permission is given for this distribution archive to be placed into Public-Domain collections such as the Amiga Library run by Fred Fish. If you do decide to make use of UserPurge, you are suggested to send any form of donation or gift as payment. This will get you the latest version of UserPurge, and also any other programs I have released. Written in 100% pure assembly using Devpac 3.02. The source code is enclosed in this archive. If you make any changes, and decide to release a version to the general public, please at least send me a copy, so I know not to use the same revision number. If you do have any suggestions, bug notes or ideas about this program, or if you would like to donate something, please let me know. Write to me at the following address: David Dustin 30 Richmond Ave Palmerston North NEW ZEALAND Or I can be contacted via: dave@dogbox.acme.gen.nz Contents ~~~~~~~~ 1. An introduction 2. Usage 2a Excluding users 2b Blacklisting users 3. History 4. Credits / Copyrights 1. An Introduction ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Userpurge was written because I was sick and tired of people only logging in once, and then never calling again. This led to the system slowing down, as it had to try and find a space for a new user in a database of 130+ users. I was sick of having to go into Falcon, do a list of the users, write down when they last called, and then kill the inactive users. As of version 1.12, UserPurge only works with Kickstart V37+, and may be used from the CLI/Shell or from the Workbench. 2. Usage ~~~~~~~~~ UserInfo can be used either from the CLI or from the Workbench. From the CLI, there is only one option, but if you run UserPurge from the Workbench, there are two possible tooltypes that you have available. The main argument allows you to specify the number of days to make the cut-off date. This defaults to 30, but can be anything upto 128 days. 0 days is illegal, so it will not do anything. From CLI, simply place the number of days after the program name (eg. UserPurge 60) From Workbench, the equivlent tooltype to be placed in the program icon is: DAYS= Where is the number of days that the cut-off is. Also if you run UserPurge from Workbench, you have a secondary ToolType available to you, which tells UserPurge where to find the User.BBS datafile. This is: USERBASE= The only real requirement is that you should be in the directory containing the User.BBS datafile. This is normally the root directory of your BBS, so you should already be in this directory to run the BBS. If UserPurge cannot find the User.BBS file, it will then try to open your Falcon.CFG file, and try to track it down from there. If the file cannot still be found, then UserPurge will exit without doing anything. An entry will be made into your Log.BBS file if you are using one. The will give you some general information about the outcome of running UserPurge. This will tell you the total number of users that have been removed from the User.BBS file. UserPurge also maintains it's own log, called UserPurge.log, which contains the names of the people as they are deleted from the User.BBS. You cannot currently turn the logging off, but I will add the option if someone wants it. As of v1.14, if you maintain a AppFile, when a user is deleted, their information will also be removed from the AppFile. This speeds things up (esp. if you are using UserInfo V2.08), and also allows you to keep a better track of your users. Because the User.BBS file (and optionaly the AppFile) are modified, a backup is made of them before they are changed. This is done by Renaming the file (adding on a .BAK). If (God forbid) something should go wrong while using UserPurge, you can be safe in knowning that your files will still be intact(ish :) The most common way of making use of UserPurge would be to run it via some-sort of Cron program, which will execute it at a certain time each day. One thing that I would like to stress, is to try and make sure that the BBS is NOT in use at the time of running UserPurge. Because of the way that it works, users can be shuffled round in the file, and if a user is on-line at the same time, it will probably corrupt their account, and most likely several others at the same time. 2a. Excluding Users ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Thanks to an idea by Renze, you can now choose to exclude users from the purge. This allows you to keep users that you know only call once in a blue-moon active on the BBS. To make use of this, simply make a text file called UserPurge.Exclude and place it in either the current directory where you run UserPurge from; your S: directory; or in the ENV: directory. Just place the name of each user that you want to keep on a seperate line. Comments can be placed after the name of each user without up-setting anything. This way, you can make a note so you know why they are in the file. 2b. Blacklisting Users ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Once again, Renze came up with another good idea. He was fed up with a certain user (no names :) abusing him, and his BBS, that he asked me to implement a Black-List function of somesort. So here we have it. You have a file similar to the Exclude file, but it is called UserPurge.BAD, and can be placed in the directory as the Exclude file (Current, S: or ENV:). On each line, you simply put the name of the users that you NEVER want to have on the BBS for more than one day (if you run UserPurge everyday). It simply checks the list and if a user has the same name as is in the list, they will be deleted as if they hadn't called in 30days. This is about the best that I could do, due to the limitations of Falcon. If anyone can think of a better way to implent Bad-Users lists, then please tell me (I have a few that I want to keep off as well) 3. History ~~~~~~~~~~~ V1.00 * First release. V1.01 * Added LogTag Comment * Now makes use of my Eclipse.Library V1.04 * Updated LogTag comment to include the number of users removed V1.05 * Added Comandline info (UserPurge ?) * Checks for 0 day cut-off. Now ignores it, and defualts to 30 V1.10 * Added full workbench support (DAYS, USERBASE) V1.11 10 October * Fixed LogTag comment. Wasn't taking into account users that had been removed using the BBS * Removed Commandline Usage V1.12 22 November * Added UserPurge.log * Added option to exclude users from the purge (Thanks Renze :) * Now requires V37+ dos.library * Released seperatly away from my ECLIPSE.library beta test archive V1.13 25 November * Added a black-list (always kill) function * Removed bug. Would probably crash if there was no Exclude file V1.14 26 November * Removes AppFile entry when user is deleted * Fixed error with PurgeLog. If a user had been deleted using Falcon, the log file would have an incorrect entry. * Log now reports the number of users killed each day (same as Log.BBS) V1.15 6 December * Modified Purge log entry slightly 28-Jan-1996 Released into the public domain by the author Dave Dustin 4. Credits / Copyrights ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Main code - David Dustin Ideas/Bug testing - Renze de Ruiter - Dave Hassall - Paul Dunlop - Karl Mottram Workbench Icon - Karl Mottram UserInfo - (c) 1992 David Dustin Falcon CBCS - (c) 1988-91 Brian Fehdrau Devpac 3.02 - (c) 1991 HiSoft Kickstart/Workbench - (c) 1985-91 Commodore-Amiga, Inc.