RemoteAccess System Statistics Version 1.00 A Configurable User/System Statistics Generator For RemoteAccess 1.00 (c) Copyright 1991, by Kenneth R. Doebler All Rights Reserved Released on 3/23/91 DISCLAIMER: "RSS is supplied as is. The author disclaims all warrantees, expressed or implied, including, without limitation, the warrantees of merchantability and of fitness for any purpose. The author assumes no liability for damages, direct or consequential, which may result from the use of RSS." DISTRIBUTION: RSS is distributed in archived form. The distribution archive should contain the following files: RSS EXE 46315 3-23-91 1:00a RSS DOC 14204 3-23-91 1:00a SOFTRES DOC 1579 3-23-91 1:00a If your distribution archive is missing any of these files, or if any of your files are different from the above list, you do not have an original distribution archive. Please contact me at the address or number listed at the end of this document. You may obtain the latest official distribution archive at any time from The Software Resource, listed at the end of this document. You are encouraged to pass a copy of RSS along to your friends or post it on Bulletin Boards for downloading, provided that you: 1) Do not modify or alter the original program or documentation files in any way. 2) Pass along the complete archive with all files included, in it's original unmodified form. 3) Do not distribute the archive in conjunction with any commercial or money making endeavor of any kind without prior consent of the author. If you are in doubt about the contents of your distribution archive or any of the above items, please contact me via netmail or call The Software Resource at the address and number listed at the end of this document. ONWARD: RSS is a utility for use with RemoteAccess 1.00. RSS will read your Users.Bbs file and generate a screen of statistics that can be displayed using RA's Type 5 menu command, or any of the other functions which display an ANS/ASC file. Sorry, no AVT files yet.. I have no idea how to generate AVATAR files, however, someone was nice enough to forward some info on AVATAR, so I may be able to include this in future releases. This is the first official public release of RSS. It has been tested on several systems running RemoteAccess 1.00 with good results and should work as expected. Every effort has been made to find and eliminate all bugs in the testing process. RSS will not harm or modify any of your RA system files in any way, so you may use it without fear of possible dire results. RSS is a snap to set up and use. Please give the sections below a quick browse for details. What does RSS do? RSS is basically a User/System statistics generator. RSS will read your Users.Bbs file and generate a report screen which can then be displayed online via RA's Type 5 or similar menu command. The report screens generated look something like the following: RemoteAccess System Statistics for [Your System Name] Total system calls ................................... xxxx Total number of users ................................. xxx Total messages posted ................................. xxx Total downloads ....................................... xxx Total download kbytes ............................... xxxxx Total uploads ......................................... xxx Total upload kbytes .................................. xxxx Average calls per user ................................. xx Average time used per call ............................. xx Average messages posted per user ....................... xx Average user security level ............................ xx Average downloads per user ............................. xx Average download kbytes per user ...................... xxx Average uploads per user ............................... xx Average upload kbytes per user ........................ xxx Press [Enter] To Continue: RSS automatically excludes the Sysop (or User Record #0) from the summary of stats. If your Sysop User Record is anything like mine, it would render the stats useless. :) In order to make RSS more configurable for individual Sysops, I have included a Configuration Menu within RSS which will allow you to select which statistics are displayed and which are not. You may also enable/disable the screen clearing codes and prompt lines via the config menu as well as select the colors used in the .ANS screen generated by RSS. Including the configuration code within the main program resulted in extra overhead for the RSS.EXE file, however, this seemed to be the best choice for overall efficiency and easy of use. I prefer keeping the RSS distribution archive as small as possible, and adding a separate configuration program would have increased it's size substantially. RSS will generate one .ANS and one .ASC file, with a screen clearing code at the top of each, and the prompt "Press [Enter] To Continue: " at the bottom by default. A default set of colors is also used in the .ANS file. The .ANS/.ASC files generated will automatically be placed in your \TXTFILES directory as defined in CONFIG.RA. Look for the text files RSS.ANS and RSS.ASC in this directory after you run RSS. RSS will not harm any of your RA system files in any way. I repeat this for anyone who may be wondering about potential dangers to your RA files. RSS only reads the RA system files, and does no writing to those files whatsoever. Isn't that a relief! What does RSS need to run? RSS.EXE would typically be run from your main RA system directory (\RA), however, you can run it from just about anywhere if you have your RA environment variable set (RA=Drive:\Path). RSS will read the DOS environment and search for the "RA=Drive:\Path" info to find out where your RA system files are located. If you have the path that holds RSS.EXE in your DOS search PATH line, you can execute RSS from any directory or drive. RSS will first attempt to find your RA path information in the environment, and if it finds nothing there (no "RA=xxx"), it will search the current directory for your RA system files. If you do not set your RA environment variable, or if you're in doubt about all this, the simplest thing to do is place RSS.EXE in your main RA system directory (\RA) and run it from there. RSS reads CONFIG.RA to obtain the paths to your Users.BBS file and your TextFiles (*.ANS/ASC). RSS also grabs your System Name from the CONFIG.RA file for use in the screens it creates. RSS also takes a quick peek at SysInfo.Bbs to grab the total system calls number. RSS will use the total calls found in SysInfo.Bbs for the Total System Calls display line, however, RSS will use the sum of all the active user's calls for calculating the averages.. i.e., Average Calls Per User, and so on. If the file RSS.CFG exists in your RA system directory (\RA), then RSS will also read it's configuration information from this file when it fires up. In a nutshell: RSS can be run from any directory or drive as long as you set your RA environment variable (RA=Drive:\Path). If you're in doubt about how to do this, please see your RA docs or simply run RSS from your main RA system directory (\RA). That's about it. How do I set up RSS? The first time you run RSS, you should run it with the "-c" command line option, or "RSS -c". This will bring up RSS's Configuration Menu and create a file called RSS.CFG in your RA system directory (\RA\). The Configuration Menu should be self-explanatory. The "-c" Configure RSS option will allow you to control what statistics RSS reports and which ones it leaves out. Handy for suppressing those potentially embarrasing ones like Average Upload Kbytes Per User! Simply toggle the items you wish to include/exclude in the statistics screens and exit. RSS will automatically save the changes if any were made. The "-c" Configure RSS option also allows you to specify whether you want RSS to put screen clearing codes in the .ANS/ASC files it generates. In addition, you may tell RSS to include the prompt line "Press [Enter] To Continue: " in your screens or exclude it if you like. These two options should make it easier to use some of the other RA display commands, rather than just Type 5 only. And, as a final touch, the "-c" Configure RSS option also allows you to configure the colors which RSS will use in generating the RSS.ANS screen file. This will let you configure RSS to fit in with your overall color scheme. If you do not run RSS with the "-c" option, no RSS.CFG file will ever be generated, and RSS will default to displaying all statistics as well as including screen clearing codes and prompt lines. A default set of colors will also be used in the .ANS screen. You'll need to set up a menu type 5 command (Display ANS/ASC File) in one of your menus to display the output files created by RSS. You can use any of the RA display commands you like, however, it seems to be easiest to use a type 5 and simply put the file name "RSS" in the Optional Data field. I have a menu option called "E)xtra Info" on my main menu for displaying the RSS stats screen. How do I run RSS? To run RSS, just type "RSS". RSS can be run as part of your batch file after each caller logs off, or alternately, during your nightly maintenance. RSS should be fast enough to run after each caller, but if you prefer, it can be run once a day. Note: Needless to say, do not run RSS with the "-c" command line option from your batch file or RSS will sit there patiently waiting for you to do something. What else is there to know? Well, there isn't much else to it! RSS is a pretty simple program for RA and it's something that I created while playing with the BBS here and browsing thru the RASTRUCT information. I wanted something like this for my system to display general User stats and I thought some other Sysops running RA might enjoy it also. It's mostly just for fun! I have avoided putting any kind of "advertising" or annoying junk in the display screens created by RSS. I personally dislike seeing all kinds of crud in screens created by RA utilities, and I think most other Sysops can easily live without it also. If people want to know where an RA utility came from, they can easily ask the Sysop and find out. That's just my personal feeling on this, so I've left RSS "clean" and free of "plugs". RSS is free to anyone interested in using it. No registration, no fees, nothing.. If you like it, and enjoy using it, that's great. Send me a note via netmail and tell me you like it. It'd make me feel good. If you don't like it, and don't wish to use it, that's fine also.. I can sympathize with you. There's nothing worse than disliking a BBS utility and forcing yourself to use it anyway. I have tried to make RSS as configurable as possible and hopefully some of you will enjoy using RSS. RSS was written and compiled using Microsoft's BASIC 7.1 PDS (Professional Development System) with a little additional help from Microsoft's MASM 5.1. My special thanks to those who helped in the beta testing of RSS, and who have provided suggestions, bug reports and other helpful comments on RSS: David Boehm The General Store Fidonet 1:102/134 Basil Groman Branson's Remote Access Fidonet 1:284/100 Mike Janke Kendall BBS Fidonet 1:135/4 Gary Vedvik The Library Fidonet 1:102/1006 Please check RSS out and see how it works on your system. If you find any bugs please let me know via netmail or on the BBS. If you have any ideas or suggestions for improving RSS, I'd like to hear about them also. I can't commit much of my time to working on BBS utilities, but I would like to do so as long as it remains "just for fun". Thanks, and enjoy.. Ken The Software Resource 24 Hours A Day 1200-2400 bps (213) 214-2018 Fidonet Address: 1:102/330 Torrance, California And finally.. BASIC PDS and MASM are (c) Copyright Microsoft Corporation, 1981-1990.