


                        FrontDoor; Dumb Utility 1.10

                                User Guide

                      Colin Turner - Piglet Productions




       1. INTRODUCTION

       1.1 LEGAL NOTICE

         FrontDoor is a registered trademark of Joaquim Homrighausen.
         Other brands and product names are trademarks or registered
         trademarks of their respective holders.

         This publication is protected by international copyright laws
         and treaty provisions. It may only be distributed and used in
         accordance with those laws and treaty provisions.

         FDDU is provided to you "as is", without warranties of
         any kind. In no event shall Piglet Productions be liable to you or
         anyone else for any damages or costs arising from the use or
         inability to use this program.

         FDDU is protected by copyright laws, and may not be
         modified, reversed engineered, sold or distributed in any way that
         would involve some sort of trade, without written permission from
         Piglet Productions.

         FDDU may be used without charge by anyone that is running
         a registered copy of the shareware version of FrontDoor, or the
         commercial version of FrontDoor.

         FDDU may also be used during the 30-day trial/evaluation
         period of the shareware version of FrontDoor. After this period,
         FrontDoor must be registered if you want to continue using this
         program (or FrontDoor).


       1.2 USING THIS DOCUMENT

         This document is intended to be a reference guide for FDDU
         It makes the assumption that the reader understands the basics of
         the FrontDoor Mailer (FD).


       1.3 WHAT THIS PROGRAM DOES

         FrontDoor Dumb Utility (FDDU) is intended to make running non
         FD aware .MSG utilities safer on multiline or multitasking systems.
         These programs do not check that they have exclusive access to the
         NetMail folder and problems could arise from both FrontDoor and the
         utility altering the same messages at the same time.

         FDDU helps by providing a shell around the other program which
         does all the required semaphore checking.


       1.4 SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

         FDDU does not require any special components to be installed on
         your system.


       1.5 INSTALLATION

         Copy the files contained in the distribution archive into any
         directory on your system.

         FDDU must be able to find the FrontDoor configuration file
         SETUP.FD, either in the directory pointed to by the FD environment
         variable or in the current directory (that is, the same directory
         as FDDU.EXE).



       2. USAGE

         Before using FDDU you should establish that you actually require
         the program.

         If you run FrontDoor single line on a single tasking system then
         you do not require FDDU as it is impossible for FrontDoor and the
         utility to be running at the same time.

         If you have a program that is FrontDoor aware then you should not
         use FDDU on it, as when FDDU creates the busy semaphores and
         launches the other utility, that utility is unable to run due
         to the presence of the other busy semaphores.



       2.1 ESTABLISHING IF YOUR PROGRAM REQUIRES FDDU

         If you are unsure if the utility in question supports FrontDoor
         semaphores or not try this simple test.

         1. Quit all FrontDoor tasks.

         2. Place the two files FDRENUM.1 and FDSCAN.1 in the semaphore
            directory. (You can manually create semaphores using the command
            REM>C:\FD\RENUM.1 for example, adjusting for the semaphore path).

         3. Now try to run your utility, if it pauses after finding these
            files, you should NOT use FDDU on it, as it is already aware.

         4. Don't forget to remove those semaphores you created before
            restarting FrontDoor.

         Also, if the utility requires a long time to run, consider putting
         it in your daily maintenance event when all FrontDoor tasks are
         down or Frozen, rather than using FDDU.


       2.3 RUNNING THE UTILITY

         FDDU is easy to use, it spawns out to the child process, that is
         the utility which is not FrontDoor aware if and only if it has
         been able to establish that it is safe to run, and clears up
         and busy semaphores after the child process quits.

         FDDU takes a number of parameters discussed below, but the most
         important is /P. This parameter is the last FDDU parameter and
         signifies that what follows is the command line to be run.



       3. COMMAND LINE PARAMETERS

         FDDU supports the following parameters:


         /RES

         Force a rescan (of the NetMail folder and the Static Queue) after
         the child utility has run.


         /NS

         Create a SCAN busy semaphore during the run.


         /NR

         Create a RENUM busy semaphore during the run.


         /W

         Wait for up to 30 secnds if busy semaphores are found. If the
         semaphores are not cleared, FDDU will quit and NOT run the child
         process.


         /W:<sec>

         Wait for the specified number of seconds if busy semaphores are
         found. See above for more details.


         /S

         Equivalent to /RES /NS /NR /W all together (safe mode). Best to use
         if you are unsure of what semaphores may be required.


         /S:<sec>

         Equivalent to /RES /NS /NR /W:<sec> all together. See above for
         more details.


         /RET

         FDDU will return with the child utility exit errorlevel.


         /LOG:<filename>

         This will log FDDU activity to a FrontDoor style logfile.


         /D:<Level>

         Extra debugging info in the log. A number between 0 and 9, where
         0 represents no extra logging and 9 represents maximum logging.


         /D

         Equivalent to /D:9 (maxmum logging).


         /P

         The last FDDU command line parameter. All that follows (after white
         space) forms the command line to be run by FDDU.


         The parameters may be in any order, except that /P MUST be the last
         FDDU parameter.


         EXAMPLE:

           FDDU /S:20 /RET /P C:\NETMGR\NETMGR.EXE -cNET.CFG

           Translates to

           1. Wait for up to 20 seconds if FD is busy scanning or
              renumbering.

           2. As we are in "/S" (Safe) mode, create both busy semaphores.

           3. Now run the command

              C:\NETMGR\NETMGR.EXE -cNET.CFG

              Note the space after the /P, and that ALL parameters after
              that refer to the child process.

           4. Kill the busy semaphores we made.

           5. As we are in safe mode, the "/S" implies /RES. Therefore we
              create rescan semaphores to prompt any running copies of FD or
              FM to check for changed netmail contents.

           6. Because of the "/RET" parameter, we will return to DOS with the
              errorlevel the child process finished with. Allowing us to
              examine the exit in the batch file normally.



       4. ERRORLEVELS

         NOTE: If the /RET command line parameter is used these errorlevels
         are incorrect. FDDU will instead return the errorlevel with which
         the child utility exited.


         FDDU uses the following errorlevels when it exits.

         0       No errors.
         1       Parameter error.
         2       Error handling SETUP.FD.
         10      Spawn error calling child.



       5. OTHER INFORMATION

         Thanks are due to Joaquim Homrighausen for FrontDoor and for the
         FrontDoor Development toolkit.

         This product uses the SPAWNO routines by Ralf Brown to minimize
         memory use while shelling to DOS and running other programs.



       6. DISTRIBUTION

         This is a Piglet Productions program, developed and distributed
         from

         The Heart Of Gold BBS

         +44-1247-274919         2:443/13.0
         +44-1247-273172         2:443/14.0

         Both lines also support FAX.

         WWW: http://www.piglets.com

         For support, NetMail Colin Turner at 2:443/13.0 or,
         email support@piglets.com.

-=-

The product was brought to you by the letter "G" and the number 2.

// End of file FDDU.TXT


