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          Notes about NetCb for System Managers/Network Managers.

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A few notes for those who maintain a network and doubt about installing NetCb
or are confronted with NetCb usage :

- NetCb doesn't use much bandwidth. Measurements revealed that loading WP.EXE
  once over the network creates as much network traffic as half an hour NetCb
  chatting.
  NetCb sends one packet for each line/action to each available subnetwork.

- NetCB uses RIP (Routing Information Protocol) to find out what all available
  networks are. This means NetCB imposes as a possible router and asks the
  nearest router for it's routing table.
  These calls are fully documented. They can not be disabled on servers or
  routers.

- NetCb doesn't create broadcast storms (lots of packets send at once).
  Several checks are built in to avoid this :
  - No empty lines can be send.
  - Users can only send one line/second.
  - When receiving a packet requesting for the user information (Alt-W),
    NetCb will wait (randomly) up to half a second before responding with
    an answer packet.
  - When waiting at the 'Enter nickname' prompt at the start the network
    communications are closed down.
  - NetCb is connectionless. Chat packets are broadcast (send to ethernet
    address FFFFFFFFFFFF) to each subnet and are not checked for reception.

- NetCb does some strange things when run to avoid any tampering with the
  executable file, this can alert some virus protection software, especially
  F-PROT. When you have NetCb directly from an ftp site, it should be virus
  free. You can check with a virus scanner to be absolutely sure.

- Maybe you just don't like people using the network for something else then
  the purpose it was bought for. Gee, that's too bad for you. I think a
  network is a great way of connecting people with eachother. But then you're
  maybe also one of those system managers snooping around users directories
  looking for things that don't belong there (Hmm.. is that how you located
  this document??) ;-). Let it be. Share and enjoy!
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