1 Citadel/UX Sysop/Aide Manual
2 See copyright.doc for copyright information
7 Citadel/UX, when installed properly, will do most of its maintenance by
8 itself. The message file loops upon itself forever, scrolling off old messages
9 to make space for new ones. The room files work in the same way. Other types
10 of maintenance can be done by cron. I have left my system unattended for long
11 periods of time without any software failures.
13 The system has seven access levels. Most users are at the bottom and have no
14 special privileges. Aides are selected people who have special access within
15 the Citadel program. Room Aides only have this access in a certain room.
16 Preferred users can be selected by Aides for access to preferred only rooms. A
17 sysop is anyone who has access to the various sysop utilities - these are in
18 their own executable files, which should have their permissions set to allow
19 only sysops to run them. I recommend either creating a sysops group in
20 /etc/group, or using some other existing group for this purpose.
22 Aides have access to EVERY room on the system, public and private (all
23 types). They also have access to commands starting with .<A>ide in addition
24 to being able to delete and move messages. The system room, Aide>, is
25 accessible only by those designated by aides.
30 Aides have the following commands available to them that are not available
31 to normal users. They are:
33 .<A>ide <E>dit room Allows an aide to change certain parameters of
34 the current room. Lobby>, Mail>, and Aide> may
36 .<A>ide <F>ile <D>elete If the current room has a directory, an Aide or
37 room Aide can delete files from the directory
39 .<A>ide <F>ile <M>ove Moves a file from the directory of the current
40 room to the directory of another room. If there
41 is a file description attached, it is moved also.
42 .<A>ide <F>ile <S>end... This will send a copy of a file in the current
43 room's directory to the directory of the same
44 room on another system on the network. The other
45 system must be running Citadel/UX or another
46 program supporting IGnet/Open file transfers.
47 .<A>ide edit <I>nfo file Creates an info file for the current room, which
48 will be displayed to the user when any of three
49 conditions exist: the first time the user enters
50 the room, the next time the user enters the room
51 after the file has been changed, and when the
52 .<R>ead <I>nfo file command is entered.
53 .<A>ide <K>ill room Deletes the current room. Lobby>, Mail>, and
54 Aide> may not be deleted.
55 .<A>ide <M>essage edit: Allows you to change various system banners, such
56 as the 'hello' logon greeting.
57 .<A>ide <P>ost Enter a message using any user name.
58 .<A>ide <R>oom <I>nvite Invites a user to the room if it is private.
59 .<A>ide <R>oom <K>ickOut Kicks a user out of the room if it is private.
60 .<A>ide <S>ystem config Edits global system configuration.
61 .<A>ide <U>serEdit Edits certain parameters of a user's account.
62 .<A>ide <V>alidate newusers Lists users who have recently registered and
63 prompts for new access levels.
64 .<A>ide <W>hoKnowsRoom Lists all users who have access to, and who have
65 not chosen to zap, the current room.
70 This command allows any aide to change the parameters of a room. Go to
71 the room you wish to edit and enter the .AE command. A series of prompts will
72 be displayed. The existing parameters will be displayed in brackets; simply
73 press return if you want to leave any or all of them unchanged.
75 Room name [IG's Fun Room]:
77 ...the name of the room.
81 ...enter Yes if you wish to restrict access to the room, or no if the room
82 is to be accessible by all users. Note that Citadel doesn't bother users
83 about access to rooms every time they need to access the room. Once a user
84 gains access to a private room, it then behaves like a public room to them.
85 The following four questions will only be asked if you selected Private...
87 Accessible by guessing room name [No]?
89 ...if you enter Yes, the room will not show up in users' <K>nown rooms
90 listing, but if they .<G>oto the room (typing the room's full name), they
91 will gain access to the room.
93 Accessible by entering a password [No]?
94 Room password [mypasswd]:
96 ...this adds an additional layer of security to the room, prompting users
97 for a password before they can gain access to the room.
99 If you did not select guessname or passworded, then the only way users can
100 access the room is if an Aide explicitly invites them to the room using the
101 .<A>ide <R>oom <I>nvite user command.
103 Cause current users to forget room [No] ? No
105 Enter Yes if you wish to kick out anyone who currently has access to
108 Preferred users only [No]? No
110 Enter Yes if you wish to restrict the room to only users who have level 5
111 (Preferred User) status (and Aides too, of course). You should make the room
112 public if you intend to do this, otherwise the two restrictions will be
115 Read-only room [No]? No
117 If you set a room to Read-Only, then normal users will not be allowed to
118 post messages in it. Messages may only be posted by Aides, and by utility
119 programs such as the networker and the "aidepost" utility. This is useful
120 in situations where a room is used exclusively for important announcements,
121 or if you've set up a room to receive an Internet mailing list and posting
122 wouldn't make sense. Other uses will, of course, become apparent as the
125 Now for a few other attributes...
127 Directory room [Yes]? Yes
129 ...enter Yes if you wish to associate a directory with this room. If you
130 enter Yes, you will also be prompted with the following four questions:
132 Directory name [mydirname]:
134 ...the name of the subdirectory to put this room's files in. The name of
135 the directory created will be <your BBS directory>/files/<room dir name>.
137 Uploading allowed [Yes]? Yes
139 ...enter Yes if users are allowed to upload to this room.
141 Downloading allowed [Yes]? Yes
143 ...enter Yes if users are allowed to download from this room.
145 Visible directory [Yes]? Yes
147 ...enter Yes if users can read the directory of this room.
150 Network shared room [No]? No
152 ...you can share a room over a network without setting this flag, and
153 vice versa, but what this flag does is twofold:
154 1. It prevents people with no network access from entering messages here
155 2. Messages are displayed with the name of their originating system in
158 Permanent room [No]? No
160 ...the sysop utilities have an option to purge rooms which have not been posted
161 in for two weeks. If you wish to keep this from happening to a particular room, you
162 can set this option. (Keep in mind that Lobby>, Mail>, Aide>, any network rooms, and
163 any directory rooms are automatically permanent.)
166 Anonymous messages [No]? No
167 Ask users whether to make messages anonymous [No]? No
169 ...you can have rooms in which all messages are automatically anonymous,
170 and you can have rooms in which users are prompted whether to make a message
171 anonymous when they enter it.
173 Room aide [Joe Responsible]:
175 ...on larger systems, it helps to designate a person to be responsible for
176 a room. Room Aides have access to a restricted set of Aide commands, ONLY
177 when they are in the room in which they have this privilege. They can edit
178 the room, delete the room, delete and move messages, and invite or kick out
179 users (if it is a private room), but they cannot perform aide commands that
180 are not room-related (such as changing users access levels).
182 Save changes (y/n)? Yes
184 ...this gives you an opportunity to back out, if you feel you really
185 messed things up while editing.
190 If you have created any directory rooms, you can attach file descriptions to
191 the filenames through a special file called "filedir". Each line contains
192 the name of a file in the directory, followed by a space and then a description
193 of the file, such as:
195 myfile.txt This is a description of my file.
196 phluff A phile phull of phluff!
198 ...this would create file descriptions for the files 'myfile.txt' and 'phluff'
199 which would be displayed along with the directory. It should also be noted
200 that when users upload files to your system, they will be prompted for file
201 descriptions, which will be added to the 'filedir' file. If one does not
202 exist, it will be created.
207 This command allows any aide to change certain parameters of any user's
208 account. Entering this command will ask for the name of a user to edit, and
209 then prompt with the user's current access level, then ask for the new one.
210 0 - Marked for deletion
211 1 - New unvalidated user
213 3 - User with no network privileges
218 DELETING AND MOVING MESSAGES
220 Aides have the ability to delete and move messages; however, they must have
221 message prompting turned on in order to do this. After each message, the
222 normal prompt appears:
223 <A>gain, <N>ext message, <S>top ->
224 Entering <D> will delete the message. A (y/n) prompt will appear to confirm
225 that you really want to delete the message.
226 Entering <M> will prompt for a room to move the message to.
231 There are a number of utilities which may be accessed from the shell. It
232 is up to the system operator to decide which should be "sysop" utilities and
233 which should be accessible to all shell users. Please see utils.doc for a
234 description of these programs.
237 CUSTOMIZING THE HELP FILES
239 The subdirectory called "help" contains your system's help files. There's
240 nothing hard-coded into the system that dictates what files should be there.
241 Whenever a user types the command "<.H>elp" followed by the name of a help
242 file, it displays the contents of that help file.
244 The help files that come with the system, of course, are enough to guide
245 a user through its operation. But you can add, change, or remove help files
246 to suit whatever is appropriate for your system.
248 Now for the fun part. There are several strings that you can put in help
249 files that will be automatically substituted with other strings. They are:
251 ^nodename = The node name of your system on a Citadel/UX network
252 ^humannode = Human-readable node name (also your node name on C86Net)
253 ^fqdn = Your system's fully-qualified domain name
254 ^username = The name of the user reading the help file
255 ^usernum = The user number of the user reading the help file
256 ^sysadm = The name of the system administraor (i.e., you)
257 ^variantname = The name of the BBS software you're running
259 So, for example, you could create a help file which looked like:
261 "Lots of help, of course, is available right here on ^humannode. Of
262 course, if you still have trouble, you could always bug ^sysadm about it!"
267 For more information, visit the Citadel/UX web site at UNCENSORED! BBS
268 http://uncnsrd.mt-kisco.ny.us