DMA284 > XROUTE 06.03.26 036JC10 9445 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
Subj: Release notes XRouter 505a
Date: Fri, 6 Mar 2026 20:03:06 -0001
From: dma284@dbo284.#gf.nds.deu.eu <dma284@dbo284.#gf.nds.deu.eu>
To: xroute@ww
Subject: Release notes XRouter 505a
Message-ID: <9AB24E905284>
5th March 2026
Release notes for XRouter version 505a
######################################
Version 505a contains nothing new. It is a "tidy-up" version, which fixes most
of the bugs reported recently. Most are minor, but a couple are serious. It
is highly recommended that you upgrade.
A couple of bugs remain unfixed, because (a) I can't replicate them, and (b)
they only affect one node, so I suspect they are configuration errors. I
couldn't justify holding up the release of 505 any longer.
See the changelog below for details of what has changed.
This version should be a "drop-in replacement" as usual. It is recommended that
you back up your current XRouter executable, and rename the new one as
required. For Linux versions only, you will need to give the new file "execute"
permissions using "chmod +x <filename>".
Please continue to report bugs and make suggestions for improvements.
Static Versions
===============
Variants marked "-static" are 100% self contained programs with no
external dependencies. Thus they should work on any version of Linux,
unlike the non-static versions which require specific versions of LIBC
to be present.
But one downside is that the Linux kernel resolver can not be used
from a statically linked application. Thus in order to resolve
hostnames into IP addresses (e.g. for AXUDP, node map etc) you MUST
add a DNS line into XROUTER.CFG. I suggest "DNS=8.8.8.8". This lets
XRouter use its own resolver.
The other downside is that ALSA audio cannot be compiled into static
versions either. If you want audio, or kernel-based domain resolution,
you have to use a non-static version and put up with "dependency hell".
Backwards Compatability
=======================
Generally, a version compiled on an old operating system such as Debian
"Stretch", will work on a later O/S, but not the other way around.
Windows versions don't suffer from this lunacy. An EXE file is self-contained,
and just works!
Recent Changes:
===============
************************************************************************
Version 505a (5th Mar 2026)
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fixed: In version v504z only, a failed route resulted in INP3 route
poisoning broadcasts every 10 seconds. This was potentially
serious, and good reason to upgrade from 504z.
Fixed: Messages whose "at" field matched the BBS call or hostname were
not having the field blanked when received from an incoming
connection. But the field WAS correctly blanked if the message
was received via an outgoing BBS to BBS connection. The field
is now blanked for both cases. It makes no operational
difference, it just looks tidier in the message listings.
Fixed: Attempting to perform a L4 self-connect from the command line
to the PMS/BBS or CHAT server callsigns gave unpredictable
results.
Fixed: Since version 504b (11th Dec 2024), requesting any disk-based
file (i.e. not an inbuilt page) using HTTP over NetRom had
resulted in a lockup, whereby the program was alive but
unresponsive.
Fixed: The "SMTP KICK" command now displays the number of SMTP
processes started, instead of a hanging prompt.
Fixed: In FTP and NFTP directory listings, months were displayed as
00 to 11, instead of 01 to 12.
Fixed: Losing the Ethernet connection could result in excessive error
logging.
Fixed: Blank lines were not possible in CTEXT, INFOTEXT etc.
Change: Domain resolver's "negative record" TTL dropped from 10 minutes
to 5 minutes, in line with the Microsoft Windows default.
************************************************************************
Version 504z (21st Feb 2026)
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fixed: Web interface ROUTE page crashed when displaying routes which
had zero uptime.
Fixed: Web terminal and web chat ignored hash (#) character and every
character after it.
Fixed: Web chat didn't display accented characters properly.
Fixed: On web chat, the "ESC" button caption disappeared after use.
Fixed: Negative longitudes sometimes displayed incorrectly on 64-bit
platforms.
Fixed: MMASK caused segfault if used in BOOTCMDS.SYS.
Fixed: MPORT, MFROM, MTO and MDIR commands had been disabled from
working in BOOTCMDS.SYS.
Fixed: CAPTURE command captured to wrong filename if used from
BOOTCMDS.SYS.
Fixed: Nodes learned by INP3 from non-XRouter neighbours were expiring
from the table because they weren't being confirmed often
enough.
Change: Because (X)Net neighbours send NetRom nodes broadcasts every
10 minutes with missing AX25 destination fields, it was causing
too many IDS (Intrusion Detection System) warnings about
malformed AXUDP. These warnings are now suppressed. I'm not
sure if this is a good idea or not? Does (X)Net always do this,
or is it a sign of misconfiguration? If the latter, then
suppressing the warnings is probably a bad thing. And allowing
NetRom broadcasts from (X)Net is also a bad thing because it
broadcasts ridiculously high "qualities" that it has created
from trip times. It is probably best to set the port quality
to 1 and use INP3-only for these neighbours.
Change: The interval between "scheduled" INP3 broadcasts is increased
from 10 to 60 minutes for non-XRouter peers, and for XRouter
peers running version 505 or above.
Change: Capture filenames are now "YYYYMMDD_HHMMSS_N_CAPTURE.TXT", so
that they appear in chronological order, not console order.
Change: If a level 4 connect cannot be initiated, the "connect"
command now reports an error number instead of "System Busy".
************************************************************************
Version 504y (1st Feb 2026)
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fixed: AXTCP links shown on the HTML "Links" page had invalid
IP address, TCP port, and creation time information.
Change: TCP links displayed via HTML were confusing because in some
fonts, the space between the IP address and the TCP port was
insignificant. The space is now replaced with a colon.
Change: Improved the rejection of "bad" callsigns in WhitePages data,
both gleaned from passing headers and received in WP updates.
Change: Peer nodes which included a chevron ">" in their welcome text
were breaking the MBL forwarding protocol. The BBS forwarding
script now copes with this condition.
Added: Support for MAN files in more than one language, as requested.
French language MAN files will be located in MAN/FR, German
files in MAN/DE and so on. For backward compatablity, English
files will remain in the MAN directory itself.
Added: "CT" (Connect via TCP) option to BBS forwarding scripts.
I don't agree with forwarding over Telnet, but if you really
must do it, the format of the first "C" command in the script
for that BBS is "CT <ip_addr> [tcp_port]". The "tcp_port" arg
is only required if the peer's Telnet port is not 23. You
should be aware that some BBS's send "hanging" prompts for
"Callsign:" and "Password:", i.e. they are not followed by
newlines hence will not be detected.
************************************************************************
Version 504x (29th Jan 2026)
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Fixed: In version 504w only, the BBS could sometimes get stuck in a
forever polling loop if there were no poll entries in FWD.SYS.
A quick fix, if you don't want to upgrade to 504x, is to add
at least one "P" flag to one @BBS line in FWD.SYS.
Change: BBS mail queues are now held in ".Q" files in the PMS
directory, one queue file per peer, e.g. "GB7BBS.Q".
Added: KA (Kill by Age) command to BBS, syntax "KA <days>". e.g.
"KA 10" kills all mail whose creation or reception date is
more than 10 days in the past.
Added: KQ (Kill Queue) command to BBS, syntax "KQ <peer_callsign>".
This can be used to delete a mail forwarding queue, if for
example it contained old mail, or the peer was no longer
connectable. The form "KQ <peercall> [msgnum]" can be used to
delete a specific message from a specific queue.
Added: "MaxAgeToFwd" keyword to PMS.CFG, and a corresponding entry
field to the BBS admin web page. This specifies an upper limit
to the age of messages which are allowed to be forwarded, and
is primarily intended to prevent "old" mail from recirculating
after the message ID has been purged, or if the message was
never seen before. Such events can occur when old BBS's are
restarted after months or years off line. The argument is in
days, with a default of 60 days, and 0 meaning "no limit".
Added: RESCAN command to the BBS. This scans the mailbase, rebuilding
mail queues as necessary. It can be used if the mail queues
are deleted or lost, and might typically be used after
changing the distribution file.
************************************************************************
"XRouter - Packet's Best-Kept Secret"
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