How to go about fixing problems with xmitBin I've divided this document into four main sections, those being "Compiling" (help with building xmitBin), "Generic" (things that apply to the program in general), "Mailing" (using xmitBin to send files via e-mail), and "Posting" (using xmitBin to make UseNet postings). Each issue is presented as a problem ("P:"), and a solution ("S:") is suggested. Usually, there aren't problems with xmitBin (although heaven knows it's had bugs in the past!), but in the environment you've specified. Hopefully this will help you straighten things out so you can get the advantage of binary file transmissions using xmitBin. Good luck! Compiling --------- P: When compiling, I get a "can't find include file dirent.h" message. S: Change the Makefile to compile using the -DDIR_H option. Some platforms need to use this old-style definition of directories. P: When linking, I get a "undefined symbol getwd()" message. S: Change the Makefile to compile using the -DSYSV option. This will force usage of getcwd() instead. Generic ------- P: xmitBin won't operate because something is not defined or can't be found in my PATH definition. S: xmitBin is usually pretty good about giving advice regarding what it needs and sometimes can even suggest a good way to fix the problem. Try doing what xmitBin suggests. P: I know that you provide a man page that documents all of the xmitBin options, and even gives some usage examples, but I don't know how to read the man page! S: There are a few solutions. If you want to set things up so you can just execute "man xmitBin" and get the xmitBin man page text, you should create a directory somewhere called "man", with a "man1" subdirectory. Modify the Makefile to specify the path to your "man" directory, then execute "make install" (this will install xmitBin.1 under your .../man/man1 directory). If you then create or modify the MANPATH environmental variable to also reference this "man" directory, then you're set! On the other hand, if you don't want to do all of this and you just want to see the xmitBin man page contents, from the directory you used to build xmitBin execute either "man -M . xmitBin" or "nroff -man xmitBin.1". P: I've tried everything I can think of, and I still can't get xmitBin to work like it's supposed to work! S: Try running with the -debug option. This will output information detailing the actions that xmitBin is taking as it executes them. This might help you track down what's going wrong and give you an idea how to fix it. If nothing else, you can include this output in the mail you send to the program's author to helm *him* debug your problem! Mailing ------- P: Within the text of e-mails sent using xmitBin, there is a line included that says "X-Mailing-Software: xxxxx". Why is that? S: This shouldn't cause any problems (so you can ignore it with no ill effects), but the reason it's there is because you've built xmitBin in such a way as to use a BSD-style mail program, which doesn't allow this line to be contained in the mail header where it was intended to be. You can get around this by re-building xmitBin using the -DSysVMail option and setting your MAILER variable to a low-level or System V UNIX mail program. /usr/lib/sendmail works, as does the ELM mail program. P: When I mail something using xmitBin, I don't get a Subject: line, but the mail includes a line that starts with "~s" and looks like it should be the Subject: line. S: This is usually caused by compiling without using the -DSysVMail option set, and using a mail program that doesn't like BSD-style mail commands. Either change the Makefile to re-build xmitBin with -DSysVMail set, or change your MAILER variable to point to a BSD-style mailer (such as /usr/ucb/mail). P: When I mail something using xmitBin, I don't get a Subject: line - it somehow ends up in the body of the mail message! S: This is usually caused by compiling with the -DSysVMail option set, and using a BSD-style mail program. Either change the Makefile to re-build xmitBin without -DSysVMail set, or change your MAILER variable to point to a non-BSD-style mailer (such as ELM or /usr/lib/sendmail). Posting ------- P: My attempts at posting using xmitBin don't seem to be working. My posts don't show up in the newsgroups I specify. S: This can be caused by a few things. First, make sure you can access the newsgroups to which you're trying to post. If you can't get there, neither can xmitBin! Next, be sure that your site allows you to post to newsgroups. If you can't post a reply to an article or some sort of test post, xmitBin won't be able to post either. Then, check to be sure you've specified an appropriate value for the POSTER variable. The author has only used "inews -h" (don't forget the -h flag!), but other software may also work. As a last resort, run using the -debug option to see if you can figure out what's going wrong - you can also examine one of the parts that xmitBin creates to see if everything looks OK, and then try posting that part manually using "$POSTER < {the_created_part}". xmitBin does its best to capture any errors, but this is not always possible, so sometimes by posting manually you can get better feedback. Once you can manually post using the command given above, xmitBin should work as well. If not, please contact me; I'd like to understand why this wouldn't solve the problem myself! P: I've followed all of your instructions to the letter, but I can't seem to get anonymous postings to work right. S: Depending upon how your posting software was built, it may not allow you to explicitely set fields, but will rather override anything you try to set with its own ideas of the field. Unfortunately, the only way to get around this is to re-build or otherwise get posting software that is less strict. If you have a problem that you think should be added here for future generations, or if you have other suggestions as to how this guide can be made more useful, let me know by e-mailing me at deej@cadence.com. Happy xmitBin'ing!