FIDONET: TECHNOLOGY,
TOOLS, AND HISTORY
he public FidoNet consists o f
T
over 20,000 nodes which
move email and enews over
the public telephone net-
work using a unique proto-
col and data format. As the
initial implementations were written
for MS-DOS, DOS-based hosts are
still the vast majority o f the network.
But semiformal specifications for the
data formats and protocols have fa-
cilitated implementations for Unix,
Apples from t h e / / t o the Macintosh,
CP/M, MVS, the T a n d y CoCo, and
many other platforms.
As FidoNet is almost entirely fi-
nanced by private individuals, mini-
mization o f m o d e m / t e l e p h o n e time
has been the principal driving force
behind any design o f the data trans-
fer protocols. T h e original imple-
mentations used an inefficient
x m o d e m - b a s e d transport, a nonwin-
dowed A C K / N A K protocol with 128-
byte packets. Although rarely used in
practice today, this protocol remains
codified as the minimal basic stan-
d a r d implementation, since it is triv-
ial to code. Almost all current imple-
mentations offer an optional suite o f
quite efficient zmodem-based
streaming transport protocols which
are ACK-less, only N A K i n g in case o f
error. It is interesting to contrast this
push for efficiency with uucp's prof-
ligate G protocol and the Internet's
SMTP and N N T P protocols.
Addressing within FidoNet is
numeric with a bit o f punctuation
and specifies a particular node in the
administrative hierarchy. Addresses
are o f the form zone:net~node where
zone is one o f the six continents
(North America, Europe, Oceania,
Asia, or Africa); net is the city (or
larger area if the node density is
sparse); and node is the particular
host within the local network. T h e
addressing scheme may be e x t e n d e d
to accommodate points which are
power users who reduce their con-
nect time by using private (i.e., un-
listed) nodes to exchange email and
enews with public nodes. Thus, the
e x t e n d e d addressing scheme is
zone:net/node, point.
T h e FidoNet nodelist, a list o f all
nodes in the public FidoNet network,
is automatically u p d a t e d and distrib-
uted weekly. This list contains the
actual data telephone n u m b e r o f
each host, as well as the geographic
location and name o f the system op-
erator (sysop). Every city's local net-
work maintains its local data and
sends those data to a regional coordi-
nator who, in turn, sends the region's
aggregated data to a continental co-
ordinator. T h e continental coordina-
tors exchange their data, and create a
list o f differences between the cur-
rent week's data and that o f the pre-
vious week. This nodediff is then dis-
tributed back down the hierarchy all
the way to each individual node in
the network.
As all m o d e m p h o n e numbers are
published in the nodelist, point-to-
point transfers are always possible.
But, as store-and-forward capabili-
ties are specified in the basic stan-
dards, email tends to be routed
t h r o u g h a worldwide hierarchic to-
pology and enews via a worldwide ad
hoc, but generally geographically hi-
erarchic, acyclic graph.
TOpology
Power users r u n points that may con-
nect to only their respective host
nodes to receive and deliver their
email a n d enews. As they are not in
the public nodelist, points are not
considered to be official nodes in the
network and thus are not subject to
constraints o f technology, national
mail hour, and so forth.
COMHUiIICATIOH|OFTHIIACM
Within a local network (e.g., city),
nodes usually exchange email di-
rectly with one another. In those cit-
ies where p h o n e tariff zones divide
the city, local hubs are used to con-
centrate intracity traffic to reduce
costs.
Each local network has one node
with an alias o f node 0 (i.e., zone:neff
0) which is known as the inbound host.
By default, all mail from outside the
local net is delivered to the i n b o u n d
host to be distributed within the local
network. Thus, a node in New York
may deliver all mail to San Francisco
with a single telephone call, as op-
posed to a call for every SF node for
which it has mail. While each node is
responsible for sending its own mail
(as FidoNet is financed by users),
some local networks cooperate suffi-
ciently to provide an outbound host to
concentrate all mail destined for out-
side the city.
Each o f the present six zones (con-
tinents) has a unique host which pro-
vides interzone email routing. These
zonegates have alias addresses o f the
form orig-zone:orig-zone/dest-zone. For
example, the gate from North Amer-
ica (zone 1) to Oceania (zone 3) has
an addressing alias o f the form 1 : 1/3.
Hence, a node in North America
may save the cost o f an interconti-
nental call to Australia by sending
the message to 1:1/3, which will in
turn send it to 3:3/1, which will see
that it is delivered within Australia.
Since November 1991, an experi-
mental system has been using the
Internet to transport mail and enews
between E u r o p e and N o r t h America.
T h e data are moved directly between
the zonegates via IP (i.e., not gated
between data formats) courtesy o f
RIPE and EUnet. This saves FidoNet
operators thousands o f dollars a
month. Since late in 1992, this tun-
neling o f the I n t e r n e t has been ex-
t e n d e d to Taiwan, Southern Africa,
Chile, and other areas. This is done
August 1993/Vo1.36, No.8 3S
 th the explicit consent o f the IP
carriers involved, to whom FidoNet
owes a considerable debt o f grati-
tude.
Gateways to the Other
Networks
T h e r e are gateways between FidoNet
and the uucp network, and thereby
the Internet. FidoNet is addressable
from the Internet DNS universe via
the DNS ~,one fidonet.org. A FidoNet
node, for .example, 1:105/42, has the
d o m a i n name f6.nlO5.zlfidonet.org.
Gating is done almost exclusively via
the u u c p network. T h e IvlX forward-
ers for thefidonet.org zone are set up
so that there is default forwarding
for all FidoNet hosts should there be
no gateway which is local to the tar-
get host.
T h e correct RFC822 address for
a F i d o N e t power user at point
zo:ne/no.po is user@PpoFno.Nne.Zzo.
FIDONET.ORG, for example,
randy.bush@pO.f42.n105 zl .fidonet.org
And, as points are optional in
FidoNet, J a n e User at the BBS user at
node zone:net~node is user@Fnode.
Nnet.Zzone.FIDONET.Ot'G, for ex-
ample,
lisa.gronke@f6.n105.zl ~donet.org
T h e U F G A T E package, which allows
an MS-DOS-based FidoNet node to
simulate a uucp host, gates both
email and enews. This package m a d e
gating fairly p o p u l a r by 1987. More
recently, other DOS packages have
provided similar features. RFmail, a
complete F i d o N e t implementation
which runs on Unix SysV and Xenix,
includes gateware to transform be-
tween F i d o N e t message format and
that o f the uucp/Internet.
Currently, there are approxi-
mately one h u n d r e d gateway sys-
tems, most o f them in N o r t h Amer-
ica. AsMe from tile expected
internetwork email, there is consid-
erable gating o f Usenet news to and
from F i d o N e t echomail conferences.
A n u m b e r o f newsgroups are
shared globally by F i d o N e t and the
Usenet, e.g., FidoNet',; MODULA-2
echomail conference is Usenet's
comp.lang.modula2, and FidoNet's
K12__Net conferences are the Usenet's
k12.* hierarchy. Usenet newsgroups
are also m a d e available on a purely
3• August 1993/Vo1.36, No.8 C O I m l P I U N I C A T I O N S
local basis in many cities as FidoNet
echomail.
Internetwork gateways have been
used extensively by nongovernmen-
tal organizations (NGOs) in Africa, as
well as by an ingenious transport be-
tween the South African academic IP
network (UNINET-ZA) and the
Internet [4].
Users
FidoNet has currently over 20,000
distinct nodes worldwide. Although
FidoNet started in North America,
by 1985 there were systems in Eu-
rope, very soon followed by systems
on the other continents. Currently,
about 59% o f the publicly listed
nodes are in N o r t h America, 30% in
Europe, 4% in Australia and New
Zealand (Oceania), and 7% in Asia,
Latin America, and Africa.
FidoNet technology is also used
privately within large corporations,
public institutions, and NGOs. While
the scale o f the private use o f
FidoNet is not known, it is estimated
to be at least as large as the public
network. It is known to be used in
companies such as AT&T, Georgia
Pacific, and the Canadian Post Of-
rice, a m o n g others. It is heavily used
by NGOs in Africa.
While hobbyists and public BBSs
p r e d o m i n a t e the N o r t h American
FidoNet, p e r h a p s half o f the public
systems in E u r o p e are subsidized by
small to medium-scale businesses. In
Africa, there is very serious use by
NGOs a n d poorly f u n d e d academic
institutions. Within N o r t h America,
there is growing use within the
school systems thanks to the spread-
ing K12Net [5].
While the original FidoNet sys-
tems were fully integrated within
bulletin b o a r d systems, FidoNet mail-
only systems are now a noticeable
portion o f the public network. T h e s e
provide the owner a facility similar to
h a m radio or a fax machine, but pro-
vide no public access via dial-up.
A r o u n d the world, BBSs with
FidoNet capability provide the most
publicly accessible and lowest-cost
email and enews service today. While
most BBSs are only usable by a single
dial-up caller at a time, others run
multiline systems ranging from two
to 20 lines. Public access require-
ments vary from formal user valida-
OFTIIE ACN
tion and possibly a small fee to com-
pletely open facilities allowing full
use for the first-time caller.
Although no formal measure-
ments have been made, it has been
estimated that the average FidoNet
BBS has over 200 active users; half
use enews, and 5% use private email.
As not all FidoNet nodes have BBS
access, we can estimate that on the
o r d e r of 2 million FidoNet users read
or write enews, and approximately
200,000 o f these use private email.
History
In 1984, T o m Jennings wished to
move messages from his MS-DOS-
based Fido 1 BBS to that o f a friend,
J o h n Madill. As J e n n i n g s was the
a u t h o r of the Fido BBS, he was able
to quickly modify it to extract mes-
sages from a specially designated
local message base and queue them
for sending to the r e m o t e BBS. As
telephone rates are much lower in
the middle o f the night, he wrote a
separate external p r o g r a m to r u n
this email transfer for one desig-
nated h o u r to exchange mail with the
other node.
This soon grew to m o r e nodes,
reaching 200 by early 1985. T h e
nodelist, a list o f all known active
nodes, was d e v e l o p e d as a distributed
external file a n d was initially main-
tained by Jennings. T h e reserved
mail transfer h o u r became enshrined
as zone mail hour a n d is preserved
today despite c u r r e n t technology
being capable o f intermixing mail
transfer and BBS access.
With the porting o f FidoNet to the
DEC Rainbow, F i d o N e t BBSs be-
came quite p o p u l a r with the DEC
Users G r o u p in St. Louis, Missouri.
Ken Kaplan and Ben Baker were
particularly active and started the
first F i d o N e t newsletter. As the
nodelist a p p r o a c h e d 100 members,
Kaplan and Baker took over from
J e n n i n g s its organization a n d main-
tenance.
As the nodelist passed the 200
mark, it became obvious that, for
example, San Francisco had much
daily traffic for St. Louis and vice
versa, and dozens o f telephone calls
were being placed to all the various
IThe Fido BBS was developed on a machine
which was both slow and cumbersome, like the
dog n a m e d Fido, hence the name.
 nodes in each city. As calls within a began in 1986, with the publication (you may find this site generally use-
U.S. city are generally inexpensive, of FSC-0001 describing the then- ful for acquiring FidoNet supplies,
but calls between cities are not, it extant xmodem-based protocol suite
such as documentation, tools,
seemed obvious to concentrate the and the basic data formats [3]. This gateware).
intercity traffic into one call per was shortly followed by a description
FTS-0001 describes the original-
night. Tt/erefore, what had been a of the nodelist in FSC-0002 [1]. A
message data formats, session proto-
simple linear nodelist was broken FidoNet Standards Committee (now cols, and link layer protocols for
into a structure o f city segments FTSC) was formed in 1986 by the FidoNet as it was originally devel-
transforming the FidoNet address then-active software authors, chaired oped by Tom Jennings. The ability
notation from node to net/node. by a nonauthor. The FTSC collects for a node to obey this standard is
In late 1986, it became obvious and publishes documents called mandatory if it wishes to be listed
that an analogous problem existed FSCs, which are similar to the IETF's within the public FidoNet, although
between the continents. At the same RFCs. Those which are voted as for- the vast majority of connections now
time, the idea emerged of power mal standards are known as FTS use the far more efficient FTS-0006
users, or points, who could use documents. suite. Data transfer uses xmodem
FidoNet data formats and transport There are approximately 80 FSC and a variant called Telink, 128-byte
protocols (as opposed to BBS inter- documents at this time and five offi- block ACK/NAK protocols, neither
faces) to send and receive their mail cial FTS standards, Some of the most of which is streaming, bidirectional,
and enews. So, at a FidoNet Stan- interesting are depicted in Table 2. or windowing, and which discrimi-
dards Committee meeting in October The current document set is kept on nate between email and file transfer
1986, the nodelist was redesigned as many FidoNet nodes and is available at the session and data transfer level.
a four-level hierarchy o f zone (conti- via ftp on the internet as Midfile restart recovery is also ab-
nent), net, node, and point, with the sent.
address becoming zone:net/node.point, ftp.psg.com:~/publfidonetlstdsl*
The FTS-0006 session and link
as it remains today.
layer protocols [2] were developed by
The rate of growth of FidoNet Wynn Wagner and Vince Perriello in
seems typical o f electronic networks Table 1:
1987 to overcome the serious ineffi-
in the last decade. T h e approximate
ciency o f FTS-0001. T h e default data
number of nodes at the end of the link layer described uses zmodem, a
year is illustrated in Table 1. At pres-
very efficient streaming, windowing,
ent, the registered public FidoNet is 1984 100 and ACK-less (NAK only on failure)
considerably larger than Bitnet and
protocol designed by Chuck
has recently passed the estimated size
i Forsberg. It also provides midfile
of the registered part of the uucp
1986 1,400 restart recovery. The YooHoo/2U2
network.
session-level protocol provides for
In February, 1986, Jeff Rush de- exchange of identification and au-
veloped FidoNet's form of enews thorization data as well as allowing
called echomail. As very few FidoNet 1988 4,000
negotiation of the link layer protocol.
users were familiar with the Usenet,
they were quite surprised at the pop-
Common Software Components
ularity and rate o f growth of 1990 9,000 Like their uucp/Internet brethren,
echomail. Within two weeks, an in- ........ ............ ..........................................
FidoNet systems tend to have differ-
ternational echomail conference, ii!000 ent components to act as user,
MODULA-2, was propagated be- 1992 16,000 transfer/routing, and transport
tween Europe, Australia, and North
agents. While not all FidoNet imple-
America, and today the daily volume
mentations are composed identically,
of compressed echomail is over eight
on the whole the following concepts
megabytes (MB). T h e social effects,
both good and bad, of echomail on Tuble 2:
the network parallel those of the
Usenet.
Although primitive experiments
had been conducted earlier, in 1986
gateways between FidoNet and the
uucp network, and hence the Inter-
net, became sufficiently reliable for
production use.

TeChnical Standards
Technical standards development

COMMUNICATIOM| OF TIlil ACM August 1993/Vol.36, No.8 3 3

 FidoNet has been owned and operatedprimarily by end users more
than computerprofessionals. Therefore, s o c i a l a n d
political issues arose in FidONet far
faster and more seriously than other
network cultures.

and nomenclature are u n d e r s t o o d A Mailer is the session and link vide minimal-cost public access to
t h r o u g h o u t FidoNet. level t r a n s p o r t layer which decides email. Two very basic features o f
A Bulletin Board Sys/.em (BBS) is when to make and accept FidoNet F i d o N e t encourage this. Every node
often available and provides a mail calls to/from o t h e r nodes and pro- is self-sufficient, n e e d i n g no s u p p o r t
and news user agent (M/NUA) to vides everything n e e d e d to t r a n s p o r t from o t h e r nodes to operate. But
dial-up callers o f the BBS, and it the email, enews, and files between more significant is that the nodelist
often provides a console interface for F i d o N e t nodes. Mailers know about contains the m o d e m telephone num-
the system o p e r a t o r as well. As BBS m o d e m s and how to control them, ber o f all nodes, allowing any node to
M/NUAs must be usable by dial-up how to detect if an incoming call is a communicate with any o t h e r node
users on unspecified terminals, the h u m a n BBS user as o p p o s e d to an without the aid o r consent o f techni-
interfaces tend to be line oriented incoming FidoNet call, how to pass cal o r political groups at any level.
with r a t h e r primitive editing facili- h u m a n s t h r o u g h to a BBS, what This is in strong contrast to the u u c p
ties. Some BBS systems such as Fido times o f day to place expensive but network, Bitnet, a n d the Internet.
and Opus provide complete software t i m e - d e p e n d e n t calls, and so forth. In 1985, the first F i d o N e t policy
suites integrating all components Because the mailer provides the link d o c u m e n t was published. It con-
necessary to use FidoNet, while most level protocols, its characteristics de- cerned itself almost entirely with
other BBSs require the addition o f termine i n t e r n o d e compatibility; technical p r o c e d u r a l issues. It re-
external components ~:o use them t h e r e f o r e a node is best known for quired a capability to send and re-
with FidoNet. the mailer it runs. Hence a node ceive email, defined the national mail
An Editor is a console M / N U A might be known as a Binkley node or hour as mandatory, delineated roles
which is usually available for those a Fido node because it uses o f the local network hubs and
nodes which do not have a BBS, or BinkleyTerm o r Fido as its mailer. nodelist coordinators, a n d stated
where the system o p e r a t o r prefers a A Nodelist Compiler transforms the simple restrictions on routing o f traf-
different interface. A,; the system nodelist from the standard FTS-0005 fic t h r o u g h unsuspecting nodes. In
console generally has known charac- distribution format to that n e e d e d by addition, it stated two social rules, a
teristics, Editor M/NUAs tend to- the node's other software, (i.e., proscription against use o f the net-
ward screen-oriented, multicolor, mailer, BBS, editor, and/or packer). work for illegal purposes (e.g., pi-
fancy interfaces, often with quite Aside from trivial differences in syn- rated software) and a statement o f
sophisticated editing capabilities. tax, m o r e complex translations may FidoNet's basic social guideline: "Do
A Packer or Scanner is analogous to be needed, (i.e., mailer software usu- not be excessively annoying, and do
the mail/news transfer agent (M/ ally requires that telephone numbers not become excessively annoyed."
NTA). It transforms the data to/from be t r a n s f o r m e d given local rules). In 1986 a well-intentioned but
the internal (i.e., not :~tandardized) naive g r o u p f o r m e d t h e Interna-
storage fi3rmat from/to the external Policy and Politics tional F i d o N e t Association, intend-
FTS-0001/4 transmission format. In contrast to the uucp network or ing to p r o m u l g a t e the technology
Packer M/NTAs also make routing the Internet, a n d d u e mostly to the a n d coordinate publication o f the
decisions,, usually based[ on data in a low cost o f entry, from its earliest newsletter and o t h e r writings about
local routing rule file. T h e s e local days, F i d o N e t has been owned and the network. Unfortunately, as
routing rules tell the M/NTA what o p e r a t e d primarily by end users and FidoNet operators were far m o r e
routes to use for mail within the local hobbyists m o r e than by c o m p u t e r socially oriented than their m o r e
city network, cost reduction routes professionals. T h e r e f o r e , social and technical b r e t h r e n in the other net-
for mail within the zone, and any political issues arose in F i d o N e t far works, the formal organization o f
special routes for interzone mail. faster and m o r e seriously than might I F N A t e n d e d to draw considerable
T h e N T A portion use,; an echomail be expected by those raised in other political interest and attracted the
rule base to decide which echomail network cultures. less constructive political elements o f
groups are to be exchanged with T o m Jennings i n t e n d e d F i d o N e t the F i d o N e t culture. T h e issue came
which other nodes in the network. to be a cooperative anarchism to pro- to a head in 1989 with an attempt to

4 August 1993/Vol,36, No.8 I I I O M M U M I C A T I O M $ OF Tile lli¢lll


load the I F N A board o f directors
and pass a motion which explicitly
put I F N A in complete control o f the
network. T h e motion was cleverly
forced into a netwide r e f e r e n d u m
(FidoNet's only global vote to date)
which required a majority o f the net-
work assent to I F N A rule. T h e refer-
e n d u m did not pass, and I F N A was
subsequently dissolved.
T h e first written policy was pub-
lished and adopted by informal con-
sent. Subsequently, three revisions o f
FidoNet policy have been written
and made operational by various, but
less democratic, procedures. T h e
cu r r en t document, Policy-4, was
written by the regional nodelist coor-
dinators and has a large a m o u n t o f
social and political content enshrin-
ing a hierarchy o f coordinators: an
International Coordinator (IC), a
Zone Coordinator (ZC) on each con-
tinent, Regional Coordinators (RCs)
in subdivisions o f the continents,
usually countries, and a Network
Coordinator (NC) for each local net-
work. As it was written by the self-
anointed RCs, ZCs and the IC are
elected by the RCs, and NCs are ap-
pointed by the RCs. Although the
d o c u m e n t has caused considerable
acrimony and is large and complex, it
contains many useful operational
guidelines, and is t h e r e f o r e generally
observed.
The amazing resilience
FidoNet's social and technical struc-
ture was made evident yet again in
1989-'90, when the RCs on many o f
the continents attempted to exert
serious social control u n d e r the re-
cently published Policy-4. While
echomail provided quite high-
bandwidth (albeit low content) com-
munication, and thus the political sit-
uation could be openly debated, the
power structure's inability to restrict
node-to-node communication pre-
vented any real control from being
effected. A fair n u m b e r o f RCs and
NCs were forced to resign, and the
others have since taken m o r e passive
and facilitative roles.
Acknowledgments
T o m J e n n i n g s not only designed and
developed FidoNet, but has been a
friend as well as reviewer. Ishida
Haruhisa provided encouragement,
incentive, and very helpful reviews.
~J'J'~flffln~
Larry Landweb,er incited the devel- tion Networks]; Special-Purpose
o p m e n t o f this article, and has been Application-Based Systems
the major force to include FidoNet General Terms: Design
within the I n t e r n e t community. I
Additional Key Words and Phrases:
and the networking community owe
FidoNet
a great debt to them. []
About the Author:
References RANDY BUSH is a compiler netware,
1. Baker, B. The distribution nodelist. tools hacker, and too often a software
FSC-0027. engineering manager. Residing in Port-
2. Becker, P. YOOHOO and YOOHOO/ land, Oreg., he is currently a software
2U2: The Netmail handshake used by architect at Olsen and Assoc., Zurich. He
Opus-CBCS and other intelligent has been involved in the integration of
FidoNet mail handling packages, FTS-
appropriate networking technology in the
0006.
developing world for over four years,
3. Bush, R. A basic FidoNet technical
using FidoNet, UUCP, and TCP/IP. An-
standard. FTS-0001.
thor's Present Address: randy@psg.com
4. Guillarmod, F.J. From FidoNet to
Internet: The evolution of a national
network. In Proceedings of INET'92.
1992. Permission to copy without fee all or part of this
5. Murray, J. K12 Network:Global educa- material is granted providedthat the copiesare not
madeor distributed fordirectcommercialadvantage,
tion through telecommunications. In
the ACMcopyrightnoticeand the titleofthe publi-
Proceedings of 1NET'92. 1992. cation and its date appear, and notice is givethat
copying is by permission of the Association for
CR Categories and Subject Descrip- Computing Machinery. To copy otherwise, or to
tors: C.2.1 [Computer-Communication republish, requiresa fee and/or specificpermission.
Networks]: Network Architecture and
Design; C.2.3 [Computer-Communiea- © ACM 0002-0782/93/0800-031 $1.50
of
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