

About Argus


Full-new revolutionary Multinode BinkStyle Fidonet-Technology Mailer
for Windows 95 and Windows NT, featuring Dialup (Hydra, ZModem) and
TCP/IP (ifcico, telnet, binkp) transports, native 32-bit multithread
processing, multinode operation, comfortable graphical user interface,
powerful burn-in Outbound Manager and Nodelist Tree Browser, Fax
Receiving, Powerful Event System, Scheduling. 

Under the supervision of 
Red Gigabyte Project 


Argus is a comprehensive FTN Mailer designed to work as a multi-line
system using two widely used data exchange transports - Dial-up networking
and TCP/IP - simultaneously.  
Argus interacts with remote systems using protocols and technology
standards described in this chapter. Because Argus is built on FTN
Technology (FidoNet Technology Network), it supports standards and
proposals developed by FTN commitee, common standards of FTN mail
system functions are also supported by Argus.  
This is the list of FTN standards and proposals that Argus is compliant
to. Descriptions of those standards can be obtained from ftp.fidonet.org.

Nodelist (FTS-0005) 
EMSI Handshake (FSC-0056) 
WaZOO mail session and file requests (FTS-0006) 
Zmodem file transfer protocol 
Hydra file transfer protocol (FSC-0072) 
Working Time Nodelist flag (FSC-0062) 
Binkley-style Outbound 
BinkP Transfer Protocol   
List of Major Benefits by using Argus

True multitasking using Win32 API 
True multi-line mailing system 
Extended TCP/IP support   
True multitasking using Win32 API

Argus is a Win32 native application, it is written using the advantages
of Win32 Application Programming Interface (API) designed in Windows
NT and Windows 95. The major advantage - multitasking - gives Argus
the possibility to use system resources with maximum performance
(especially on multi-processor systems), because most of communication
processes could be divided into parallel ones. At the same time,
using separate threads for events handling, communication data reading
and writing allows Argus to work with a minimum system load, so all
other tasks running in a system can function without any delays.

Multi-line mailing system

Because Argus is a true multi-line mailing system, configuration
and co-ordination of all lines is truly quick and easy. There are
no special limitations to number of concurrent connections - it just
depends on a users' possibilities and requirements. The data transfer
with a node can be established either via Dial-up or TCP/IP transport
- this is determined by transport availability. 
Dial-up lines can be started automatically at Argus start-up or manually
by a user's request with System / Open Dial-up Line menu command.
Each dial-up line requires a communication port, so the number of
dial-up lines being active simultaneously is limited by the number
of communication ports in a system. 
TCP/IP lines are created and disposed as a result of TCP/IP Daemon
functioning. As soon as Argus detects an incoming TCP/IP connection
or a new poll via TCP/IP in the Poll Manager, Daemon creates a new
mailing system line and starts a mail transfer protocol. When a TCP/IP
session finishes, Daemon closes the line and ends the connection.

Extended TCP/IP support

Argus supports protocol-independent transport interface of WinSocket
2.0 (which is currently included in Windows NT version 4.0). Using
WinSocket 2.0 allows you work seamlessly with a number of transport
protocols such as TCP/IP, X.25 etc., use protocol-independent symbolic
host name resolution  (for example, SAP, X.500 etc., not only DNS),
Win32-overlapped input/output modes, shared sockets, conditional
acceptance etc. 
The current version of Argus supports the most widely used WAN protocol
- TCP/IP. In future versions we are planning to implement support
for other protocols. 
In regard of WinSock 2.0 and Win32 use and the mulit-threaded program
architecture, host name resolution, connection and disconnection's,
input/output operations with TCP/IP are functioning as parallel processes;
such way of operation provides optimal resource usage and minimum
system load.  
TCP/IP Daemon is the centre of control for all TCP/IP operations.

Argus is a Shareware
Read the license for details, mail us argus@ritlabs.com 

Copyright - 1997 RIT Research Labs. All rights reserved.


