Comet Mailer

A modern FidoNet TCP mailer daemon for the 2020s.

Comet provides direct TCP file transfer with a purpose-built protocol while maintaining full BinkP/1.1 (FTS-1026) compatibility. Both protocols are auto-detected on the same port.

Features

Direct TCP file transfer with SHA-256 verification
Bidirectional transfer with sliding window flow control
ED25519 public-key authentication (no shared secrets needed)
CRAM-MD5 password authentication (passwords never sent in clear)
X25519 + ChaCha20 encryption (when using ED25519 auth)
Full BinkP/1.1 compatibility (FTS-1026) with auto-detection
Inline file requests (Hydra-style, within active sessions)
FTS-5 nodelist integration (automatic IP/port lookup)
BSO outbound scanning with point directory support
Optional zlib compression (per-block, automatic)
Multi-session daemon with per-node BSY locking
Config hot-reload (edit config while Comet is running)
Embeddable in BBS software via log/event callbacks and stream API
Cross-platform: Linux, FreeBSD, DOS, Windows, OS/2

Quick Start

comet keygen                    # generate ED25519 keypair
comet showkey                   # print public key from config
comet                           # run as daemon (listen + poll)
comet call 1:213/723            # single outbound call
comet -c /path/to/comet.cfg     # use alternate config file
comet -d call 1:213/723         # debug/trace mode

See COMET.SAM for an annotated sample configuration.

Platforms

Platform	Status	Notes
Linux x86-64	Production	Primary platform
FreeBSD x86-64	Production	Cross-compiled from Linux
DOS (FreeDOS)	Production	Requires CWSDPMI + Watt-32 packet driver
Windows 64-bit	In progress	WinSock2, needs type compatibility fixes
OS/2	Experimental	FPC OS/2 Sockets unit, untested

Building

Requires Free Pascal Compiler (FPC) 3.2.x.

make              # Linux (default)
make freebsd      # FreeBSD cross-compile
make dos          # DOS cross-compile
make win64        # Windows 64-bit cross-compile

Documentation

COMET.DOC — Full operator manual
COMET.SAM — Annotated sample configuration
FSP-COMET.001 — Wire protocol specification

Tested Against

binkd (reference BinkP implementation)
Radius/Argus 4.010 (CRAM-MD5 + CRYPT)
BinkIT/sbbs 2.42 (CRAM-MD5)

Contact

FidoNet: 1:218/720
Email: ken@rail-city.net

License

GPL-2.0

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