New features for QuickPage v3.3 include:

• Building QuickPage has been greatly simplified by GNU autoconf. All you need to do is unpack the tar file, type ./configure, and then type make. It's that easy.

• QuickPage now has builtin support for Wietse Venema's popular tcp_wrappers package. See the INSTALL guide for more information.

• A year-2000 bug was fixed. Prior to v3.3, if the -a option was used on the command line to specify a hold time after Dec 31 23:59:59 1999, the time was transmitted to the server incorrectly, causing the server to reject the page.

• The configuration file now supports the "include" keyword to specify the name of another configuration file that should be inserted at that point. This allows the administrator to split the configuration file into multiple files if desired.

• Multiple modems are supported. A new "modem" keyword in the configuration file allows modem-specific initialization and dialing commands to be associated with each modem. A paging service may include references to multiple modem definitions. This does not mean pages will be processed in parallel--see the man page for details.

• A new "lockdir" major keyword can be used to override the compiled in lock directory.

• A new "initcmd" minor keyword is allowed in the modem and service specifications.

• A new "phone" minor keyword is allowed in the service specification. If present, the value of this keyword will be appended to the dialcmd when dialing the modem.

• A new "msgprefix" minor keyword is allowed in the service specification to indicate whether the sender's name is prefixed to each message segment.

• Better error checking is done when the configuration file is being read.

• Bad pages are renamed to Bxxxxxxx to make it easier for administrators to locate and examine/remove them.

• Messages are now stripped to 7 bits (as required by the IXO/TAP protocol) before being transmitted to the paging service. Control characters are escaped according to the quoting mechanism described in version 1.6 and later of the IXO/TAP protocol specification.

• A new SNPP command, XWHO, can be used by clients to determine which pagers are supported by the server. This command is not part of the official SNPP protocol as specified in RFC-1861 and it is only implemented here to overcome the current protocol's deficiency. If the protocol is ever revised in the future to include this functionality, support for the XWHO command will be dropped in favor of whatever facilities are specified at that time. Do not consider XWHO a stable command. It may go away in a future version of QuickPage without notice.

• The modem, service, pager, and group major keywords now allow a "text" minor keyword that can be used to associate an arbitrary text string with each of these entries. Any pager or group entry that contains a text string will be shown by the SNPP "XWHO" command (not an official command specified by RFC-1861).

• A negative argument to the -q flag on the command line will start an SNPP daemon without doing any queue processing. Incoming pages will be queued and will not be forwarded to a paging service. This is not very useful but it may come in handy during debugging.

• A zero argument to the -q flag (i.e. -q0) will cause QuickPage to process the queue one time and exit. This can be handy for forcing queue runs without enabling SNPP services.

I know I promised several people that this release would include a Java client. I apologize for this. I just didn't have time to finish it. Rest assured that it is still on my list of things to do and I will try to get it done as soon as possible.