Squish
Squish — the FTN mail tosser, scanner, and packer bundled with Maximus
Squish is the mail processor that connects your Maximus BBS to FidoNet-Technology Networks. It’s the middle piece of the FTN stack — sitting between your BBS (where callers read and post messages) and your mailer (which transfers packets over the network).
In short, Squish does three things:
- Toss — takes incoming mail packets from your mailer’s inbound directory and places messages into the correct local message areas
- Scan — finds outbound messages your callers have posted and builds packets for the network
- Pack — compresses outbound packets into archives for your mailer to send
A typical invocation runs all three at once:
squish in out squash
Squish is configured through squish.cfg, which defines your FTN
addresses, echomail areas, routing rules, and packing behavior.
Where to Learn More
Squish is deeply tied to FTN networking — its configuration only makes sense in that context. Rather than duplicate that material here, the FidoNet documentation covers everything you need:
- FidoNet & FTN Networking — what FTN is, how mail flows, and where Squish fits in the stack
- Joining a Network — the step-by-step tutorial that walks you through setting up Squish as part of your first network connection
- Squish Tosser — the full
squish.cfgreference with all configuration directives - Echomail — dupe checking, SEEN-BY lines, passthru areas, and echomail security
- Netmail & Routing — private messaging and mail routing configuration
See Also
- SqaFix — automatic echomail area management
- MECCA Compiler — another tool in the Maximus suite