Taylor UUCP

Version 1.07

Copyright © 1992, 1993, 1994, 1995, 2002 Ian Lance Taylor

Published by Ian Lance Taylor ian@airs.com.

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided also that the section entitled “Copying” are included exactly as in the original, and provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that the section entitled “Copying” may be included in a translation approved by the author instead of in the original English.

Taylor UUCP 1.07

This is the documentation for the Taylor UUCP package, version 1.07. The programs were written by Ian Lance Taylor. The author can be reached at ian@airs.com.

There is a mailing list for discussion of the package. The list is hosted by Eric Schnoebelen at cirr.com. To join (or get off) the list, send mail to taylor-uucp-request@gnu.org. Mail to this address is answered by the majordomo program. To join the list, send the message ‘subscribe address’ where address is your e-mail address. To send a message to the list, send it to taylor-uucp@gnu.org. There is an archive of all messages sent to the mailing list at http://lists.cirr.com.

 — The Detailed Node Listing —

Invoking the UUCP Programs

Invoking uucp

Invoking uux

Invoking uustat

Invoking cu

Invoking uucico

Installing Taylor UUCP

Using Taylor UUCP

Using UUCP for Mail and News.

The Spool Directory Layout

Taylor UUCP Configuration Files

Examples of Configuration Files

The Main Configuration File

The System Configuration File

Calling Out

UUCP Over TCP

UUCP Protocol Internals

UUCP Protocol

UUCP Protocol Commands

Hacking Taylor UUCP

Taylor UUCP Copying Conditions

This package is covered by the GNU Public License. See the file ‘COPYING’ for details. If you would like to do something with this package that you feel is reasonable, but you feel is prohibited by the license, contact me to see if we can work it out.

The rest of this section is some descriptive text from the Free Software Foundation.

All the programs, scripts and documents relating to Taylor UUCP are free; this means that everyone is free to use them and free to redistribute them on a free basis. The Taylor UUCP-related programs are not in the public domain; they are copyrighted and there are restrictions on their distribution, but these restrictions are designed to permit everything that a good cooperating citizen would want to do. What is not allowed is to try to prevent others from further sharing any version of these programs that they might get from you.

Specifically, we want to make sure that you have the right to give away copies of the programs that relate to Taylor UUCP, that you receive source code or else can get it if you want it, that you can change these programs or use pieces of them in new free programs, and that you know you can do these things.

To make sure that everyone has such rights, we have to forbid you to deprive anyone else of these rights. For example, if you distribute copies of the Taylor UUCP related programs, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must tell them their rights.

Also, for our own protection, we must make certain that everyone finds out that there is no warranty for the programs that relate to Taylor UUCP. If these programs are modified by someone else and passed on, we want their recipients to know that what they have is not what we distributed, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on our reputation.

The precise conditions of the licenses for the programs currently being distributed that relate to Taylor UUCP are found in the General Public Licenses that accompany them.

1 Introduction to Taylor UUCP

General introductions to UUCP are available, and perhaps one day I will write one. In the meantime, here is a very brief one that concentrates on the programs provided by Taylor UUCP.

Taylor UUCP is a complete UUCP package. It is covered by the GNU Public License, which means that the source code is always available. It is composed of several programs; most of the names of these programs are based on earlier UUCP packages.

uucp

The uucp program is used to copy file between systems. It is similar to the standard Unix cp program, except that you can refer to a file on a remote system by using ‘system!’ before the file name. For example, to copy the file ‘notes.txt’ to the system ‘airs’, you would say ‘uucp notes.txt airs!~/notes.txt’. In this example ‘~’ is used to name the UUCP public directory on ‘airs’. For more details, see uucp.

uux

The uux program is used to request the execution of a program on a remote system. This is how mail and news are transferred over UUCP. As with uucp, programs and files on remote systems may be named by using ‘system!’. For example, to run the rnews program on ‘airs’, passing it standard input, you would say ‘uux - airs!rnews’. The ‘-’ means to read standard input and set things up such that when rnews runs on ‘airs’ it will receive the same standard input. For more details, see uux.

Neither uucp nor uux actually do any work immediately. Instead, they queue up requests for later processing. They then start a daemon process which processes the requests and calls up the appropriate systems. Normally the system will also start the daemon periodically to check if there is any work to be done. The advantage of this approach is that it all happens automatically. You don’t have to sit around waiting for the files to be transferred. The disadvantage is that if anything goes wrong it might be a while before anybody notices.

uustat

The uustat program does many things. By default it will simply list all the jobs you have queued with uucp or uux that have not yet been processed. You can use uustat to remove any of your jobs from the queue. You can also it use it to show the status of the UUCP system in various ways, such as showing the connection status of all the remote systems your system knows about. The system administrator can use uustat to automatically discard old jobs while sending mail to the user who requested them. For more details, see uustat.

uuname

The uuname program by default lists all the remote systems your system knows about. You can also use it to get the name of your local system. It is mostly useful for shell scripts. For more details, see uuname.

uulog

The uulog program can be used to display entries in the UUCP log file. It can select the entries for a particular system or a particular user. You can use it to see what has happened to your queued jobs in the past. For more details, see uulog.

uuto

uupick

uuto is a simple shell script interface to uucp. It will transfer a file, or the contents of a directory, to a remote system, and notify a particular user on the remote system when it arrives. The remote user can then retrieve the file(s) with uupick. For more details, see uuto, and see uupick.

cu

The cu program can be used to call up another system and communicate with it as though you were directly connected. It can also do simple file transfers, though it does not provide any error checking. For more details, cu.

These eight programs just described, uucp, uux, uuto, uupick, uustat, uuname, uulog, and cu are the user programs provided by Taylor UUCP. uucp, uux, and uuto add requests to the work queue, uupick extracts files from the UUCP public directory, uustat examines the work queue, uuname examines the configuration files, uulog examines the log files, and cu just uses the UUCP configuration files.

The real work is actually done by two daemon processes, which are normally run automatically rather than by a user.

uucico

The uucico daemon is the program which actually calls the remote system and transfers files and requests. uucico is normally started automatically by uucp and uux. Most systems will also start it periodically to make sure that all work requests are handled. uucico checks the queue to see what work needs to be done, and then calls the appropriate systems. If the call fails, perhaps because the phone line is busy, uucico leaves the requests in the queue and goes on to the next system to call. It is also possible to force uucico to call a remote system even if there is no work to be done for it, so that it can pick up any work that may be queued up remotely. For more details, see uucico.

uuxqt

The uuxqt daemon processes execution requests made by the uux program on remote systems. It also processes requests made on the local system which require files from a remote system. It is normally started by uucico. For more details, see uuxqt.

Suppose you, on the system ‘bantam’, want to copy a file to the system ‘airs’. You would run the uucp command locally, with a command like ‘uucp notes.txt airs!~/notes.txt’. This would queue up a request on ‘bantam’ for ‘airs’, and would then start the uucico daemon. uucico would see that there was a request for ‘airs’ and attempt to call it. When the call succeeded, another copy of uucico would be started on ‘airs’. The two copies of uucico would tell each other what they had to do and transfer the file from ‘bantam’ to ‘airs’. When the file transfer was complete the uucico on ‘airs’ would move it into the UUCP public directory.

UUCP is often used to transfer mail. This is normally done automatically by mailer programs. When ‘bantam’ has a mail message to send to ‘ian’ at ‘airs’, it executes ‘uux - airs!rmail ian’ and writes the mail message to the uux process as standard input. The uux program, running on ‘bantam’, will read the standard input and store it, as well as the rmail request itself, on the work queue for ‘airs’. uux will then start the uucico daemon. The uucico daemon will call up ‘airs’, just as in the uucp example, and transfer the work request and the mail message. The uucico daemon on ‘airs’ will put the files on a local work queue. When the communication session is over, the uucico daemon on ‘airs’ will start the uuxqt daemon. uuxqt will see the request on the work queue, and will run ‘rmail ian’ with the mail message as standard input. The rmail program, which is not part of the UUCP package, is then responsible for either putting the message in the right mailbox on ‘airs’ or forwarding the message on to another system.

Taylor UUCP comes with a few other programs that are useful when installing and configuring UUCP.

uuchk

The uuchk program reads the UUCP configuration files and displays a rather lengthy description of what it finds. This is useful when configuring UUCP to make certain that the UUCP package will do what you expect it to do. For more details, see uuchk.

uuconv

The uuconv program can be used to convert UUCP configuration files from one format to another. This can be useful for administrators converting from an older UUCP package. Taylor UUCP is able to read and use old configuration file formats, but some new features can not be selected using the old formats. For more details, see uuconv.

uusched

The uusched script is provided for compatibility with older UUCP releases. It starts uucico to call, one at a time, all the systems for which work has been queued. For more details, see uusched.

tstuu

The tstuu program is a test harness for the UUCP package; it can help check that the package has been configured and compiled correctly. However, it uses pseudo-terminals, which means that it is less portable than the rest of the package. If it works, it can be useful when initially installing Taylor UUCP. For more details, see tstuu.

2 Invoking the UUCP Programs

This chapter describes how to run the UUCP programs.

2.1 Standard Options

All of the UUCP programs support a few standard options.

‘-x type’

‘--debug type’

Turn on particular debugging types. The following types are recognized: ‘abnormal’, ‘chat’, ‘handshake’, ‘uucp-proto’, ‘proto’, ‘port’, ‘config’, ‘spooldir’, ‘execute’, ‘incoming’, ‘outgoing’. Not all types of debugging are effective for all programs. See the debug configuration command for details (see section Debugging Levels).

Multiple types may be given, separated by commas, and the ‘--debug’ option may appear multiple times. A number may also be given, which will turn on that many types from the foregoing list; for example, ‘--debug 2’ is equivalent to ‘--debug abnormal,chat’. To turn on all types of debugging, use ‘-x all’.

The uulog program uses ‘-X’ rather than ‘-x’ to select the debugging type; for uulog, ‘-x’ has a different meaning, for reasons of historical compatibility.

‘-I file’

‘--config file’

Set the main configuration file to use. See section The Main Configuration File. When this option is used, the programs will revoke any setuid privileges.

‘-v’

‘--version’

Report version information and exit.

‘--help’

Print a help message and exit.

2.2 Invoking uucp

2.2.1 uucp Description

uucp [options] ‘source-file’ ‘destination-file’
uucp [options] ‘source-file’... ‘destination-directory’

The uucp command copies files between systems. Each ‘file’ argument is either a file name on the local machine or is of the form ‘system!file’. The latter is interpreted as being on a remote system.

When uucp is used with two non-option arguments, the contents of the first file are copied to the second. With more than two non-option arguments, each source file is copied into the destination directory.

A file may be transferred to or from ‘system2’ via ‘system1’ by using ‘system1!system2!file’.

Any file name that does not begin with ‘/’ or ‘~’ will be prepended with the current directory (unless the ‘-W’ or ‘--noexpand’ options are used). For example, if you are in the directory ‘/home/ian’, then ‘uucp foo remote!bar’ is equivalent to ‘uucp /home/ian/foo remote!/home/ian/bar’. Note that the resulting file name may not be valid on a remote system.

A file name beginning with a simple ‘~’ starts at the UUCP public directory; a file name beginning with ‘~name’ starts at the home directory of the named user. The ‘~’ is interpreted on the appropriate system. Note that some shells will interpret an initial ‘~’ before uucp sees it; to avoid this the ‘~’ must be quoted.

The shell metacharacters ‘?’ ‘*’ ‘[’ and ‘]’ are interpreted on the appropriate system, assuming they are quoted to prevent the shell from interpreting them first.

The file copy does not take place immediately, but is queued up for the uucico daemon; the daemon is started immediately unless the ‘-r’ or ‘--nouucico’ option is given. The next time the remote system is called, the file(s) will be copied. See section Invoking uucico.

The file mode is not preserved, except for the execute bit. The resulting file is owned by the uucp user.

2.2.2 uucp Options

The following options may be given to uucp.

‘-c’

‘--nocopy’

Do not copy local source files to the spool directory. If they are removed before being processed by the uucico daemon, the copy will fail. The files must be readable by the uucico daemon, and by the invoking user.

‘-C’

‘--copy’

Copy local source files to the spool directory. This is the default.

‘-d’

‘--directories’

Create all necessary directories when doing the copy. This is the default.

‘-f’

‘--nodirectories’

If any necessary directories do not exist for the destination file name, abort the copy.

‘-R’

‘--recursive’

If any of the source file names are directories, copy their contents recursively to the destination (which must itself be a directory).

‘-g grade’

‘--grade grade’

Set the grade of the file transfer command. Jobs of a higher grade are executed first. Grades run 0 to 9, A to Z, a to z, from high to low. See section When to Call.

‘-m’

‘--mail’

Report completion or failure of the file transfer by sending mail.

‘-n user’

‘--notify user’

Report completion or failure of the file transfer by sending mail to the named user on the destination system.

‘-r’

‘--nouucico’

Do not start the uucico daemon immediately; merely queue up the file transfer for later execution.

‘-j’

‘--jobid’

Print the jobid on standard output. The job may be later cancelled by passing this jobid to the ‘-kill’ switch of uustat. See section Invoking uustat.

It is possible for some complex operations to produce more than one jobid, in which case each will be printed on a separate line. For example

uucp sys1!~user1/file1 sys2!~user2/file2 ~user3

will generate two separate jobs, one for the system ‘sys1’ and one for the system ‘sys2’.

‘-W’

‘--noexpand’

Do not prepend remote relative file names with the current directory.

‘-t’

‘--uuto’

This option is used by the uuto shell script; see Invoking uuto. It causes uucp to interpret the final argument as ‘system!user’. The file(s) are sent to ‘~/receive/user/local’ on the remote system, where user is from the final argument and local is the local UUCP system name. Also, uucp will act as though ‘--notify user’ were specified.

‘-x type’

‘--debug type’

‘-I file’

‘--config file’

‘-v’

‘--version’

‘--help’

See section Standard Options.

2.3 Invoking uux

2.3.1 uux Description

uux [options] command

The uux command is used to execute a command on a remote system, or to execute a command on the local system using files from remote systems. The command is not executed immediately; the request is queued until the uucico daemon calls the system and transfers the necessary files. The daemon is started automatically unless one of the ‘-r’ or ‘--nouucico’ options is given.

The actual command execution is done by the uuxqt daemon on the appropriate system.

File arguments can be gathered from remote systems to the execution system, as can standard input. Standard output may be directed to a file on a remote system.

The command name may be preceded by a system name followed by an exclamation point if it is to be executed on a remote system. An empty system name is taken as the local system.

Each argument that contains an exclamation point is treated as naming a file. The system which the file is on is before the exclamation point, and the file name on that system follows it. An empty system name is taken as the local system; this form must be used to transfer a file to a command being executed on a remote system. If the file name is not absolute, the current working directory will be prepended to it; the result may not be meaningful on the remote system. A file name may begin with ‘~/’, in which case it is relative to the UUCP public directory on the appropriate system. A file name may begin with ‘~name/’, in which case it is relative to the home directory of the named user on the appropriate system.

Standard input and output may be redirected as usual; the file names used may contain exclamation points to indicate that they are on remote systems. Note that the redirection characters must be quoted so that they are passed to uux rather than interpreted by the shell. Append redirection (‘>>’) does not work.

All specified files are gathered together into a single directory before execution of the command begins. This means that each file must have a distinct name. For example,

uux 'sys1!diff sys2!~user1/foo sys3!~user2/foo >!foo.diff'

will fail because both files will be copied to ‘sys1’ and stored under the name ‘foo’.

Arguments may be quoted by parentheses to avoid interpretation of exclamation points. This is useful when executing the uucp command on a remote system.

Most systems restrict the commands which may be executed using ‘uux’. Many permit only the execution of ‘rmail’ and ‘rnews’.

A request to execute an empty command (e.g., ‘uux sys!’) will create a poll file for the specified system; see Calling Other Systems for an example of why this might be useful.

The exit status of uux is one of the codes found in the header file ‘sysexits.h’. In particular, ‘EX_OK’ (‘0’) indicates success, and ‘EX_TEMPFAIL’ (‘75’) indicates a temporary failure.

2.3.2 uux Options

The following options may be given to uux.

‘-’

‘-p’

‘--stdin’

Read standard input up to end of file, and use it as the standard input for the command to be executed.

‘-c’

‘--nocopy’

Do not copy local files to the spool directory. This is the default. If they are removed before being processed by the uucico daemon, the copy will fail. The files must be readable by the uucico daemon, as well as the by the invoker of uux.

‘-C’

‘--copy’

Copy local files to the spool directory.

‘-l’

‘--link’

Link local files into the spool directory. If a file can not be linked because it is on a different device, it will be copied unless one of the ‘-c’ or ‘--nocopy’ options also appears (in other words, use of ‘--link’ switches the default from ‘--nocopy’ to ‘--copy’). If the files are changed before being processed by the uucico daemon, the changed versions will be used. The files must be readable by the uucico daemon, as well as by the invoker of uux.

‘-g grade’

‘--grade grade’

Set the grade of the file transfer command. Jobs of a higher grade are executed first. Grades run 0 to 9, A to Z, a to z, from high to low. See section When to Call.

‘-n’

‘--notification=no’

Do not send mail about the status of the job, even if it fails.

‘-z’

‘--notification=error’

Send mail about the status of the job if an error occurs. For many uuxqt daemons, including the Taylor UUCP uuxqt, this is the default action; for those, ‘--notification=error’ will have no effect. However, some uuxqt daemons will send mail if the job succeeds, unless the ‘--notification=error’ option is used. Some other uuxqt daemons will not send mail even if the job fails, unless the ‘--notification=error’ option is used.

‘-a address’

‘--requestor address’

Report job status, as controlled by the ‘--notification’ option, to the specified mail address.

‘-r’

‘--nouucico’

Do not start the uucico daemon immediately; merely queue up the execution request for later processing.

‘-j’

‘--jobid’

Print the jobid on standard output. A jobid will be generated for each file copy operation required to execute the command. These file copies may be later cancelled by passing the jobid to the ‘-kill’ switch of uustat. See section Invoking uustat. Cancelling any file copies will make it impossible to complete execution of the job.

‘-x type’

‘--debug type’

‘-v’

‘--version’

‘--help’

See section Standard Options.

2.3.3 uux Examples

Here are some examples of using uux.

uux -z - sys1!rmail user1

This will execute the command ‘rmail user1’ on the system ‘sys1’, giving it as standard input whatever is given to uux as standard input. If a failure occurs, mail will be sent to the user who ran the command.

uux 'diff -c sys1!~user1/file1 sys2!~user2/file2 >!file.diff'

This will fetch the two named files from system ‘sys1’ and system ‘sys2’ and execute ‘diff’, putting the result in ‘file.diff’ in the current directory on the local system. The current directory must be writable by the uuxqt daemon for this to work.

uux 'sys1!uucp ~user1/file1 (sys2!~user2/file2)'

Execute uucp on the system ‘sys1’ copying ‘file1’ (on system ‘sys1’) to ‘sys2’. This illustrates the use of parentheses for quoting.

2.4 Invoking uustat

2.4.1 uustat Description

uustat -a
uustat --all
uustat [-eKRiMNQ] [-sS system] [-uU user] [-cC command] [-oy hours]
       [-B lines] [--executions] [--kill-all] [--rejuvenate-all]
       [--prompt] [--mail] [--notify] [--no-list] [--system system]
       [--not-system system] [--user user] [--not-user user]
       [--command command] [--not-command command] [--older-than hours]
       [--younger-than hours] [--mail-lines lines]
uustat [-kr jobid] [--kill jobid] [--rejuvenate jobid]
uustat -q [-sS system] [-oy hours] [--system system]
       [--not-system system ] [--older-than hours] [--younger-than hours]
uustat --list [-sS system] [-oy hours] [--system system ]
       [--not-system system] [--older-than hours] [--younger-than hours]
uustat -m
uustat --status
uustat -p
uustat --ps

The uustat command can display various types of status information about the UUCP system. It can also be used to cancel or rejuvenate requests made by uucp or uux.

With no options, uustat displays all jobs queued up for the invoking user, as if given the ‘--user’ option with the appropriate argument.

If any of the ‘-a’, ‘--all’, ‘-e’, ‘--executions’, ‘-s’, ‘--system’, ‘-S’, ‘--not-system’, ‘-u’, ‘--user’, ‘-U’, ‘--not-user’, ‘-c’, ‘--command’, ‘-C’, ‘--not-command’, ‘-o’, ‘--older-than’, ‘-y’, or ‘--younger-than’ options are given, then all jobs which match the combined specifications are displayed.

The ‘-K’ or ‘--kill-all’ option may be used to kill off a selected group of jobs, such as all jobs more than 7 days old.

2.4.2 uustat Options

The following options may be given to uustat.

‘-a’

‘--all’

List all queued file transfer requests.

‘-e’

‘--executions’

List queued execution requests rather than queued file transfer requests. Queued execution requests are processed by uuxqt rather than uucico. Queued execution requests may be waiting for some file to be transferred from a remote system. They are created by an invocation of uux.

‘-s system’

‘--system system’

List all jobs queued up for the named system. These options may be specified multiple times, in which case all jobs for all the named systems will be listed. If used with ‘--list’, only the systems named will be listed.

‘-S system’

‘--not-system system’

List all jobs queued for systems other than the one named. These options may be specified multiple times, in which case no jobs from any of the specified systems will be listed. If used with ‘--list’, only the systems not named will be listed. These options may not be used with ‘-s’ or ‘--system’.

‘-u user’

‘--user user’

List all jobs queued up for the named user. These options may be specified multiple times, in which case all jobs for all the named users will be listed.

‘-U user’

‘--not-user user’

List all jobs queued up for users other than the one named. These options may be specified multiple times, in which case no jobs from any of the specified users will be listed. These options may not be used with ‘-u’ or ‘--user’.

‘-c command’

‘--command command’

List all jobs requesting the execution of the named command. If ‘command’ is ‘ALL’ this will list all jobs requesting the execution of some command (as opposed to simply requesting a file transfer). These options may be specified multiple times, in which case all jobs requesting any of the commands will be listed.

‘-C command’

‘--not-command command’

List all jobs requesting execution of some command other than the named command, or, if ‘command’ is ‘ALL’, list all jobs that simply request a file transfer (as opposed to requesting the execution of some command). These options may be specified multiple times, in which case no job requesting one of the specified commands will be listed. These options may not be used with ‘-c’ or ‘--command’.

‘-o hours’

‘--older-than hours’

List all queued jobs older than the given number of hours. If used with ‘--list’, only systems whose oldest job is older than the given number of hours will be listed.

‘-y hours’

‘--younger-than hours’

List all queued jobs younger than the given number of hours. If used with ‘--list’, only systems whose oldest job is younger than the given number of hours will be listed.

‘-k jobid’

‘--kill jobid’

Kill the named job. The job id is shown by the default output format, as well as by the ‘-j’ or ‘--jobid’ options to uucp or uux. A job may only be killed by the user who created the job, or by the UUCP administrator, or the superuser. The ‘-k’ or ‘--kill’ options may be used multiple times on the command line to kill several jobs.

‘-r jobid’

‘--rejuvenate jobid’

Rejuvenate the named job. This will mark it as having been invoked at the current time, affecting the output of the ‘-o’, ‘--older-than’, ‘-y’, or ‘--younger-than’ options, possibly preserving it from any automated cleanup daemon. The job id is shown by the default output format, as well as by the ‘-j’ or ‘--jobid’ options to uucp or uux. A job may only be rejuvenated by the user who created the job, or by the UUCP administrator, or the superuser. The ‘-r’ or ‘--rejuvenate’ options may be used multiple times on the command line to rejuvenate several jobs.

‘-q’

‘--list’

Display the status of commands, executions and conversations for all remote systems for which commands or executions are queued. The ‘-s’, ‘--system’, ‘-S’, ‘--not-system’, ‘-o’, ‘--older-than’, ‘-y’, and ‘--younger-than’ options may be used to restrict the systems which are listed. Systems for which no commands or executions are queued will never be listed.

‘-m’

‘--status’

Display the status of conversations for all remote systems.

‘-p’

‘--ps’

Display the status of all processes holding UUCP locks on systems or ports.

‘-i’

‘--prompt’

For each listed job, prompt whether to kill the job or not. If the first character of the input line is y or Y, the job will be killed.

‘-K’

‘--kill-all’

Automatically kill each listed job. This can be useful for automatic cleanup scripts, in conjunction with the ‘--mail’ and ‘--notify’ options.

‘-R’

‘--rejuvenate-all’

Automatically rejuvenate each listed job. This may not be used with ‘--kill-all’.

‘-M’

‘--mail’

For each listed job, send mail to the UUCP administrator. If the job is killed (due to ‘--kill-all’, or ‘--prompt’ with an affirmative response) the mail will indicate that. A comment specified by the ‘--comment’ option may be included. If the job is an execution, the initial portion of its standard input will be included in the mail message; the number of lines to include may be set with the ‘--mail-lines’ option (the default is 100). If the standard input contains null characters, it is assumed to be a binary file and is not included.

‘-N’

‘--notify’

For each listed job, send mail to the user who requested the job. The mail is identical to that sent by the ‘-M’ or ‘--mail’ options.

‘-W comment’

‘--comment comment’

Specify a comment to be included in mail sent with the ‘-M’, ‘--mail’, ‘-N’, or ‘--notify’ options.

‘-B lines’

‘--mail-lines lines’

When the ‘-M’, ‘--mail’, ‘-N’, or ‘--notify’ options are used to send mail about an execution with standard input, this option controls the number of lines of standard input to include in the message. The default is 100.

‘-Q’

‘--no-list’

Do not actually list the job, but only take any actions indicated by the ‘-i’, ‘--prompt’, ‘-K’, ‘--kill-all’, ‘-M’, ‘--mail’, ‘-N’ or ‘--notify’ options.

‘-x type’

‘--debug type’

‘-I file’

‘--config file’

‘-v’

‘--version’

‘--help’

See section Standard Options.

2.4.3 uustat Examples

uustat --all

Display status of all jobs. A sample output line is as follows:

bugsA027h bugs ian 04-01 13:50 Executing rmail ian@airs.com (sending 12 bytes)

The format is

jobid system user queue-date command (size)

The jobid may be passed to the ‘--kill’ or ‘--rejuvenate’ options. The size indicates how much data is to be transferred to the remote system, and is absent for a file receive request. The ‘--system’, ‘--not-system’, ‘--user’, ‘--not-user’, ‘--command’, ‘--not-command’, ‘--older-than’, and ‘--younger-than’ options may be used to control which jobs are listed.

uustat --executions

Display status of queued up execution requests. A sample output line is as follows:

bugs bugs!ian 05-20 12:51 rmail ian

The format is

system requestor queue-date command

The ‘--system’, ‘--not-system’, ‘--user’, ‘--not-user’, ‘--command’, ‘--not-command’, ‘--older-than’, and ‘--younger-than’ options may be used to control which requests are listed.

uustat --list

Display status for all systems with queued up commands. A sample output line is as follows:

bugs            4C (1 hour)   0X (0 secs) 04-01 14:45 Dial failed

This indicates the system, the number of queued commands, the age of the oldest queued command, the number of queued local executions, the age of the oldest queued execution, the date of the last conversation, and the status of that conversation.

uustat --status

Display conversation status for all remote systems. A sample output line is as follows:

bugs           04-01 15:51 Conversation complete

This indicates the system, the date of the last conversation, and the status of that conversation. If the last conversation failed, uustat will indicate how many attempts have been made to call the system. If the retry period is currently preventing calls to that system, uustat also displays the time when the next call will be permitted.

uustat --ps

Display the status of all processes holding UUCP locks. The output format is system dependent, as uustat simply invokes ps on each process holding a lock.

uustat -c rmail -o 168 -K -Q -M -N -W "Queued for over 1 week"

This will kill all ‘rmail’ commands that have been queued up waiting for delivery for over 1 week (168 hours). For each such command, mail will be sent both to the UUCP administrator and to the user who requested the rmail execution. The mail message sent will include the string given by the ‘-W’ option. The ‘-Q’ option prevents any of the jobs from being listed on the terminal, so any output from the program will be error messages.

2.5 Invoking uuname

uuname [-a] [--aliases]
uuname -l
uuname --local

By default, the uuname program simply lists the names of all the remote systems mentioned in the UUCP configuration files.

The uuname program may also be used to print the UUCP name of the local system.

The uuname program is mainly for use by shell scripts.

The following options may be given to uuname.

‘-a’

‘--aliases’

List all aliases for remote systems, as well as their canonical names. Aliases may be specified in the ‘sys’ file (see section Naming the System).

‘-l’

‘--local’

Print the UUCP name of the local system, rather than listing the names of all the remote systems.

‘-x type’

‘--debug type’

‘-I file’

‘--config file’

‘-v’

‘--version’

‘--help’

See section Standard Options.

2.6 Invoking uulog

uulog [-#] [-n lines] [-sf system] [-u user] [-DSF] [--lines lines]
      [--system system] [--user user] [--debuglog] [--statslog]
      [--follow] [--follow=system]

The uulog program may be used to display the UUCP log file. Different options may be used to select which parts of the file to display.

‘-#’

‘-n lines’

‘--lines lines’

Here ‘#’ is a number; e.g., ‘-10’. The specified number of lines is displayed from the end of the log file. The default is to display the entire log file, unless the ‘-f’, ‘-F’, or ‘--follow’ options are used, in which case the default is to display 10 lines.

‘-s system’

‘--system system’

Display only log entries pertaining to the specified system.

‘-u user’

‘--user user’

Display only log entries pertaining to the specified user.

‘-D’

‘--debuglog’

Display the debugging log file.

‘-S’

‘--statslog’

Display the statistics log file.

‘-F’

‘--follow’

Keep displaying the log file forever, printing new lines as they are appended to the log file.

‘-f system’

‘--follow=system’

Keep displaying the log file forever, displaying only log entries pertaining to the specified system.

‘-X type’

‘--debug type’

‘-I file’

‘--config file’

‘-v’

‘--version’

‘--help’

See section Standard Options. Note that uulog specifies the debugging type using ‘-X’ rather than the usual ‘-x’.

The operation of uulog depends to some degree upon the type of log files generated by the UUCP programs. This is a compile time option. If the UUCP programs have been compiled to use HDB style log files, uulog changes in the following ways:

• The new options ‘-x’ and ‘--uuxqtlog’ may be used to list the uuxqt log file.
• It is no longer possible to omit all arguments: one of ‘-s’, ‘--system’, ‘-f’, ‘--follow=system’, ‘-D’, ‘--debuglog’, ‘-S’, ‘--statslog’, ‘-x’, or ‘--uuxqtlog’ must be used.
• The option ‘--system ANY’ may be used to list log file entries which do not pertain to any particular system.

2.7 Invoking uuto

uuto files... system!user

The uuto program may be used to conveniently send files to a particular user on a remote system. It will arrange for mail to be sent to the remote user when the files arrive on the remote system, and he or she may easily retrieve the files using the uupick program (see section Invoking uupick). Note that uuto does not provide any security—any user on the remote system can examine the files.

The last argument specifies the system and user name to which to send the files. The other arguments are the files or directories to be sent.

The uuto program is actually just a trivial shell script which invokes the uucp program with the appropriate arguments. Any option which may be given to uucp may also be given to uuto. See section Invoking uucp.

2.8 Invoking uupick

uupick [-s system] [--system system]

The uupick program is used to conveniently retrieve files transferred by the uuto program.

For each file transferred by uuto, uupick will display the source system, the file name, and whether the name refers to a regular file or a directory. It will then wait for the user to specify an action to take. One of the following commands must be entered:

‘q’

Quit out of uupick.

‘RETURN’

Skip the file.

‘m [directory]’

Move the file or directory to the specified directory. If no directory is specified, the file is moved to the current directory.

‘a [directory]’

Move all files from this system to the specified directory. If no directory is specified, the files are moved to the current directory.

‘p’

List the file on standard output.

‘d’

Delete the file.

‘! [command]’

Execute ‘command’ as a shell escape.

The ‘-s’ or ‘--system’ option may be used to restrict uupick to only present files transferred from a particular system. The uupick program also supports the standard UUCP program options; see Standard Options.

2.9 Invoking cu

2.9.1 cu Description

cu [options] [system | phone | "dir"]

The cu program is used to call up another system and act as a dial in terminal. It can also do simple file transfers with no error checking.

The cu program takes a single non-option argument.

If the argument is the string ‘dir’ cu will make a direct connection to the port. This may only be used by users with write access to the port, as it permits reprogramming the modem.

Otherwise, if the argument begins with a digit, it is taken to be a phone number to call.

Otherwise, it is taken to be the name of a system to call.

The ‘-z’ or ‘--system’ options may be used to name a system beginning with a digit, and the ‘-c’ or ‘--phone’ options may be used to name a phone number that does not begin with a digit.

The cu program locates a port to use in the UUCP configuration files. If a simple system name is given, it will select a port appropriate for that system. The ‘-p’, ‘--port’, ‘-l’, ‘--line’, ‘-s’, and ‘--speed’ options may be used to control the port selection.

When a connection is made to the remote system, cu forks into two processes. One reads from the port and writes to the terminal, while the other reads from the terminal and writes to the port.

2.9.2 cu Commands

The cu program provides several commands that may be used during the conversation. The commands all begin with an escape character, which by default is ~ (tilde). The escape character is only recognized at the beginning of a line. To send an escape character to the remote system at the start of a line, it must be entered twice. All commands are either a single character or a word beginning with % (percent sign).

The cu program recognizes the following commands.

‘~.’

Terminate the conversation.

‘~! command’

Run command in a shell. If command is empty, starts up a shell.

‘~$ command’

Run command, sending the standard output to the remote system.

‘~| command’

Run command, taking the standard input from the remote system.

‘~+ command’

Run command, taking the standard input from the remote system and sending the standard output to the remote system.

‘~#, ~%break’

Send a break signal, if possible.

‘~c directory, ~%cd directory’

Change the local directory.

‘~> file’

Send a file to the remote system. This just dumps the file over the communication line. It is assumed that the remote system is expecting it.

‘~<’

Receive a file from the remote system. This prompts for the local file name and for the remote command to execute to begin the file transfer. It continues accepting data until the contents of the ‘eofread’ variable are seen.

‘~p from to’

‘~%put from to’

Send a file to a remote Unix system. This runs the appropriate commands on the remote system.

‘~t from to’

‘~%take from to’

Retrieve a file from a remote Unix system. This runs the appropriate commands on the remote system.

‘~s variable value’

Set a cu variable to the given value. If value is not given, the variable is set to ‘true’.

‘~! variable’

Set a cu variable to ‘false’.

‘~z’

Suspend the cu session. This is only supported on some systems. On systems for which ^Z may be used to suspend a job, ‘~^Z’ will also suspend the session.

‘~%nostop’

Turn off XON/XOFF handling.

‘~%stop’

Turn on XON/XOFF handling.

‘~v’

List all the variables and their values.

‘~?’

List all commands.

2.9.3 cu Variables

The cu program also supports several variables. They may be listed with the ‘~v’ command, and set with the ‘~s’ or ‘~!’ commands.

‘escape’

The escape character. The default is ~ (tilde).

‘delay’

If this variable is true, cu will delay for a second, after recognizing the escape character, before printing the name of the local system. The default is true.

‘eol’

The list of characters which are considered to finish a line. The escape character is only recognized after one of these is seen. The default is carriage return, ^U, ^C, ^O, ^D, ^S, ^Q, ^R.

‘binary’

Whether to transfer binary data when sending a file. If this is false, then newlines in the file being sent are converted to carriage returns. The default is false.

‘binary-prefix’

A string used before sending a binary character in a file transfer, if the ‘binary’ variable is true. The default is ‘^V’.

‘echo-check’

Whether to check file transfers by examining what the remote system echoes back. This probably doesn’t work very well. The default is false.

‘echonl’

The character to look for after sending each line in a file. The default is carriage return.

‘timeout’

The timeout to use, in seconds, when looking for a character, either when doing echo checking or when looking for the ‘echonl’ character. The default is 30.

‘kill’

The character to use delete a line if the echo check fails. The default is ^U.

‘resend’

The number of times to resend a line if the echo check continues to fail. The default is 10.

‘eofwrite’

The string to write after sending a file with the ‘~>’ command. The default is ‘^D’.

‘eofread’

The string to look for when receiving a file with the ‘ ~<’ command. The default is ‘$’, which is intended to be a typical shell prompt.

‘verbose’

Whether to print accumulated information during a file transfer. The default is true.

2.9.4 cu Options

The following options may be given to cu.

‘-e’

‘--parity=even’

Use even parity.

‘-o’

‘--parity=odd’

Use odd parity.

‘--parity=none’

Use no parity. No parity is also used if both ‘-e’ and ‘-o’ are given.

‘-h’

‘--halfduplex’

Echo characters locally (half-duplex mode).

‘--nostop’

Turn off XON/XOFF handling (it is on by default).

‘-E char’

‘--escape char’

Set the escape character. Initially ~ (tilde). To eliminate the escape character, use ‘-E ''’.

‘-z system’

‘--system system’

The system to call.

‘-c phone-number’

‘--phone phone-number’

The phone number to call.

‘-p port’

‘-a port’

‘--port port’

Name the port to use.

‘-l line’

‘--line line’

Name the line to use by giving a device name. This may be used to dial out on ports that are not listed in the UUCP configuration files. Write access to the device is required.

‘-s speed’

‘-#’

‘--speed speed’

The speed (baud rate) to use. Here, ‘-#’ means an actual number; e.g., ‘-9600’.

‘-n’

‘--prompt’

Prompt for the phone number to use.

‘-d’

Enter debugging mode. Equivalent to ‘--debug all’.

‘-x type’

‘--debug type’

‘-I file’

‘--config file’

‘-v’

‘--version’

‘--help’

See section Standard Options.

2.10 Invoking uucico

2.10.1 uucico Description

uucico [options]

The uucico daemon processes file transfer requests queued by uucp and uux. It is started when uucp or uux is run (unless they are given the ‘-r’ or ‘--nouucico’ options). It is also typically started periodically using entries in the ‘crontab’ table(s).

When uucico is invoked with ‘-r1’, ‘--master’, ‘-s’, ‘--system’, or ‘-S’, the daemon will place a call to a remote system, running in master mode. Otherwise the daemon will start in slave mode, accepting a call from a remote system. Typically a special login name will be set up for UUCP which automatically invokes uucico when a remote system calls in and logs in under that name.

When uucico terminates, it invokes the uuxqt daemon, unless the ‘-q’ or ‘--nouuxqt’ options were given; uuxqt executes any work orders created by uux on a remote system, and any work orders created locally which have received remote files for which they were waiting.

If a call fails, uucico will normally refuse to retry the call until a certain (configurable) amount of time has passed. This may be overriden by the ‘-f’, ‘--force’, or ‘-S’ options.

The ‘-l’, ‘--prompt’, ‘-e’, or ‘--loop’ options may be used to force uucico to produce its own prompts of ‘login: ’ and ‘Password:’. When another uucico daemon calls in, it will see these prompts and log in as usual. The login name and password will normally be checked against a separate list kept specially for uucico, rather than the ‘/etc/passwd’ file (see section Configuration File Names). It is possible, on some systems, to configure uucico to use ‘/etc/passwd’. The ‘-l’ or ‘--prompt’ options will prompt once and then exit; in this mode the UUCP administrator, or the superuser, may use the ‘-u’ or ‘--login’ option to force a login name, in which case uucico will not prompt for one. The ‘-e’ or ‘--loop’ options will prompt again after the first session is over; in this mode uucico will permanently control a port.

If uucico receives a SIGQUIT, SIGTERM or SIGPIPE signal, it will cleanly abort any current conversation with a remote system and exit. If it receives a SIGHUP signal it will abort any current conversation, but will continue to place calls to (if invoked with ‘-r1’ or ‘--master’) and accept calls from (if invoked with ‘-e’ or ‘--loop’) other systems. If it receives a SIGINT signal it will finish the current conversation, but will not place or accept any more calls.

2.10.2 uucico Options

The following options may be given to uucico.

‘-r1’

‘--master’

Start in master mode: call out to a remote system. Implied by ‘-s’, ‘--system’, or ‘-S’. If no system is specified, sequentially call every system for which work is waiting to be done.

‘-r0’

‘--slave’

Start in slave mode. This is the default.

‘-s system’

‘--system system’

Call the specified system.

‘-S system’

Call the specified system, ignoring any required wait. This is equivalent to ‘-s system -f’.

‘-f’

‘--force’

Ignore any required wait for any systems to be called.

‘-l’

‘--prompt’

Prompt for login name and password using ‘login: ’ and ‘Password:’. This allows uucico to be easily run from inetd. The login name and password are checked against the UUCP password file, which need not be ‘/etc/passwd’. The ‘--login’ option may be used to force a login name, in which cause uucico will only prompt for a password.

‘-p port’

‘--port port’

Specify a port to call out on or to listen to.

‘-e’

‘--loop’

Enter an endless loop of login/password prompts and slave mode daemon execution. The program will not stop by itself; you must use kill to shut it down.

‘-w’

‘--wait’

After calling out (to a particular system when ‘-s’, ‘--system’, or ‘-S’ is specifed, or to all systems which have work when just ‘-r1’ or ‘--master’ is specifed), begin an endless loop as with ‘--loop’.

‘-q’

‘--nouuxqt’

Do not start the uuxqt daemon when finished.

‘-c’

‘--quiet’

If no calls are permitted at this time, then don’t make the call, but also do not put an error message in the log file and do not update the system status (as reported by uustat). This can be convenient for automated polling scripts, which may want to simply attempt to call every system rather than worry about which particular systems may be called at the moment. This option also suppresses the log message indicating that there is no work to be done.

‘-C’

‘--ifwork’

Only call the system named by ‘-s’, ‘--system’, or ‘-S’ if there is work for that system.

‘-D’

‘--nodetach’

Do not detach from the controlling terminal. Normally uucico detaches from the terminal before each call out to another system and before invoking uuxqt. This option prevents this.

‘-u name’

‘--login name’

Set the login name to use instead of that of the invoking user. This option may only be used by the UUCP administrator or the superuser. If used with ‘--prompt’, this will cause uucico to prompt only for the password, not the login name.

‘-z’

‘--try-next’

If a call fails after the remote system is reached, try the next alternate rather than simply exiting.

‘-i type’

‘--stdin type’

Set the type of port to use when using standard input. The only supported port type is TLI, and this is only available on machines which support the TLI networking interface. Specifying ‘-i TLI’ causes uucico to use TLI calls to perform I/O.

‘-X type’

Same as the standard option ‘-x type’. Provided for historical compatibility.

‘-x type’

‘--debug type’

‘-I file’

‘--config file’

‘-v’

‘--version’

‘--help’

See section Standard Options.

2.11 Invoking uuxqt

uuxqt [-c command] [-s system] [--command command] [--system system]

The uuxqt daemon executes commands requested by uux from either the local system or from remote systems. It is started automatically by the uucico daemon (unless uucico is given the ‘-q’ or ‘--nouuxqt’ options).

There is normally no need to run uuxqt, since it will be invoked by uucico. However, uuxqt can be invoked directly to provide greater control over the processing of the work queue.

Multiple invocations of uuxqt may be run at once, as controlled by the max-uuxqts configuration command; see Miscellaneous config File Commands.

The following options may be given to uuxqt.

‘-c command’

‘--command command’

Only execute requests for the specified command. For example, ‘uuxqt --command rmail’.

‘-s system’

‘--system system’

Only execute requests originating from the specified system.

‘-x type’

‘--debug type’

‘-I file’

‘--config’

‘-v’

‘--version’

‘--help’

See section Standard Options.

2.12 Invoking uuchk

uuchk [-s system] [--system system]

The uuchk program displays information read from the UUCP configuration files. It should be used to ensure that UUCP has been configured correctly.

The ‘-s’ or ‘--system’ options may be used to display the configuration for just the specified system, rather than for all systems. The uuchk program also supports the standard UUCP program options; see Standard Options.

2.13 Invoking uuconv

uuconv -i type -o type [-p program] [--program program]
uuconv --input type --output type [-p program] [--program program]

The uuconv program converts UUCP configuration files from one format to another. The type of configuration file to read is specified using the ‘-i’ or ‘--input’ options. The type of configuration file to write is specified using the ‘-o’ or ‘--output’ options.

The supported configuration file types are ‘taylor’, ‘v2’, and ‘hdb’. For a description of the ‘taylor’ configuration files, see Taylor UUCP Configuration Files. The other types of configuration files are used by traditional UUCP packages, and are not described in this manual.

An input configuration of type ‘v2’ or ‘hdb’ is read from a compiled in directory (specified by ‘oldconfigdir’ in ‘Makefile’). An input configuration of type ‘taylor’ is read from a compiled in directory by default, but may be overridden with the standard ‘-I’ or ‘--config’ options (see section Standard Options).

The output configuration is written to files in the directory in which uuconv is run.

Some information in the input files may not be representable in the desired output format, in which case uuconv will silently discard it. The output of uuconv should be carefully checked before it is used. The uuchk program may be used for this purpose; see Invoking uuchk.

The ‘-p’ or ‘--program’ option may be used to convert specific cu configuration information, rather than the default of only converting the uucp configuration information; see The Main Configuration File.

The uuchk program also supports the standard UUCP program options; see Standard Options.

2.14 Invoking uusched

The uusched program is actually just a shell script which invokes the uucico daemon. It is provided for backward compatibility. It causes uucico to call all systems for which there is work. Any option which may be given to uucico may also be given to uusched. See section Invoking uucico.

3 Installing Taylor UUCP

These are the installation instructions for the Taylor UUCP package.

3.1 Compiling Taylor UUCP

If you have a source code distribution, you must first compile it for your system. Free versions of Unix, such as Linux, NetBSD, or FreeBSD, often come with pre-compiled binary distributions of UUCP. If you are using a binary distribution, you may skip to the configuration section (see section Configuring Taylor UUCP).

Follow these steps to compile the source code.

1. Take a look at the top of ‘Makefile.in’ and set the appropriate values for your system. These control where the programs are installed and which user on the system owns them (normally they will be owned by a special user uucp rather than a real person; they should probably not be owned by root).
2. Run the shell script configure. This script was generated using the autoconf program written by David MacKenzie of the Free Software Foundation. It takes a while to run. It will generate the file ‘config.h’ based on ‘config.h.in’, and, for each source code directory, will generate ‘Makefile’ based on ‘Makefile.in’.

   You can pass certain arguments to configure in the environment. Because configure will compile little test programs to see what is available on your system, you must tell it how to run your compiler. It recognizes the following environment variables:

   ‘CC’

   The C compiler. If this is not set, then if configure can find ‘gcc’ it will use it, otherwise it will use ‘cc’.

   ‘CFLAGS’

   Flags to pass to the C compiler when compiling the actual code. If this is not set, configure will use ‘-g’.

   ‘LDFLAGS’

   Flags to pass to the C compiler when only linking, not compiling. If this is not set, configure will use the empty string.

   ‘LIBS’

   Libraries to pass to the C compiler. If this is not set, configure will use the empty string.

   ‘INSTALL’

   The program to run to install UUCP in the binary directory. If this is not set, then if configure finds the BSD install program, it will set this to ‘install -c’; otherwise, it will use ‘cp’.

   Suppose, for example, you want to set the environment variable ‘CC’ to ‘rcc’. If you are using sh, bash, or ksh, invoke configure as ‘CC=rcc configure’. If you are using csh, do ‘setenv CC rcc; sh configure’.

   On some systems you will want to use ‘LIBS=-lmalloc’. On Xenix derived versions of Unix do not use ‘LIBS=-lx’ because this will bring in the wrong versions of certain routines; if you want to use ‘-lx’ you must specify ‘LIBS=-lc -lx’.

   You can also pass other arguments to configure on the command line. Use ‘configure --help’ for a complete list. Of particular interest:

   ‘--prefix=dirname’

   The directory under which all files are installed. Default ‘/usr/local’.

   ‘--with-newconfigdir=dirname’

   The directory in which to find new style configuration files. Default ‘prefix/conf/uucp’.

   ‘--with-oldconfigdir=dirname’

   The directory in which to find old style configuration files. Default ‘/usr/lib/uucp’.

   If configure fails for some reason, or if you have a very weird system, you may have to configure the package by hand. To do this, copy the file ‘config.h.in’ to ‘config.h’ and edit it for your system. Then for each source directory (the top directory, and the subdirectories ‘lib’, ‘unix’, and ‘uuconf’) copy ‘Makefile.in’ to ‘Makefile’, find the words within @ characters, and set them correctly for your system.

3. Igor V. Semenyuk provided this (lightly edited) note about ISC Unix 3.0. The configure script will default to passing ‘-posix’ to gcc. However, using ‘-posix’ changes the environment to POSIX, and on ISC 3.0, at least, the default for POSIX_NO_TRUNC is 1. This can lead to a problem when uuxqt executes rmail. IDA sendmail has dbm configuration files named ‘mailertable.{dir,pag}’. Notice these names are 15 characters long. When uuxqt compiled with the ‘-posix’ executes rmail, which in turn executes sendmail, the later is run under the POSIX environment too. This leads to sendmail bombing out with ‘'error opening 'M' database: name too long' (mailertable.dir)’. It’s rather obscure behaviour, and it took me a day to find out the cause. I don’t use the ‘-posix’ switch; instead, I run gcc with ‘-D_POSIX_SOURCE’, and add ‘-lcposix’ to ‘LIBS’.
4. On some versions of BSDI there is a bug in the shell which causes the default value for ‘CFLAGS’ to be set incorrectly. If ‘echo ${CFLAGS--g}’ echoes ‘g’ rather than ‘-g’, then you must set ‘CFLAGS’ in the environment before running configure. There is a patch available from BSDI for this bug. (Reported by David Vrona).
5. On AIX 3.2.5, and possibly other versions, ‘cc -E’ does not work, reporting ‘Option NOROCONST is not valid’. Test this before running configure by doing something like ‘touch /tmp/foo.c; cc -E /tmp/foo.c’. This may give a warning about the file being empty, but it should not give the ‘Option NOROCONST’ warning. The workaround is to remove the ‘,noroconst’ entry from the ‘options’ clause in the ‘cc’ stanza in ‘/etc/xlc.cfg’. (Reported by Chris Lewis).
6. You should verify that configure worked correctly by checking ‘config.h’ and the instances of ‘Makefile’.
7. Edit ‘policy.h’ for your local system. The comments explain the various choices. The default values are intended to be reasonable, so you may not have to make any changes.

   You must decide what type of configuration files to use; for more information on the choices, see Configuring Taylor UUCP.

   You must also decide what sort of spool directory you want to use. If this is a new installation, I recommend ‘SPOOLDIR_TAYLOR’; otherwise, select the spool directory corresponding to your existing UUCP package.

8. Type ‘make’ to compile everything.

   The ‘tstuu.c’ file is not particularly portable; if you can’t figure out how to compile it you can safely ignore it, as it is only used for testing. To use STREAMS pseudo-terminals, tstuu.c must be compiled with ‘-DHAVE_STREAMS_PTYS’; this is not determined by the configure script.

   If you have any other problems there is probably a bug in the configure script.

9. Please report any problems you have. That is the only way they will get fixed for other people. Supply a patch if you can (see section Patches), or just ask for help.

3.2 Testing the Compilation

If your system supports pseudo-terminals, and you compiled the code to support the new style of configuration files (HAVE_TAYLOR_CONFIG was set to 1 in ‘policy.h’), you should be able to use the tstuu program to test the uucico daemon. If your system supports STREAMS based pseudo-terminals, you must compile tstuu.c with ‘-DHAVE_STREAMS_PTYS’. (The STREAMS based code was contributed by Marc Boucher).

To run tstuu, just type ‘tstuu’ with no arguments. You must run it in the compilation directory, since it runs ‘./uucp’, ‘./uux’ and ‘./uucico’. The tstuu program will run a lengthy series of tests (it takes over ten minutes on a slow VAX). You will need a fair amount of space available in ‘/usr/tmp’. You will probably want to put it in the background. Do not use ^Z, because the program traps on SIGCHLD and winds up dying. The tstuu program will create a directory ‘/usr/tmp/tstuu’ and fill it with configuration files, and create spool directories ‘/usr/tmp/tstuu/spool1’ and ‘/usr/tmp/tstuu/spool2’.

If your system does not support the FIONREAD call, the ‘tstuu’ program will run very slowly. This may or may not get fixed in a later version.

The tstuu program will finish with an execute file named ‘X.something’ and a data file named ‘D.something’ in the directory ‘/usr/tmp/tstuu/spool1’ (or, more likely, in subdirectories, depending on the choice of SPOOLDIR in ‘policy.h’). Two log files will be created in the directory ‘/usr/tmp/tstuu’. They will be named ‘Log1’ and ‘Log2’, or, if you have selected HAVE_HDB_LOGGING in ‘policy.h’, ‘Log1/uucico/test2’ and ‘Log2/uucico/test1’. There should be no errors in the log files.

You can test uuxqt with ‘./uuxqt -I /usr/tmp/tstuu/Config1’. This should leave a command file ‘C.something’ and a data file ‘D.something’ in ‘/usr/tmp/tstuu/spool1’ or in subdirectories. Again, there should be no errors in the log file.

Assuming you compiled the code with debugging enabled, the ‘-x’ switch can be used to set debugging modes; see the debug command for details (see section Debugging Levels). Use ‘-x all’ to turn on all debugging and generate far more output than you will ever want to see. The uucico daemons will put debugging output in the files ‘Debug1’ and ‘Debug2’ in the directory ‘/usr/tmp/tstuu’. After that, you’re pretty much on your own.

On some systems you can also use tstuu to test uucico against the system uucico, by using the ‘-u’ switch. For this to work, change the definitions of ZUUCICO_CMD and UUCICO_EXECL at the top of ‘tstuu.c’ to something appropriate for your system. The definitions in ‘tstuu.c’ are what I used for Ultrix 4.0, on which ‘/usr/lib/uucp/uucico’ is particularly obstinate about being run as a child; I was only able to run it by creating a login name with no password whose shell was ‘/usr/lib/uucp/uucico’. Calling login in this way will leave fake entries in ‘wtmp’ and ‘utmp’; if you compile ‘tstout.c’ (in the ‘contrib’ directory) as a setuid root program, tstuu will run it to clear those entries out. On most systems, such hackery should not be necessary, although on SCO I had to su to root (uucp might also have worked) before I could run ‘/usr/lib/uucp/uucico’.

You can test uucp and uux (give them the ‘-r’ switch to keep them from starting uucico) to make sure they create the right sorts of files. Unfortunately, if you don’t know what the right sorts of files are, I’m not going to tell you here.

If you can not run tstuu, or if it fails inexplicably, don’t worry about it too much. On some systems tstuu will fail because of problems using pseudo terminals, which will not matter in normal use. The real test of the package is talking to another system.

3.3 Installing the Binaries

You can install the executable files by becoming root and typing ‘make install’. Or you can look at what ‘make install’ does and do it by hand. It tries to preserve your old programs, if any, but it only does this the first time Taylor UUCP is installed (so that if you install several versions of Taylor UUCP, you can still go back to your original UUCP programs). You can retrieve the original programs by typing ‘make uninstall’.

Note that by default the programs are compiled with debugging information, and they are not stripped when they are installed. You may want to strip the installed programs to save disk space. For more information, see your system documentation for the strip program.

Of course, simply installing the executable files is not enough. You must also arrange for them to be used correctly.

3.4 Configuring Taylor UUCP

You will have to decide what types of configuration files you want to use. This package supports a new sort of configuration file; see Taylor UUCP Configuration Files. It also supports V2 configuration files (‘L.sys’, ‘L-devices’, etc.) and HDB configuration files (‘Systems’, ‘Devices’, etc.). No documentation is provided for V2 or HDB configuration files. All types of configuration files can be used at once, if you are so inclined. Currently using just V2 configuration files is not really possible, because there is no way to specify a dialer (there are no built in dialers, and the program does not know how to read ‘acucap’ or ‘modemcap’); however, V2 configuration files can be used with a new style dial file (see section The Dialer Configuration File), or with a HDB ‘Dialers’ file.

Use of HDB configuration files has two known bugs. A blank line in the middle of an entry in the ‘Permissions’ file will not be ignored as it should be. Dialer programs, as found in some versions of HDB, are not recognized directly. If you must use a dialer program, rather than an entry in ‘Devices’, you must use the chat-program command in a new style dial file; see The Dialer Configuration File. You will have to invoke the dialer program via a shell script or another program, since an exit code of 0 is required to recognize success; the dialHDB program in the ‘contrib’ directory may be used for this purpose.

The uuconv (see section Invoking uuconv) program can be used to convert from V2 or HDB configuration files to the new style (it can also do the reverse translation, if you are so inclined). It will not do all of the work, and the results should be carefully checked, but it can be quite useful.

If you are installing a new system, you will, of course, have to write the configuration files; see Taylor UUCP Configuration Files for details on how to do this.

After writing the configuration files, use the uuchk program to verify that they are what you expect; see Invoking uuchk.

3.5 Testing the Installation

After you have written the configuration files, and verified them with the uuchk program (see section Invoking uuchk), you must check that UUCP can correctly contact another system.

Tell uucico to dial out to the system by using the ‘-s’ system switch (e.g., ‘uucico -s uunet’). The log file should tell you what happens. The exact location of the log file depends upon the settings in ‘policy.h’ when you compiled the program, and on the use of the logfile command in the ‘config’ file. Typical locations are ‘/usr/spool/uucp/Log’ or a subdirectory under ‘/usr/spool/uucp/.Log’.

If you compiled the code with debugging enabled, you can use debugging mode to get a great deal of information about what sort of data is flowing back and forth; the various possibilities are described with the debug command (see section Debugging Levels). When initially setting up a connection ‘-x chat’ is probably the most useful (e.g., ‘uucico -s uunet -x chat’); you may also want to use ‘-x handshake,incoming,outgoing’. You can use ‘-x’ multiple times on one command line, or you can give it comma separated arguments as in the last example. Use ‘-x all’ to turn on all possible debugging information.

The debugging information is written to a file, normally ‘/usr/spool/uucp/Debug’, although the default can be changed in ‘policy.h’, and the ‘config’ file can override the default with the debugfile command. The debugging file may contain passwords and some file contents as they are transmitted over the line, so the debugging file is only readable by the uucp user.

You can use the ‘-f’ switch to force uucico to call out even if the last call failed recently; using ‘-S’ when naming a system has the same effect. Otherwise the status file (in the ‘.Status’ subdirectory of the main spool directory, normally ‘/usr/spool/uucp’) (see section Status Directory) will prevent too many attempts from occurring in rapid succession.

On older System V based systems which do not have the setreuid system call, problems may arise if ordinary users can start an execution of uuxqt, perhaps indirectly via uucp or uux. UUCP jobs may wind up executing with a real user ID of the user who invoked uuxqt, which can cause problems if the UUCP job checks the real user ID for security purposes. On such systems, it is safest to put ‘run-uuxqt never’ (see section Miscellaneous config File Commands) in the ‘config’ file, so that uucico never starts uuxqt, and invoke uuxqt directly from a ‘crontab’ file.

Please let me know about any problems you have and how you got around them. If you do report a problem, please include the version number of the package you are using, the operating system you are running it on, and a sample of the debugging file showing the problem (debugging information is usually what is needed, not just the log file). General questions such as “why doesn’t uucico dial out” are impossible to answer without much more information.

4 Using Taylor UUCP

4.1 Calling Other Systems

By default uucp and uux will automatically start up uucico to call another system whenever work is queued up. However, the call may fail, or you may have put in time restrictions which prevent the call at that time (perhaps because telephone rates are high) (see section When to Call). Also, a remote system may have work queued up for your system, but may not be calling you for some reason (perhaps you have agreed that your system should always place the call). To make sure that work gets transferred between the systems withing a reasonable time period, you should arrange to periodically invoke uucico.

These periodic invocations are normally triggered by entries in the ‘crontab’ file. The exact format of ‘crontab’ files, and how new entries are added, varies from system to system; check your local documentation (try ‘man cron’).

To attempt to call all systems with outstanding work, use the command ‘uucico -r1’. To attempt to call a particular system, use the command ‘uucico -s system’. To attempt to call a particular system, but only if there is work for it, use the command ‘uucico -C -s system’. (see section Invoking uucico).

A common case is to want to try to call a system at a certain time, with periodic retries if the call fails. A simple way to do this is to create an empty UUCP command file, known as a poll file. If a poll file exists for a system, then ‘uucico -r1’ will place a call to it. If the call succeeds, the poll file will be deleted.

A poll file can be easily created using the ‘uux’ command, by requesting the execution of an empty command. To create a poll file for system, just do something like this:

uux -r system!

The ‘-r’ tells ‘uux’ to not start up ‘uucico’ immediately. Of course, if you do want ‘uucico’ to start up right away, omit the ‘-r’; if the call fails, the poll file will be left around to cause a later call.

For example, I use the following crontab entries locally:

45 * * * * /bin/echo /usr/lib/uucp/uucico -r1 | /bin/su uucpa
40 4,10,15 * * * /usr/bin/uux -r uunet!

Every hour, at 45 minutes past, this will check if there is any work to be done, and, if there is, will call the appropriate system. Also, at 4:40am, 10:40am, and 3:40pm, this will create a poll file file for ‘uunet’, forcing the next run of uucico to call ‘uunet’.

4.2 Accepting Calls

To accept calls from another system, you must arrange matters such that when that system calls in, it automatically invokes uucico on your system.

The most common arrangement is to create a special user name and password for incoming UUCP calls. This user name typically uses the same user ID as the regular uucp user (Unix permits several user names to share the same user ID). The shell for this user name should be set to uucico.

Here is a sample ‘/etc/passwd’ line to accept calls from a remote system named airs:

Uairs:password:4:8:airs UUCP:/usr/spool/uucp:/usr/lib/uucp/uucico

The details may vary on your system. You must use reasonable user and group ID’s. You must use the correct file name for uucico. The password must appear in the UUCP configuration files on the remote system, but will otherwise never be seen or typed by a human.

Note that uucico appears as the login shell, and that it will be run with no arguments. This means that it will start in slave mode and accept an incoming connection. See section Invoking uucico.

On some systems, creating an empty file named ‘.hushlogin’ in the home directory will skip the printing of various bits of information when the remote uucico logs in, speeding up the UUCP connection process.

For the greatest security, each system which calls in should use a different user name, each with a different password, and the called-login command should be used in the ‘sys’ file to ensure that the correct login name is used. See section Accepting a Call, and see Security.

If you never need to dial out from your system, but only accept incoming calls, you can arrange for uucico to handle logins itself, completely controlling the port, by using the ‘--endless’ option. See section Invoking uucico.

4.3 Using UUCP for Mail and News.

Taylor UUCP does not include a mail package. All Unix systems come with some sort of mail delivery agent, typically sendmail or MMDF. Source code is available for some alternative mail delivery agents, such as IDA sendmail and smail.

Taylor UUCP also does not include a news package. The two major Unix news packages are C-news and INN. Both are available in source code form.

Configuring and using mail delivery agents is a notoriously complex topic, and I will not be discussing it here. Configuring news systems is usually simpler, but I will not be discussing that either. I will merely describe the interactions between the mail and news systems and UUCP.

A mail or news system interacts with UUCP in two ways: sending and receiving.

4.3.1 Sending mail or news via UUCP

When mail is to be sent from your machine to another machine via UUCP, the mail delivery agent will invoke uux. It will generally run a command such as ‘uux - system!rmail address’, where system is the remote system to which the mail is being sent. It may pass other options to uux, such as ‘-r’ or ‘-g’ (see section Invoking uux).

The news system also invokes uux in order to transfer articles to another system. The only difference is that news will use uux to invoke rnews on the remote system, rather than rmail.

You should arrange for your mail and news systems to invoke the Taylor UUCP version of uux. If you only have Taylor UUCP, or if you simply replace any existing version of uux with the Taylor UUCP version, this will probably happen automatically. However, if you have two UUCP packages installed on your system, you will probably have to modify the mail and news configuration files in some way.

Actually, if both the system UUCP and Taylor UUCP are using the same spool directory format, the system uux will probably work fine with the Taylor uucico (the reverse is not the case: the Taylor uux requires the Taylor uucico). However, data transfer will be somewhat more efficient if the Taylor uux is used.

4.3.2 Receiving mail or news via UUCP

To receive mail, all that is necessary is for UUCP to invoke rmail. Any mail delivery agent will provide an appropriate version of rmail; you must simply make sure that it is in the command path used by UUCP (it almost certainly already is). The default command path is set in ‘policy.h’, and it may be overridden for a particular system by the command-path command (see section Miscellaneous sys File Commands).

Similarly, for news UUCP must be able to invoke rnews. Any news system will provide a version of rnews, and you must ensure that is in a directory on the path that UUCP will search.

4.4 The Spool Directory Layout

In general, the layout of the spool directory may be safely ignored. However, it is documented here for the curious. This description only covers the SPOOLDIR_TAYLOR layout. The ways in which the other spool directory layouts differ are described in the source file ‘unix/spool.c’.

Directories and files are only created when they are needed, so a typical system will not have all of the entries described here.

4.4.1 System Spool Directories

‘system’

There is a subdirectory of the main spool directory for each remote system.

‘system/C.’

This directory stores files describing file transfer commands to be sent to the system. Each file name starts with ‘C.g’, where g is the job grade. Each file contains one or more commands. For details of the commands, see UUCP Protocol Commands.

‘system/D.’

This directory stores data files. Files with names like ‘D.gssss’, where g is the grade and ssss is a sequence number, are waiting to be transferred to the system, as directed by the files in the ‘system/C.’ directory. Files with other names, typically ‘D.systemgssss’, have been received from system and are waiting to be processed by an execution file in the ‘system/X.’ directory.

‘system/D.X’

This directory stores data files which will become execution files on the remote system. In current practice, this directory rarely exists, because most simple executions, including typical uses of rmail and rnews, send an ‘E’ command rather than an execution file (see section The E Command).

‘system/X.’

This directory stores execution files which have been received from system. This directory normally exists, even though the corresponding ‘D.X’ directory does not, because uucico will create an execution file on the fly when it receives an ‘E’ command.

‘system/SEQF’

This file holds the sequence number of the last job sent to system. The sequence number is used to ensure that file names are unique in the remote system spool directory. The file is four bytes long. Sequence numbers are composed of digits and the upper case letters.

4.4.2 Status Directory

‘.Status’

This directory holds status files for each remote system. The name of the status file is the name of the system which it describes. Each status file describes the last conversation with the system. Running ‘uustat --status’ basically just formats and prints the contents of the status files (see section uustat Examples).

Each status file has a single text line with six fields.

code

A code indicating the status of the last conversation. The following values are defined, though not all are actually used.

‘0’

Conversation completed normally.

‘1’

uucico was unable to open the port.

‘2’

The last call to the system failed while dailing.

‘3’

The last call to the system failed while logging in.

‘4’

The last call to the system failed during the initial UUCP protocol handshake (see section The Initial Handshake).

‘5’

The last call to the system failed after the initial handshake.

‘6’

uucico is currently talking to the system.

‘7’

The last call to the system failed because it was the wrong time to call (this is not used if calling the system is never permitted).

retries

The number of retries since the last successful call.

time of last call

The time of the last call, in seconds since the epoch (as returned by the time system call).

wait

If the last call failed, this is the number of seconds since the last call before uucico may attempt another call. This is set based on the retry time; see When to Call. The ‘-f’ or ‘-S’ options to uucico direct it to ignore this wait time; see Invoking uucico.

description

A text description of the status, corresponding to the code in the first field. This may contain spaces.

system name

The name of the remote system.

4.4.3 Execution Subdirectories

‘.Xqtdir’

When uuxqt executes a job requested by uux, it first changes the working directory to the ‘.Xqtdir’ subdirectory. This permits the job to create any sort of temporary file without worrying about overwriting other files in the spool directory. Any files left in the ‘.Xqtdir’ subdirectory are removed after each execution is complete.

‘.Xqtdirnnnn’

When several instances of uuxqt are executing simultaneously, each one executes jobs in a separate directory. The first uses ‘.Xqtdir’, the second uses ‘.Xqtdir0001’, the third uses ‘.Xqtdir0002’, and so forth.

‘.Corrupt’

If uuxqt encounters an execution file which it is unable to parse, it saves it in the ‘.Corrupt’ directory, and sends mail about it to the UUCP administrator.

‘.Failed’

If uuxqt executes a job, and the job fails, and there is enough disk space to hold the command file and all the data files, then uuxqt saves the files in the ‘.Failed’ directory, and sends mail about it to the UUCP administrator.

4.4.4 Other Spool Subdirectories

‘.Sequence’

This directory holds conversation sequence number files. These are used if the sequence command is used for a system (see section Miscellaneous sys File Commands). The sequence number for the system system is stored in the file ‘.Sequence/system’. It is simply stored as a printable number.

‘.Temp’

This directory holds data files as they are being received from a remote system, before they are moved to their final destination. For file send requests which use a valid temporary file name in the temp field of the ‘S’ or ‘E’ command (see section The S Command), uucico receives the file into ‘.Temp/system/temp’, where system is the name of the remote system, and temp is the temporary file name. If a conversation fails during a file transfer, these files are used to automatically restart the file transfer from the point of failure.

If the ‘S’ or ‘E’ command does not include a temporary file name, automatic restart is not possible. In this case, the files are received into a randomly named file in the ‘.Temp’ directory itself.

‘.Preserve’

This directory holds data files which could not be transferred to a remote system for some reason (for example, the data file might be large, and exceed size restrictions imposed by the remote system). When a locally requested file transfer fails, uucico will store the data file in the ‘.Preserve’ directory, and send mail to the requestor describing the failure and naming the saved file.

‘.Received’

This directory records which files have been received. If a conversation fails just after uucico acknowledges receipt of a file, it is possible for the acknowledgement to be lost. If this happens, the remote system will resend the file. If the file were an execution request, and uucico did not keep track of which files it had already received, this could lead to the execution being performed twice.

To avoid this problem, when a conversation fails, uucico records each file that has been received, but for which the remote system may not have received the acknowledgement. It records this information by creating an empty file with the name ‘.Received/system/temp’, where system is the name of the remote system, and temp is the temp field of the ‘S’ or ‘E’ command from the remote system (see section The S Command). Then, if the remote system offers the file again in the next conversation, uucico refuses the send request and deletes the record in the ‘.Received’ directory. This approach only works for file sends which use a temporary file name, but this is true of all execution requests.

4.4.5 Lock Files in the Spool Directory

Lock files for devices and systems are stored in the lock directory, which may or may not be the same as the spool directory. The lock directory is set at compilation time by LOCKDIR in ‘policy.h’, which may be overridden by the lockdir command in the ‘config’ file (see section Miscellaneous config File Commands).

For a description of the names used for device lock files, and the format of the contents of a lock file, see UUCP Lock Files.

‘LCK..sys’

A lock file for a system, where sys is the system name. As noted above, these lock files are kept in the lock directory, which may not be the spool directory. These lock files are created by uucico while talking to a remote system, and are used to prevent multiple simultaneous conversations with a system.

On systems which limit file names to 14 characters, only the first eight characters of the system name are used in the lock file name. This requires that the names of each directly connected remote system be unique in the first eight characters.

‘LCK.XQT.NN’

When uuxqt starts up, it uses lock files to determine how many other uuxqt daemons are currently running. It first tries to lock ‘LCK.XQT.0’, then ‘LCK.XQT.1’, and so forth. This is used to implement the max-uuxqts command (see section Miscellaneous config File Commands). It is also used to parcel out the ‘.Xqtdir’ subdirectories (see section Execution Subdirectories).

‘LXQ.cmd’

When uuxqt is invoked with the ‘-c’ or ‘--command’ option (see section Invoking uuxqt), it creates a lock file named after the command it is executing. For example, ‘uuxqt -c rmail’ will create the lock file ‘LXQ.rmail’. This prevents other uuxqt daemons from executing jobs of the specified type.

‘system/X./L.xxx’

While uuxqt is executing a particular job, it creates a lock file with the same name as the ‘X.’ file describing the job, but replacing the initial ‘X’ with ‘L’. This ensures that if multiple uuxqt daemons are running, they do not simultaneously execute the same job.

‘LCK..SEQ’

This lock file is used to control access to the sequence files for each system (see section System Spool Directories). It is only used on systems which do not support POSIX file locking using the fcntl system call.

4.5 Cleaning the Spool Directory

The spool directory may need to be cleaned up periodically. Under some circumstances, files may accumulate in various subdirectories, such as ‘.Preserve’ (see section Other Spool Subdirectories) or ‘.Corrupt’ (see section Execution Subdirectories).

Also, if a remote system stops calling in, you may want to arrange for any queued up mail to be returned to the sender. This can be done using the uustat command (see section Invoking uustat).

The ‘contrib’ directory includes a simple ‘uuclean’ script which may be used as an example of a clean up script. It can be run daily out of ‘crontab’.

You should periodically trim the UUCP log files, as they will otherwise grow without limit. The names of the log files are set in ‘policy.h’, and may be overridden in the configuration file (see section The Main Configuration File). By default they are are ‘/usr/spool/uucp/Log’ and ‘/usr/spool/uucp/Stats’. You may find the savelog program in the ‘contrib’ directory to be of use. There is a manual page for it in ‘contrib’ as well.

5 Taylor UUCP Configuration Files

This chapter describes the configuration files accepted by the Taylor UUCP package if compiled with HAVE_TAYLOR_CONFIG set to 1 in ‘policy.h’.

The configuration files are normally found in the directory newconfigdir, which is defined by the configure option ‘--with-newconfigdir’; by default newconfigdir is ‘/usr/local/conf/uucp’. However, the main configuration file, ‘config’, is the only one which must be in that directory, since it may specify a different location for any or all of the other files. You may run any of the UUCP programs with a different main configuration file by using the ‘-I’ or ‘--config’ option; this can be useful when testing a new configuration. When you use the ‘-I’ option the programs will revoke any setuid privileges.

5.1 Configuration File Overview

UUCP uses several different types of configuration files, each describing a different kind of information. The commands permitted in each file are described in detail below. This section is a brief description of some of the different types of files.

The ‘config’ file is the main configuration file. It describes general information not associated with a particular remote system, such as the location of various log files. There are reasonable defaults for everything that may be specified in the ‘config’ file, so you may not actually need one on your system.

There may be only one ‘config’ file, but there may be one or more of each other type of file. The default is one file for each type, but more may be listed in the ‘config’ file.

The ‘sys’ files are used to describe remote systems. Each remote system to which you connect must be listed in a ‘sys’ file. A ‘sys’ file will include information for a system, such as the speed (baud rate) to use, or when to place calls.

For each system you wish to call, you must describe one or more ports; these ports may be defined directly in the ‘sys’ file, or they may be defined in a ‘port’ file.

The ‘port’ files are used to describe ports. A port is a particular hardware connection on your computer. You would normally define as many ports as there are modems attached to your computer. A TCP connection is also described using a port.

The ‘dial’ files are used to describe dialers. Dialer is essentially another word for modem. The ‘dial’ file describes the commands UUCP should use to dial out on a particular type of modem. You would normally define as many dialers as there are types of modems attached to your computer. For example, if you have three Telebit modems used for UUCP, you would probably define three ports and one dialer.

There are other types of configuration files, but these are the important ones. The other types are described below.

5.2 Configuration File Format

All the configuration files follow a simple line-oriented ‘keyword value’ format. Empty lines are ignored, as are leading spaces; unlike HDB, lines with leading spaces are read. The first word on each line is a keyword. The rest of the line is interpreted according to the keyword. Most keywords are followed by numbers, boolean values or simple strings with no embedded spaces.

The # character is used for comments. Everything from a # to the end of the line is ignored unless the # is preceded by a \ (backslash); if the # is preceeded by a \, the \ is removed but the # remains in the line. This can be useful for a phone number containing a #. To enter the sequence ‘\#’, use ‘\\#’.

The backslash character may be used to continue lines. If the last character in a line is a backslash, the backslash is removed and the line is continued by the next line. The second line is attached to the first with no intervening characters; if you want any whitespace between the end of the first line and the start of the second line, you must insert it yourself.

However, the backslash is not a general quoting character. For example, you cannot use it to get an embedded space in a string argument.

Everything after the keyword must be on the same line. A boolean may be specified as y, Y, t, or T for true and n, N, f, or F for false; any trailing characters are ignored, so true, false, etc., are also acceptable.

5.3 Examples of Configuration Files

This section provides few typical examples of configuration files. There are also sample configuration files in the ‘sample’ subdirectory of the distribution.

5.3.1 config File Examples

To start with, here are some examples of uses of the main configuration file, ‘config’. For a complete description of the commands that are permitted in ‘config’, see The Main Configuration File.

In many cases you will not need to create a ‘config’ file at all. The most common reason to create one is to give your machine a special UUCP name. Other reasons might be to change the UUCP spool directory, or to permit any remote system to call in.

If you have an internal network of machines, then it is likely that the internal name of your UUCP machine is not the name you want to use when calling other systems. For example, here at ‘airs.com’ our mail/news gateway machine is named ‘elmer.airs.com’ (it is one of several machines all named ‘localname.airs.com’). If we did not provide a ‘config’ file, then our UUCP name would be ‘elmer’; however, we actually want it to be ‘airs’. Therefore, we use the following line in ‘config’:

nodename airs

The UUCP spool directory name is set in ‘policy.h’ when the code is compiled. You might at some point decide that it is appropriate to move the spool directory, perhaps to put it on a different disk partition. You would use the following commands in ‘config’ to change to directories on the partition ‘/uucp’:

spool /uucp/spool
pubdir /uucp/uucppublic
logfile /uucp/spool/Log
debugfile /uucp/spool/Debug

You would then move the contents of the current spool directory to ‘/uucp/spool’. If you do this, make sure that no UUCP processes are running while you change ‘config’ and move the spool directory.

Suppose you wanted to permit any system to call in to your system and request files. This is generally known as anonymous UUCP, since the systems which call in are effectively anonymous. By default, unknown systems are not permitted to call in. To permit this you must use the unknown command in ‘config’. The unknown command is followed by any command that may appear in the system file; for full details, see The System Configuration File.

I will show two possible anonymous UUCP configurations. The first will let any system call in and download files, but will not permit them to upload files to your system.

# No files may be transferred to this system
unknown receive-request no
# The public directory is /usr/spool/anonymous
unknown pubdir /usr/spool/anonymous
# Only files in the public directory may be sent (the default anyhow)
unknown remote-send ~

Setting the public directory is convenient for the systems which call in. It permits to request a file by prefixing it with ‘~/’. For example, assuming your system is known as ‘server’, then to retrieve the file ‘/usr/spool/anonymous/INDEX’ a user on a remote site could just enter ‘uucp server!~/INDEX ~’; this would transfer ‘INDEX’ from ‘server’’s public directory to the user’s local public directory. Note that when using ‘csh’ or ‘bash’ the ! and the second ~ must be quoted.

The next example will permit remote systems to upload files to a special directory named ‘/usr/spool/anonymous/upload’. Permitting a remote system to upload files permits it to send work requests as well; this example is careful to prohibit commands from unknown systems.

# No commands may be executed (the list of permitted commands is empty)
unknown commands
# The public directory is /usr/spool/anonymous
unknown pubdir /usr/spool/anonymous
# Only files in the public directory may be sent; users may not download
# files from the upload directory
unknown remote-send ~ !~/upload
# May only upload files into /usr/spool/anonymous/upload
unknown remote-receive ~/upload

5.3.2 Leaf Example

A relatively common simple case is a leaf site, a system which only calls or is called by a single remote site. Here is a typical ‘sys’ file that might be used in such a case. For full details on what commands can appear in the ‘sys’ file, see The System Configuration File.

This is the ‘sys’ file that is used at ‘airs.com’. We use a single modem to dial out to ‘uunet’. This example shows how you can specify the port and dialer information directly in the ‘sys’ file for simple cases. It also shows the use of the following:

call-login

Using call-login and call-password allows the default login chat script to be used. In this case, the login name is specified in the call-out login file (see section Configuration File Names).

call-timegrade

‘uunet’ is requested to not send us news during the daytime.

chat-fail

If the modem returns ‘BUSY’ or ‘NO CARRIER’ the call is immediately aborted.

protocol-parameter

Since ‘uunet’ tends to be slow, the default timeout has been increased.

This ‘sys’ file relies on certain defaults. It will allow ‘uunet’ to queue up ‘rmail’ and ‘rnews’ commands. It will allow users to request files from ‘uunet’ into the UUCP public directory. It will also allow ‘uunet’ to request files from the UUCP public directory; in fact ‘uunet’ never requests files, but for additional security we could add the line ‘request false’.

# The following information is for uunet
system uunet

# The login name and password are kept in the callout password file
call-login *
call-password *

# We can send anything at any time.
time any

# During the day we only accept grade `Z' or above; at other times
# (not mentioned here) we accept all grades.  uunet queues up news
# at grade `d', which is lower than `Z'.
call-timegrade Z Wk0755-2305,Su1655-2305

# The phone number.
phone 7389449

# uunet tends to be slow, so we increase the timeout
chat-timeout 120

# We are using a preconfigured Telebit 2500.
port type modem
port device /dev/ttyd0
port speed 19200
port carrier true
port dialer chat "" ATZ\r\d\c OK ATDT\D CONNECT
port dialer chat-fail BUSY
port dialer chat-fail NO\sCARRIER
port dialer complete \d\d+++\d\dATH\r\c
port dialer abort \d\d+++\d\dATH\r\c

# Increase the timeout and the number of retries.
protocol-parameter g timeout 20
protocol-parameter g retries 10

5.3.3 Gateway Example

Many organizations have several local machines which are connected by UUCP, and a single machine which connects to the outside world. This single machine is often referred to as a gateway machine.

For this example I will assume a fairly simple case. It should still provide a good general example. There are three machines, ‘elmer’, ‘comton’ and ‘bugs’. ‘elmer’ is the gateway machine for which I will show the configuration file. ‘elmer’ calls out to ‘uupsi’. As an additional complication, ‘uupsi’ knows ‘elmer’ as ‘airs’; this will show how a machine can have one name on an internal network but a different name to the external world. ‘elmer’ has two modems. It also has an TCP connection to ‘uupsi’, but since that is supposed to be reserved for interactive work (it is, perhaps, only a 9600 baud SLIP line) it will only use it if the modems are not available.

A network this small would normally use a single ‘sys’ file. However, for pedagogical purposes I will show two separate ‘sys’ files, one for the local systems and one for ‘uupsi’. This is done with the sysfile command in the ‘config’ file. Here is the ‘config’ file.

# This is config
# The local sys file
sysfile /usr/local/lib/uucp/sys.local
# The remote sys file
sysfile /usr/local/lib/uucp/sys.remote

Using the defaults feature of the ‘sys’ file can greatly simplify the listing of local systems. Here is ‘sys.local’. Note that this assumes that the local systems are trusted; they are permited to request any world readable file and to write files into any world writable directory.

# This is sys.local
# Get the login name and password to use from the call-out file
call-login *
call-password *

# The systems must use a particular login
called-login Ulocal

# Permit sending any world readable file
local-send /
remote-send /

# Permit receiving into any world writable directory
local-receive /
remote-receive /

# Call at any time
time any

# Use port1, then port2
port port1

alternate

port port2

# Now define the systems themselves.  Because of all the defaults we
# used, there is very little to specify for the systems themselves.

system comton
phone 5551212

system bugs
phone 5552424

The ‘sys.remote’ file describes the ‘uupsi’ connection. The myname command is used to change the UUCP name to ‘airs’ when talking to ‘uupsi’.

# This is sys.remote
# Define uupsi
system uupsi

# The login name and password are in the call-out file
call-login *
call-password *

# We can call out at any time
time any

# uupsi uses a special login name
called-login Uuupsi

# uuspi thinks of us as `airs'
myname airs

# The phone number
phone 5554848

# We use port2 first, then port1, then TCP

port port2

alternate

port port1

alternate

# We don't bother to make a special entry in the port file for TCP, we
# just describe the entire port right here.  We use a special chat
# script over TCP because the usual one confuses some TCP servers.
port type TCP
address uu.psi.com
chat ogin: \L word: \P

The ports are defined in the file ‘port’ (see section The Port Configuration File). For this example they are both connected to the same type of 2400 baud Hayes-compatible modem.

# This is port

port port1
type modem
device /dev/ttyd0
dialer hayes
speed 2400

port port2
type modem
device /dev/ttyd1
dialer hayes
speed 2400

Dialers are described in the ‘dial’ file (see section The Dialer Configuration File).

# This is dial

dialer hayes

# The chat script used to dial the phone.  \D is the phone number.
chat "" ATZ\r\d\c OK ATDT\D CONNECT

# If we get BUSY or NO CARRIER we abort the dial immediately
chat-fail BUSY
chat-fail NO\sCARRIER

# When the call is over we make sure we hangup the modem.
complete \d\d+++\d\dATH\r\c
abort \d\d+++\d\dATH\r\c

5.4 Time Strings

Several commands use time strings to specify a range of times. This section describes how to write time strings.

A time string may be a list of simple time strings separated with a vertical bar ‘|’ or a comma ‘,’.

Each simple time string must begin with ‘Su’, ‘Mo’, ‘Tu’, ‘We’, ‘Th’, ‘Fr’, or ‘Sa’, or ‘Wk’ for any weekday, or ‘Any’ for any day.

Following the day may be a range of hours separated with a hyphen using 24 hour time. The range of hours may cross 0; for example ‘2300-0700’ means any time except 7 AM to 11 PM. If no time is given, calls may be made at any time on the specified day(s).

The time string may also be the single word ‘Never’, which does not match any time. The time string may also be a single word with a name defined in a previous timetable command (see section Miscellaneous config File Commands).

Here are a few sample time strings with an explanation of what they mean.

‘Wk2305-0855,Sa,Su2305-1655’

This means weekdays before 8:55 AM or after 11:05 PM, any time Saturday, or Sunday before 4:55 PM or after 11:05 PM. These are approximately the times during which night rates apply to phone calls in the U.S.A. Note that this time string uses, for example, ‘2305’ rather than ‘2300’; this will ensure a cheap rate phone call even if the computer clock is running up to five minutes ahead of the real time.

‘Wk0905-2255,Su1705-2255’

This means weekdays from 9:05 AM to 10:55 PM, or Sunday from 5:05 PM to 10:55 PM. This is approximately the opposite of the previous example.

‘Any’

This means any day. Since no time is specified, it means any time on any day.

5.5 Chat Scripts

Chat scripts are used in several different places, such as dialing out on modems or logging in to remote systems. Chat scripts are made up of pairs of strings. The program waits until it sees the first string, known as the expect string, and then sends out the second string, the send string.

Each chat script is defined using a set of commands. These commands always end in a string beginning with chat, but may start with different strings. For example, in the ‘sys’ file there is one set of commands beginning with chat and another set beginning with called-chat. The prefixes are only used to disambiguate different types of chat scripts, and this section ignores the prefixes when describing the commands.

chat strings

Specify a chat script. The arguments to the chat command are pairs of strings separated by whitespace. The first string of each pair is an expect string, the second is a send string. The program will wait for the expect string to appear; when it does, the program will send the send string. If the expect string does not appear within a certain number of seconds (as set by the chat-timeout command), the chat script fails and, typically, the call is aborted. If the final expect string is seen (and the optional final send string has been sent), the chat script is successful.

An expect string may contain additional subsend and subexpect strings, separated by hyphens. If the expect string is not seen, the subsend string is sent and the chat script continues by waiting for the subexpect string. This means that a hyphen may not appear in an expect string; on an ASCII system, use ‘\055’ instead.

An expect string may simply be ‘""’, meaning to skip the expect phase. Otherwise, the following escape characters may appear in expect strings:

‘\b’

a backspace character

‘\n’

a newline or line feed character

‘\N’

a null character (for HDB compatibility)

‘\r’

a carriage return character

‘\s’

a space character

‘\t’

a tab character

‘\\’

a backslash character

‘\ddd’

character ddd, where ddd are up to three octal digits

‘\xddd’

character ddd, where ddd are hexadecimal digits.

As in C, there may be up to three octal digits following a backslash, but the hexadecimal escape sequence continues as far as possible. To follow a hexadecimal escape sequence with a hex digit, interpose a send string of ‘""’.

A chat script expect string may also specify a timeout. This is done by using the escape sequence ‘\Wseconds’. This escape sequence may only appear at the very end of the expect string. It temporarily overrides the timeout set by chat-timeout (described below) only for the expect string to which it is attached.

A send string may simply be ‘""’ to skip the send phase. Otherwise, all of the escape characters legal for expect strings may be used, and the following escape characters are also permitted:

‘EOT’

send an end of transmission character (^D)

‘BREAK’

send a break character (may not work on all systems)

‘\c’

suppress trailing carriage return at end of send string

‘\d’

delay sending for 1 or 2 seconds

‘\e’

disable echo checking

‘\E’

enable echo checking

‘\K’

same as ‘BREAK’

‘\p’

pause sending for a fraction of a second

‘\M’

do not require carrier signal

‘\m’

require carrier signal (fail if not present)

Some specific types of chat scripts also define additional escape sequences that may appear in the send string. For example, the login chat script defines ‘\L’ and ‘\P’ to send the login name and password, respectively.

A carriage return will be sent at the end of each send string, unless the \c escape sequence appears in the string. Note that some UUCP packages use \b for break, but here it means backspace.

Echo checking means that after writing each character the program will wait until the character is echoed. Echo checking must be turned on separately for each send string for which it is desired; it will be turned on for characters following \E and turned off for characters following \e.

When used with a port which does not support the carrier signal, as set by the carrier command in the port file, \M and \m are ignored. Similarly, when used in a dialer chat script with a dialer which does not support the carrier signal, as set by the carrier command in the dial file, \M and \m are ignored.

chat-timeout number

The number of seconds to wait for an expect string in the chat script, before timing out and sending the next subsend, or failing the chat script entirely. The default value is 10 for a login chat or 60 for any other type of chat.

chat-fail string

If the string is seen at any time during a chat script, the chat script is aborted. The string may not contain any whitespace characters: escape sequences must be used for them. Multiple chat-fail commands may appear in a single chat script. The default is to have none.

This permits a chat script to be quickly aborted if an error string is seen. For example, a script used to dial out on a modem might use the command ‘chat-fail BUSY’ to stop the chat script immediately if the string ‘BUSY’ was seen.

The chat-fail strings are considered in the order they are listed, so if one string is a suffix of another the longer one should be listed first. This affects the error message which will be logged. Of course, if one string is contained within another, but is not a suffix, the smaller string will always be found before the larger string could match.

chat-seven-bit boolean

If the argument is true, all incoming characters are stripped to seven bits when being compared to the expect string. Otherwise all eight bits are used in the comparison. The default is true, because some Unix systems generate parity bits during the login prompt which must be ignored while running a chat script. This has no effect on any chat-program, which must ignore parity by itself if necessary.

chat-program strings

Specify a program to run before executing the chat script. This program could run its own version of a chat script, or it could do whatever it wants. If both chat-program and chat are specified, the program is executed first followed by the chat script.

The first argument to the chat-program command is the program name to run. The remaining arguments are passed to the program. The following escape sequences are recognized in the arguments:

\Y

port device name

\S

port speed

\\

backslash

Some specific uses of chat-program define additional escape sequences.

Arguments other than escape sequences are passed exactly as they appear in the configuration file, except that sequences of whitespace are compressed to a single space character (this exception may be removed in the future).

If the chat-program command is not used, no program is run.

On Unix, the standard input and standard output of the program will be attached to the port in use. Anything the program writes to standard error will be written to the UUCP log file. No other file descriptors will be open. If the program does not exit with a status of 0, it will be assumed to have failed. This means that the dialing programs used by some versions of HDB may not be used directly, but you may be able to run them via the dialHDB program in the ‘contrib’ directory.

The program will be run as the uucp user, and the environment will be that of the process that started uucico, so care must be taken to maintain security.

No search path is used to find the program; a full file name must be given. If the program is an executable shell script, it will be passed to ‘/bin/sh’ even on systems which are unable to execute shell scripts.

Here is a simple example of a chat script that might be used to reset a Hayes compatible modem.

chat "" ATZ OK-ATZ-OK

The first expect string is ‘""’, so it is ignored. The chat script then sends ‘ATZ’. If the modem responds with ‘OK’, the chat script finishes. If 60 seconds (the default timeout) pass before seeing ‘OK’, the chat script sends another ‘ATZ’. If it then sees ‘OK’, the chat script succeeds. Otherwise, the chat script fails.

For a more complex chat script example, see Logging In.

5.6 The Main Configuration File

The main configuration file is named ‘config’.

Since all the values that may be specified in the main configuration file also have defaults, there need not be a main configuration file at all.

Each command in ‘config’ may have a program prefix, which is a separate word appearing at the beginning of the line. The currently supported prefixes are ‘uucp’ and ‘cu’. Any command prefixed by ‘uucp’ will not be read by the cu program. Any command prefixed by ‘cu’ will only be read by the cu program. For example, to use a list of systems known only to cu, list them in a separate file ‘file’ and put ‘cu sysfile ‘file’’ in ‘config’.

5.6.1 Miscellaneous config File Commands

nodename string

hostname string

uuname string

These keywords are equivalent. They specify the UUCP name of the local host. If there is no configuration file, an appropriate system function will be used to get the host name, if possible.

spool string

Specify the spool directory. The default is from ‘policy.h’. This is where UUCP files are queued. Status files and various sorts of temporary files are also stored in this directory and subdirectories of it.

pubdir string

Specify the public directory. The default is from ‘policy.h’. When a file is named using a leading ~/, it is taken from or to the public directory. Each system may use a separate public directory by using the pubdir command in the system configuration file; see Miscellaneous sys File Commands.

lockdir string

Specify the directory to place lock files in. The default is from ‘policy.h’; see the information in that file. Normally the lock directory should be set correctly in ‘policy.h’, and not changed here. However, changing the lock directory is sometimes useful for testing purposes. This only affects lock files for devices and systems; it does not affect certain internal lock files which are stored in the spool directory (see section Lock Files in the Spool Directory).

unknown string …

The string and subsequent arguments are treated as though they appeared in the system file (see section The System Configuration File). They are used to apply to any unknown systems that may call in, probably to set file transfer permissions and the like. If the unknown command is not used, unknown systems are not permitted to call in.

strip-login boolean

If the argument is true, then, when uucico is doing its own login prompting with the ‘-e’, ‘-l’, or ‘-w’ switches, it will strip the parity bit when it reads the login name and password. Otherwise all eight bits will be used when checking the strings against the UUCP password file. The default is true, since some other UUCP packages send parity bits with the login name and password, and few systems use eight bit characters in the password file.

strip-proto boolean

If the argument is true, then uucico will strip the parity bit from incoming UUCP protocol commands. Otherwise all eight bits will be used. This only applies to commands which are not encapsulated in a link layer protocol. The default is true, which should always be correct unless your UUCP system names use eight bit characters.

max-uuxqts number

Specify the maximum number of uuxqt processes which may run at the same time. Having several uuxqt processes running at once can significantly slow down a system, but, since uuxqt is automatically started by uucico, it can happen quite easily. The default for max-uuxqts is 0, which means that there is no limit. If HDB configuration files are being read and the code was compiled without HAVE_TAYLOR_CONFIG, then, if the file ‘Maxuuxqts’ in the configuration directory contains a readable number, it will be used as the value for max-uuxqts.

run-uuxqt string or number

Specify when uuxqt should be run by uucico. This may be a positive number, in which case uucico will start a uuxqt process whenever it receives the given number of execution files from the remote system, and, if necessary, at the end of the call. The argument may also be one of the strings ‘once’, ‘percall’, or ‘never’. The string ‘once’ means that uucico will start uuxqt once at the end of execution. The string ‘percall’ means that uucico will start uuxqt once per call that it makes (this is only different from once when uucico is invoked in a way that causes it to make multiple calls, such as when the ‘-r1’ option is used without the ‘-s’ option). The string ‘never’ means that uucico will never start uuxqt, in which case uuxqt should be periodically run via some other mechanism. The default depends upon which type of configuration files are being used; if HAVE_TAYLOR_CONFIG is used the default is ‘once’, otherwise if HAVE_HDB_CONFIG is used the default is ‘percall’, and otherwise, for HAVE_V2_CONFIG, the default is ‘10’.

timetable string string

The timetable defines a timetable that may be used in subsequently appearing time strings; see Time Strings. The first string names the timetable entry; the second is a time string.

The following timetable commands are predefined. The NonPeak timetable is included for compatibility. It originally described the offpeak hours of Tymnet and Telenet, but both have since changed their schedules.

timetable Evening Wk1705-0755,Sa,Su
timetable Night Wk2305-0755,Sa,Su2305-1655
timetable NonPeak Wk1805-0655,Sa,Su

If this command does not appear, then, obviously, no additional timetables will be defined.

v2-files boolean

If the code was compiled to be able to read V2 configuration files, a false argument to this command will prevent them from being read. This can be useful while testing. The default is true.

hdb-files boolean

If the code was compiled to be able to read HDB configuration files, a false argument to this command will prevent them from being read. This can be useful while testing. The default is true.

5.6.2 Configuration File Names

sysfile strings

Specify the system file(s). The default is the file ‘sys’ in the directory newconfigdir. These files hold information about other systems with which this system communicates; see The System Configuration File. Multiple system files may be given on the line, and the sysfile command may be repeated; each system file has its own set of defaults.

portfile strings

Specify the port file(s). The default is the file ‘port’ in the directory newconfigdir. These files describe ports which are used to call other systems and accept calls from other systems; see The Port Configuration File. No port files need be named at all. Multiple port files may be given on the line, and the portfile command may be repeated.

dialfile strings

Specify the dial file(s). The default is the file ‘dial’ in the directory newconfigdir. These files describe dialing devices (modems); see The Dialer Configuration File. No dial files need be named at all. Multiple dial files may be given on the line, and the dialfile command may be repeated.

dialcodefile strings

Specify the dialcode file(s). The default is the file ‘dialcode’ in the directory newconfigdir. These files specify dialcodes that may be used when sending phone numbers to a modem. This permits using the same set of phone numbers in different area-codes or with different phone systems, by using dialcodes to specify the calling sequence. When a phone number goes through dialcode translation, the leading alphabetic characters are stripped off. The dialcode files are read line by line, just like any other configuration file, and when a line is found whose first word is the same as the leading characters from the phone number, the second word on the line (which would normally consist of numbers) replaces the dialcode in the phone number. No dialcode file need be used. Multiple dialcode files may be specified on the line, and the dialcodefile command may be repeated; all the dialcode files will be read in turn until a dialcode is located.

callfile strings

Specify the call out login name and password file(s). The default is the file ‘call’ in the directory newconfigdir. If the call out login name or password for a system are given as * (see section Logging In), these files are read to get the real login name or password. Each line in the file(s) has three words: the system name, the login name, and the password. The login name and password may contain escape sequences like those in a chat script expect string (see section Chat Scripts). This file is only used when placing calls to remote systems; the password file described under passwdfile below is used for incoming calls. The intention of the call out file is to permit the system file to be publically readable; the call out files must obviously be kept secure. These files need not be used. Multiple call out files may be specified on the line, and the callfile command may be repeated; all the files will be read in turn until the system is found.

passwdfile strings

Specify the password file(s) to use for login names when uucico is doing its own login prompting, which it does when given the ‘-e’, ‘-l’ or ‘-w’ switches. The default is the file ‘passwd’ in the directory newconfigdir. Each line in the file(s) has two words: the login name and the password (e.g., ‘Ufoo foopas’). They may contain escape sequences like those in a chat script expect string (see section Chat Scripts). The login name is accepted before the system name is known, so these are independent of which system is calling in; a particular login may be required for a system by using the called-login command in the system file (see section Accepting a Call). These password files are optional, although one must exist if uucico is to present its own login prompts.

As a special exception, a colon may be used to separate the login name from the password, and a colon may be used to terminate the password. This means that the login name and password may not contain a colon. This feature, in conjunction with the HAVE_ENCRYPTED_PASSWORDS macro in ‘policy.h’, permits using a standard Unix ‘/etc/passwd’ as a UUCP password file, providing the same set of login names and passwords for both getty and uucico.

Multiple password files may be specified on the line, and the passwdfile command may be repeated; all the files will be read in turn until the login name is found.

5.6.3 Log File Names

logfile string

Name the log file. The default is from ‘policy.h’. Logging information is written to this file. If HAVE_HDB_LOGGING is defined in ‘policy.h’, then by default a separate log file is used for each system; using this command to name a log file will cause all the systems to use it.

statfile string

Name the statistics file. The default is from ‘policy.h’. Statistical information about file transfers is written to this file.

debugfile string

Name the file to which all debugging information is written. The default is from ‘policy.h’. This command is only effective if the code has been compiled to include debugging (this is controlled by the DEBUG macro in ‘policy.h’). If debugging is on, messages written to the log file are also written to the debugging file to make it easier to keep the order of actions straight. The debugging file is different from the log file because information such as passwords can appear in it, so it must be not be publically readable.

5.6.4 Debugging Levels

debug string …

Set the debugging level. This command is only effective if the code has been compiled to include debugging. The default is to have no debugging. The arguments are strings which name the types of debugging to be turned on. The following types of debugging are defined:

‘abnormal’

Output debugging messages for abnormal situations, such as recoverable errors.

‘chat’

Output debugging messages for chat scripts.

‘handshake’

Output debugging messages for the initial handshake.

‘uucp-proto’

Output debugging messages for the UUCP session protocol.

‘proto’

Output debugging messages for the individual link protocols.

‘port’

Output debugging messages for actions on the communication port.

‘config’

Output debugging messages while reading the configuration files.

‘spooldir’

Output debugging messages for actions in the spool directory.

‘execute’

Output debugging messages whenever another program is executed.

‘incoming’

List all incoming data in the debugging file.

‘outgoing’

List all outgoing data in the debugging file.

‘all’

All of the above.

The debugging level may also be specified as a number. A 1 will set ‘chat’ debugging, a 2 will set both ‘chat’ and ‘handshake’ debugging, and so on down the possibilities. Currently an 11 will turn on all possible debugging, since there are 11 types of debugging messages listed above; more debugging types may be added in the future. The debug command may be used several times in the configuration file; every debugging type named will be turned on. When running any of the programs, the ‘-x’ switch (actually, for uulog it’s the ‘-X’ switch) may be used to turn on debugging. The argument to the ‘-x’ switch is one of the strings listed above, or a number as described above, or a comma separated list of strings (e.g., ‘-x chat,handshake’). The ‘-x’ switch may also appear several times on the command line, in which case all named debugging types will be turned on. The ‘-x’ debugging is in addition to any debugging specified by the debug command; there is no way to cancel debugging information. The debugging level may also be set specifically for calls to or from a specific system with the debug command in the system file (see section Miscellaneous sys File Commands).

The debugging messages are somewhat idiosyncratic; it may be necessary to refer to the source code for additional information in some cases.

5.7 The System Configuration File

By default there is a single system configuration, named ‘sys’ in the directory newconfigdir. This may be overridden by the sysfile command in the main configuration file; see Configuration File Names.

These files describe all remote systems known to the UUCP package.

5.7.1 Defaults and Alternates

The first set of commands in the file, up to the first system command, specify defaults to be used for all systems in that file. Each ‘sys’ file uses a different set of defaults.

Subsequently, each set of commands from system up to the next system command describe a particular system. Default values may be overridden for specific systems.

Each system may then have a series of alternate choices to use when calling out or calling in. The first set of commands for a particular system, up to the first alternate command, provide the first choice. Subsequently, each set of commands from alternate up to the next alternate command describe an alternate choice for calling out or calling in.

When a system is called, the commands before the first alternate are used to select a phone number, port, and so forth; if the call fails for some reason, the commands between the first alternate and the second are used, and so forth. Well, not quite. Actually, each succeeding alternate will only be used if it is different in some relevant way (different phone number, different chat script, etc.). If you want to force the same alternate to be used again (to retry a phone call more than once, for example), enter the phone number (or any other relevant field) again to make it appear different.

The alternates can also be used to give different permissions to an incoming call based on the login name. This will only be done if the first set of commands, before the first alternate command, uses the called-login command. The list of alternates will be searched, and the first alternate with a matching called-login command will be used. If no alternates match, the call will be rejected.

The alternate command may also be used in the file-wide defaults (the set of commands before the first system command). This might be used to specify a list of ports which are available for all systems (for an example of this, see Gateway Example) or to specify permissions based on the login name used by the remote system when it calls in. The first alternate for each system will default to the first alternate for the file-wide defaults (as modified by the commands used before the first alternate command for this system), the second alternate for each system to the second alternate for the file-wide defaults (as modified the same way), and so forth. If a system specifies more alternates than the file-wide defaults, the trailing ones will default to the last file-wide default alternate. If a system specifies fewer alternates than the file-wide defaults, the trailing file-wide default alternates will be used unmodified. The default-alternates command may be used to modify this behaviour.

This can all get rather confusing, although it’s easier to use than to describe concisely; the uuchk program may be used to ensure that you are getting what you want.

5.7.2 Naming the System

system string

Specify the remote system name. Subsequent commands up to the next system command refer to this system.

alternate [string]

Start an alternate set of commands (see section Defaults and Alternates). An optional argument may be used to name the alternate. This name will be recorded in the log file if the alternate is used to call the system. There is no way to name the first alternate (the commands before the first alternate command).

default-alternates boolean

If the argument is false, any remaining default alternates (from the defaults specified at the top of the current system file) will not be used. The default is true.

alias string

Specify an alias for the current system. The alias may be used by local uucp and uux commands, as well as by the remote system (which can be convenient if a remote system changes its name). The default is to have no aliases.

myname string

Specifies a different system name to use when calling the remote system. Also, if called-login is used and is not ‘ANY’, then, when a system logs in with that login name, string is used as the local system name. Because the local system name must be determined before the remote system has identified itself, using myname and called-login together for any system will set the local name for that login; this means that each locally used system name must have a unique login name associated with it. This allows a system to have different names for an external and an internal network. The default is to not use a special local name.

5.7.3 Calling Out

This section describes commands used when placing a call to another system.

5.7.3.1 When to Call

time string [number]

Specify when the system may be called. The first argument is a time string; see Time Strings. The optional second argument specifies a retry time in minutes. If a call made during a time that matches the time string fails, no more calls are permitted until the retry time has passed. By default an exponentially increasing retry time is used: after each failure the next retry period is longer. A retry time specified in the time command is always a fixed amount of time.

The time command may appear multiple times in a single alternate, in which case if any time string matches the system may be called. When the time command is used for a particular system, any time or timegrade commands that appeared in the system defaults are ignored.

The default time string is ‘Never’.

timegrade character string [number]

The character specifies a grade. It must be a single letter or digit. The string is a time string (see section Time Strings). All jobs of grade character or higher (where 0 > 9 > A > Z > a > z) may be run at the specified time. An ordinary time command is equivalent to using timegrade with a grade of z, permitting all jobs. If there are no jobs of a sufficiently high grade according to the time string, the system will not be called. Giving the ‘-s’ switch to uucico to force it to call a system causes it to assume there is a job of grade 0 waiting to be run.

The optional third argument specifies a retry time in minutes. See the time command, above, for more details.

Note that the timegrade command serves two purposes: 1) if there is no job of sufficiently high grade the system will not be called, and 2) if the system is called anyway (because the ‘-s’ switch was given to uucico) only jobs of sufficiently high grade will be transferred. However, if the other system calls in, the timegrade commands are ignored, and jobs of any grade may be transferred (but see call-timegrade and called-timegrade, below). Also, the timegrade command will not prevent the other system from transferring any job it chooses, regardless of who placed the call.

The timegrade command may appear multiple times without using alternate. When the timegrade command is used for a particular system, any time or timegrade commands that appeared in the system defaults are ignored.

If this command does not appear, there are no restrictions on what grade of work may be done at what time.

max-retries number

Gives the maximum number of times this system may be retried. If this many calls to the system fail, it will be called at most once a day whatever the retry time is. The default is 26.

success-wait number

A retry time, in seconds, which applies after a successful call. This can be used to put a limit on how frequently the system is called. For example, an argument of 1800 means that the system will not be called more than once every half hour. The default is 0, which means that there is no limit.

call-timegrade character string

The character is a single character A to Z, a to z, or 0 to 9 and specifies a grade. The string is a time string (see section Time Strings). If a call is placed to the other system during a time which matches the time string, the remote system will be requested to only run jobs of grade character or higher. Unfortunately, there is no way to guarantee that the other system will obey the request (this UUCP package will, but there are others which will not); moreover, job grades are historically somewhat arbitrary, so specifying a grade will only be meaningful if the other system cooperates in assigning grades. This grade restriction only applies when the other system is called, not when the other system calls in.

The call-timegrade command may appear multiple times without using alternate. If this command does not appear, or if none of the time strings match, the remote system will be allowed to send whatever grades of work it chooses.

called-timegrade character string

The character is a single character A to Z, a to z, or 0 to 9 and specifies a grade. The string is a time string (see section Time Strings). If a call is received from the other system during a time which matches the time string, only jobs of grade character or higher will be sent to the remote system. This allows the job grade to be set for incoming calls, overriding any request made by the remote uucico. As noted above, job grades are historically somewhat arbitrary, so specifying a grade will only be meaningful if the other system cooperates in assigning grades. This grade restriction only applies to jobs on the local system; it does not affect the jobs transferred by the remote system. This grade restriction only applies when the other system calls in, not when the other system is called.

The called-timegrade command may appear multiple times. If this command does not appear, or if none of the time strings match, any grade may be sent to the remote system upon receiving a call.

5.7.3.2 Placing the Call

speed number

baud number

Specify the speed (the term baud is technically incorrect, but widely understood) at which to call the system. This will try all available ports with that speed until an unlocked port is found. The ports are defined in the port file. If both speed and port commands appear, both are used when selecting a port. To allow calls at more than one speed, the alternate command must be used (see section Defaults and Alternates). If this command does not appear, there is no default; the speed may be specified in the port file, but if it is not then the natural speed of the port will be used (whatever that means on the system). Specifying an explicit speed of 0 will request the natural speed of the port (whatever the system sets it to), overriding any default speed from the defaults at the top of the file.

port string

Name a particular port or type of port to use when calling the system. The information for this port is obtained from the port file. If this command does not appear, there is no default; a port must somehow be specified in order to call out (it may be specified implicitly using the speed command or explicitly using the next version of port). There may be many ports with the same name; each will be tried in turn until an unlocked one is found which matches the desired speed.

port string …

If more than one string follows the port command, the strings are treated as a command that might appear in the port file (see section The Port Configuration File). If a port is named (by using a single string following port) these commands are ignored; their purpose is to permit defining the port completely in the system file rather than always requiring entries in two different files. In order to call out, a port must be specified using some version of the port command, or by using the speed command to select ports from the port file.

phone string

address string

Give a phone number to call (when using a modem port) or a remote host to contact (when using a TCP or TLI port). The commands phone and address are equivalent; the duplication is intended to provide a mnemonic choice depending on the type of port in use.

When used with a modem port, an = character in the phone number means to wait for a secondary dial tone (although only some modems support this); a - character means to pause while dialing for 1 second (again, only some modems support this). If the system has more than one phone number, each one must appear in a different alternate. The phone command must appear in order to call out on a modem; there is no default.

When used with a TCP port, the string names the host to contact. It may be a domain name or a numeric Internet address. If no address is specified, the system name is used.

When used with a TLI port, the string is treated as though it were an expect string in a chat script, allowing the use of escape characters (see section Chat Scripts). The dialer-sequence command in the port file may override this address (see section The Port Configuration File).

When used with a port that not a modem or TCP or TLI, this command is ignored.

5.7.3.3 Logging In

chat strings

chat-timeout number

chat-fail string

chat-seven-bit boolean

chat-program strings

These commands describe a chat script to use when logging on to a remote system. This login chat script is run after any chat script defined in the ‘dial’ file (see section The Dialer Configuration File). Chat scripts are explained in Chat Scripts.

Two additional escape sequences may be used in send strings.

‘\L’

Send the login name, as set by the call-login command.

‘\P’

Send the password, as set by the call-password command.

Three additional escape sequences may be used with the chat-program command. These are ‘\L’ and ‘\P’, which become the login name and password, respectively, and ‘\Z’, which becomes the name of the system of being called.

The default chat script is:

chat "" \r\c ogin:-BREAK-ogin:-BREAK-ogin: \L word: \P

This will send a carriage return (the \c suppresses the additional trailing carriage return that would otherwise be sent) and waits for the string ‘ogin:’ (which would be the last part of the ‘login:’ prompt supplied by a Unix system). If it doesn’t see ‘ogin:’, it sends a break and waits for ‘ogin:’ again. If it still doesn’t see ‘ogin:’, it sends another break and waits for ‘ogin:’ again. If it still doesn’t see ‘ogin:’, the chat script aborts and hangs up the phone. If it does see ‘ogin:’ at some point, it sends the login name (as specified by the call-login command) followed by a carriage return (since all send strings are followed by a carriage return unless \c is used) and waits for the string ‘word:’ (which would be the last part of the ‘Password:’ prompt supplied by a Unix system). If it sees ‘word:’, it sends the password and a carriage return, completing the chat script. The program will then enter the handshake phase of the UUCP protocol.

This chat script will work for most systems, so you will only be required to use the call-login and call-password commands. In fact, in the file-wide defaults you could set defaults of ‘call-login *’ and ‘call-password *’; you would then just have to make an entry for each system in the call-out login file.

Some systems seem to flush input after the ‘login:’ prompt, so they may need a version of this chat script with a \d before the \L. When using UUCP over TCP, some servers will not be handle the initial carriage return sent by this chat script; in this case you may have to specify the simple chat script ‘ogin: \L word: \P’.

call-login string

Specify the login name to send with \L in the chat script. If the string is ‘*’ (e.g., ‘call-login *’) the login name will be fetched from the call out login name and password file (see section Configuration File Names). The string may contain escape sequences as though it were an expect string in a chat script (see section Chat Scripts). There is no default.

call-password string

Specify the password to send with \P in the chat script. If the string is ‘*’ (e.g., ‘call-password *’) the password will be fetched from the call-out login name and password file (see section Configuration File Names). The string may contain escape sequences as though it were an expect string in a chat script (see section Chat Scripts). There is no default.

5.7.4 Accepting a Call

called-login strings

The first string specifies the login name that the system must use when calling in. If it is ‘ANY’ (e.g., ‘called-login ANY’) any login name may be used; this is useful to override a file-wide default and to indicate that future alternates may have different login names. Case is significant. The default value is ‘ANY’.

Different alternates (see section Defaults and Alternates) may use different called-login commands, in which case the login name will be used to select which alternate is in effect; this will only work if the first alternate (before the first alternate command) uses the called-login command.

Additional strings may be specified after the login name; they are a list of which systems are permitted to use this login name. If this feature is used, then normally the login name will only be given in a single called-login command. Only systems which appear on the list, or which use an explicit called-login command, will be permitted to use that login name. If the same login name is used more than once with a list of systems, all the lists are concatenated together. This feature permits you to restrict a login name to a particular set of systems without requiring you to use the called-login command for every single system; you can achieve a similar effect by using a different system file for each permitted login name with an appropriate called-login command in the file-wide defaults.

callback boolean

If boolean is true, then when the remote system calls uucico will hang up the connection and prepare to call it back. The default is false.

called-chat strings

called-chat-timeout number

called-chat-fail string

called-chat-seven-bit boolean

called-chat-program strings

These commands may be used to define a chat script (see section Chat Scripts) that is run whenever the local system is called by the system being defined. The chat script defined by the chat command (see section Logging In), on the other hand, is used when the remote system is called. This called chat script might be used to set special modem parameters that are appropriate to a particular system. It is run after protocol negotiation is complete, but before the protocol has been started. For additional escape sequence which may be used besides those defined for all chat scripts, see Logging In. There is no default called chat script. If the called chat script fails, the incoming call will be aborted.

5.7.5 Protocol Selection

protocol string

Specifies which protocols to use for the other system, and in which order to use them. This would not normally be used. For example, ‘protocol tfg’.

The default depends on the characteristics of the port and the dialer, as specified by the seven-bit and reliable commands. If neither the port nor the dialer use either of these commands, the default is to assume an eight-bit reliable connection. The commands ‘seven-bit true’ or ‘reliable false’ might be used in either the port or the dialer to change this. Each protocol has particular requirements that must be met before it will be considered during negotiation with the remote side.

The ‘t’ and ‘e’ protocols are intended for use over TCP or some other communication path with end to end reliability, as they do no checking of the data at all. They will only be considered on a TCP port which is both reliable and eight bit. For technical details, see UUCP ‘t’ Protocol, and UUCP ‘e’ Protocol.

The ‘i’ protocol is a bidirectional protocol. It requires an eight-bit connection. It will run over a half-duplex link, such as Telebit modems in PEP mode, but for efficient use of such a connection you must use the half-duplex command (see section The Port Configuration File). See section UUCP ‘i’ Protocol.

The ‘g’ protocol is robust, but requires an eight-bit connection. See section UUCP ‘g’ Protocol.

The ‘G’ protocol is the System V Release 4 version of the ‘g’ protocol. See section UUCP ‘G’ Protocol.

The ‘a’ protocol is a Zmodem like protocol, contributed by Doug Evans. It requires an eight-bit connection, but unlike the ‘g’ or ‘i’ protocol it will work if certain control characters may not be transmitted.

The ‘j’ protocol is a variant of the ‘i’ protocol which can avoid certain control characters. The set of characters it avoids can be set by a parameter. While it technically does not require an eight bit connection (it could be configured to avoid all characters with the high bit set) it would be very inefficient to use it over one. It is useful over a eight-bit connection that will not transmit certain control characters. See section UUCP ‘j’ Protocol.

The ‘f’ protocol is intended for use with X.25 connections; it checksums each file as a whole, so any error causes the entire file to be retransmitted. It requires a reliable connection, but only uses seven-bit transmissions. It is a streaming protocol, so, while it can be used on a serial port, the port must be completely reliable and flow controlled; many aren’t. See section UUCP ‘f’ Protocol.

The ‘v’ protocol is the ‘g’ protocol as used by the DOS program UUPC/Extended. It is provided only so that UUPC/Extended users can use it; there is no particular reason to select it. See section UUCP ‘v’ Protocol.

The ‘y’ protocol is an efficient streaming protocol. It does error checking, but when it detects an error it immediately aborts the connection. This requires a reliable, flow controlled, eight-bit connection. In practice, it is only useful on a connection that is nearly always error-free. Unlike the ‘t’ and ‘e’ protocols, the connection need not be entirely error-free, so the ‘y’ protocol can be used on a serial port. See section UUCP ‘y’ Protocol.

The protocols will be considered in the order shown above. This means that if neither the seven-bit nor the reliable command are used, the ‘t’ protocol will be used over a TCP connection and the ‘i’ protocol will be used over any other type of connection (subject, of course, to what is supported by the remote system; it may be assumed that all systems support the ‘g’ protocol).

Note that currently specifying both ‘seven-bit true’ and ‘reliable false’ will not match any protocol. If this occurs through a combination of port and dialer specifications, you will have to use the protocol command for the system or no protocol will be selected at all (the only reasonable choice would be ‘protocol f’).

A protocol list may also be specified for a port (see section The Port Configuration File), but, if there is a list for the system, the list for the port is ignored.

protocol-parameter character string …

character is a single character specifying a protocol. The remaining strings are a command specific to that protocol which will be executed if that protocol is used. A typical command is something like ‘window 7’. The particular commands are protocol specific.

The ‘i’ protocol supports the following commands, all of which take numeric arguments:

window

The window size to request the remote system to use. This must be between 1 and 16 inclusive. The default is 16.

packet-size

The packet size to request the remote system to use. This must be between 1 and 4095 inclusive. The default is 1024.

remote-packet-size

If this is between 1 and 4095 inclusive, the packet size requested by the remote system is ignored, and this is used instead. The default is 0, which means that the remote system’s request is honored.

sync-timeout

The length of time, in seconds, to wait for a SYNC packet from the remote system. SYNC packets are exchanged when the protocol is started. The default is 10.

sync-retries

The number of times to retry sending a SYNC packet before giving up. The default is 6.

timeout

The length of time, in seconds, to wait for an incoming packet before sending a negative acknowledgement. The default is 10.

retries

The number of times to retry sending a packet or a negative acknowledgement before giving up and closing the connection. The default is 6.

errors

The maximum number of errors to permit before closing the connection. The default is 100.

error-decay

The rate at which to ignore errors. Each time this many packets are received, the error count is decreased by one, so that a long connection with an occasional error will not exceed the limit set by errors. The default is 10.

ack-frequency

The number of packets to receive before sending an acknowledgement. The default is half the requested window size, which should provide good performance in most cases.

The ‘g’, ‘G’ and ‘v’ protocols support the following commands, all of which take numeric arguments, except short-packets which takes a boolean argument:

window

The window size to request the remote system to use. This must be between 1 and 7 inclusive. The default is 7.

packet-size

The packet size to request the remote system to use. This must be a power of 2 between 32 and 4096 inclusive. The default is 64 for the ‘g’ and ‘G’ protocols and 1024 for the ‘v’ protocol. Many older UUCP packages do not support packet sizes larger than 64, and many others do not support packet sizes larger than 128. Some UUCP packages will even dump core if a larger packet size is requested. The packet size is not a negotiation, and it may be different in each direction. If you request a packet size larger than the remote system supports, you will not be able to send any files.

startup-retries

The number of times to retry the initialization sequence. The default is 8.

init-retries

The number of times to retry one phase of the initialization sequence (there are three phases). The default is 4.

init-timeout

The timeout in seconds for one phase of the initialization sequence. The default is 10.

retries

The number of times to retry sending either a data packet or a request for the next packet. The default is 6.

timeout

The timeout in seconds when waiting for either a data packet or an acknowledgement. The default is 10.

garbage

The number of unrecognized bytes to permit before dropping the connection. This must be larger than the packet size. The default is 10000.

errors

The number of errors (malformed packets, out of order packets, bad checksums, or packets rejected by the remote system) to permit before dropping the connection. The default is 100.

error-decay

The rate at which to ignore errors. Each time this many packets are received, the error count is decreased by one, so that a long connection with an occasional error will not exceed the limit set by errors. The default is 10.

remote-window

If this is between 1 and 7 inclusive, the window size requested by the remote system is ignored and this is used instead. This can be useful when dealing with some poor UUCP packages. The default is 0, which means that the remote system’s request is honored.

remote-packet-size

If this is between 32 and 4096 inclusive the packet size requested by the remote system is ignored and this is used instead. There is probably no good reason to use this. The default is 0, which means that the remote system’s request is honored.

short-packets

If this is true, then the code will optimize by sending shorter packets when there is less data to send. This confuses some UUCP packages, such as System V Release 4 (when using the ‘G’ protocol) and Waffle; when connecting to such a package, this parameter must be set to false. The default is true for the ‘g’ and ‘v’ protocols and false for the ‘G’ protocol.

The ‘a’ protocol is a Zmodem like protocol contributed by Doug Evans. It supports the following commands, all of which take numeric arguments except for escape-control, which takes a boolean argument:

timeout

Number of seconds to wait for a packet to arrive. The default is 10.

retries

The number of times to retry sending a packet. The default is 10.

startup-retries

The number of times to retry sending the initialization packet. The default is 4.

garbage

The number of garbage characters to accept before closing the connection. The default is 2400.

send-window

The number of characters that may be sent before waiting for an acknowledgement. The default is 1024.

escape-control

Whether to escape control characters. If this is true, the protocol may be used over a connection which does not transmit certain control characters, such as XON or XOFF. The connection must still transmit eight bit characters other than control characters. The default is false.

The ‘j’ protocol can be used over an eight bit connection that will not transmit certain control characters. It accepts the same protocol parameters that the ‘i’ protocol accepts, as well as one more:

avoid

A list of characters to avoid. This is a string which is interpreted as an escape sequence (see section Chat Scripts). The protocol does not have a way to avoid printable ASCII characters (byte values from 32 to 126, inclusive); only ASCII control characters and eight-bit characters may be avoided. The default value is ‘\021\023’; these are the characters XON and XOFF, which many connections use for flow control. If the package is configured to use HAVE_BSD_TTY, then on some versions of Unix you may have to avoid ‘\377’ as well, due to the way some implementations of the BSD terminal driver handle signals.

The ‘f’ protocol is intended for use with error-correcting modems only; it checksums each file as a whole, so any error causes the entire file to be retransmitted. It supports the following commands, both of which take numeric arguments:

timeout

The timeout in seconds before giving up. The default is 120.

retries

How many times to retry sending a file. The default is 2.

The ‘t’ and ‘e’ protocols are intended for use over TCP or some other communication path with end to end reliability, as they do no checking of the data at all. They both support a single command, which takes a numeric argument:

timeout

The timeout in seconds before giving up. The default is 120.

The ‘y’ protocol is a streaming protocol contributed by Jorge Cwik. It supports the following commands, both of which take numeric arguments:

timeout

The timeout in seconds when waiting for a packet. The default is 60.

packet-size

The packet size to use. The default is 1024.

The protocol parameters are reset to their default values after each call.

5.7.6 File Transfer Control

send-request boolean

The boolean determines whether the remote system is permitted to request files from the local system. The default is yes.

receive-request boolean

The boolean determines whether the remote system is permitted to send files to the local system. The default is yes.

request boolean

A shorthand command, equivalent to specifying both ‘send-request boolean’ and ‘receive-request boolean’.

call-transfer boolean

The boolean is checked when the local system places the call. It determines whether the local system may do file transfers queued up for the remote system. The default is yes.

called-transfer boolean

The boolean is checked when the remote system calls in. It determines whether the local system may do file transfers queued up for the remote system. The default is yes.

transfer boolean

A shorthand command, equivalent to specifying both ‘call-transfer boolean’ and ‘called-transfer boolean’.

call-local-size number string

The string is a time string (see section Time Strings). The number is the size in bytes of the largest file that should be transferred at a time matching the time string, if the local system placed the call and the request was made by the local system. This command may appear multiple times in a single alternate. If this command does not appear, or if none of the time strings match, there are no size restrictions.

With all the size control commands, the size of a file from the remote system (as opposed to a file from the local system) will only be checked if the other system is running this package: other UUCP packages will not understand a maximum size request, nor will they provide the size of remote files.

call-remote-size number string

Specify the size in bytes of the largest file that should be transferred at a given time by remote request, when the local system placed the call. This command may appear multiple times in a single alternate. If this command does not appear, there are no size restrictions.

called-local-size number string

Specify the size in bytes of the largest file that should be transferred at a given time by local request, when the remote system placed the call. This command may appear multiple times in a single alternate. If this command does not appear, there are no size restrictions.

called-remote-size number string

Specify the size in bytes of the largest file that should be transferred at a given time by remote request, when the remote system placed the call. This command may appear multiple times in a single alternate. If this command does not appear, there are no size restrictions.

local-send strings

Specifies that files in the directories named by the strings may be sent to the remote system when requested locally (using uucp or uux). The directories in the list should be separated by whitespace. A ‘~’ may be used for the public directory. On a Unix system, this is typically ‘/usr/spool/uucppublic’; the public directory may be set with the pubdir command. Here is an example of local-send:

local-send ~ /usr/spool/ftp/pub

Listing a directory allows all files within the directory and all subdirectories to be sent. Directories may be excluded by preceding them with an exclamation point. For example:

local-send /usr/ftp !/usr/ftp/private ~

means that all files in ‘/usr/ftp’ or the public directory may be sent, except those files in ‘/usr/ftp/private’. The list of directories is read from left to right, and the last directory to apply takes effect; this means that directories should be listed from top down. The default is the root directory (i.e., any file at all may be sent by local request).

remote-send strings

Specifies that files in the named directories may be sent to the remote system when requested by the remote system. The default is ‘~’.

local-receive strings

Specifies that files may be received into the named directories when requested by a local user. The default is ‘~’.

remote-receive strings

Specifies that files may be received into the named directories when requested by the remote system. The default is ‘~’. On Unix, the remote system may only request that files be received into directories that are writeable by the world, regardless of how this is set.

forward-to strings

Specifies a list of systems to which files may be forwarded. The remote system may forward files through the local system on to any of the systems in this list. The string ‘ANY’ may be used to permit forwarding to any system. The default is to not permit forwarding to other systems. Note that if the remote system is permitted to execute the uucp command, it effectively has the ability to forward to any system.

forward-from strings

Specifies a list of systems from which files may be forwarded. The remote system may request files via the local system from any of the systems in this list. The string ‘ANY’ may be used to permit forwarding to any system. The default is to not permit forwarding from other systems. Note that if a remote system is permitted to execute the uucp command, it effectively has the ability to request files from any system.

forward strings

Equivalent to specifying both ‘forward-to strings’ and ‘forward-from strings’. This would normally be used rather than either of the more specific commands.

max-file-time number

The maximum amount of time which will be sent sending any one file if there are other files to send. This will only be effective when using a protocol which permits interrupting one file send to send another file. This is true of the ‘i’ and ‘j’ protocols. The default is to have no maximum.

5.7.7 Miscellaneous sys File Commands

sequence boolean

If boolean is true, then conversation sequencing is automatically used for the remote system, so that if somebody manages to spoof as the remote system, it will be detected the next time the remote system actually calls. This is false by default.

command-path strings

Specifies the path (a list of whitespace separated directories) to be searched to locate commands to execute. This is only used for commands requested by uux, not for chat programs. The default is from ‘policy.h’.

commands strings

The list of commands which the remote system is permitted to execute locally. For example: ‘commands rnews rmail’. If the value is ‘ALL’ (case significant), all commands may be executed. The default is ‘rnews rmail’.

free-space number

Specify the minimum amount of file system space (in bytes) to leave free after receiving a file. If the incoming file will not fit, it will be rejected. This initial rejection will only work when talking to another instance of this package, since older UUCP packages do not provide the file size of incoming files. Also, while a file is being received, uucico will periodically check the amount of free space. If it drops below the amount given by the free-space command, the file transfer will be aborted. The default amount of space to leave free is from ‘policy.h’. This file space checking may not work on all systems.

pubdir string

Specifies the public directory that is used when ‘~’ is specifed in a file transfer or a list of directories. This essentially overrides the public directory specified in the main configuration file for this system only. The default is the public directory specified in the main configuration file (which defaults to a value from ‘policy.h’).

debug string …

Set additional debugging for calls to or from the system. This may be used to debug a connection with a specific system. It is particularly useful when debugging incoming calls, since debugging information will be generated whenever the call comes in. See the debug command in the main configuration file (see section Debugging Levels) for more details. The debugging information specified here is in addition to that specified in the main configuration file or on the command line.

max-remote-debug string …

When the system calls in, it may request that the debugging level be set to a certain value. The max-remote-debug command may be used to put a limit on the debugging level which the system may request, to avoid filling up the disk with debugging information. Only the debugging types named in the max-remote-debug command may be turned on by the remote system. To prohibit any debugging, use ‘max-remote-debug none’.

5.7.8 Default sys File Values

The following are used as default values for all systems; they can be considered as appearing before the start of the file.

time Never
chat "" \r\c ogin:-BREAK-ogin:-BREAK-ogin: \L word: \P
chat-timeout 10
callback n
sequence n
request y
transfer y
local-send /
remote-send ~
local-receive ~
remove-receive ~
command-path [ from ‘policy.h’ ]
commands rnews rmail
max-remote-debug abnormal,chat,handshake

5.8 The Port Configuration File

The port files may be used to name and describe ports. By default there is a single port file, named ‘port’ in the directory newconfigdir. This may be overridden by the portfile command in the main configuration file; see Configuration File Names.

Any commands in a port file before the first port command specify defaults for all ports in the file; however, since the type command must appear before all other commands for a port, the defaults are only useful if all ports in the file are of the same type (this restriction may be lifted in a later version). All commands after a port command up to the next port command then describe that port. There are different types of ports; each type supports its own set of commands. Each command indicates which types of ports support it. There may be many ports with the same name; if a system requests a port by name then each port with that name will be tried until an unlocked one is found.

port string

Introduces and names a port.

type string

Define the type of port. The default is ‘modem’. If this command appears, it must immediately follow the port command. The type defines what commands are subsequently allowed. Currently the types are:

‘modem’

For a modem hookup.

‘stdin’

For a connection through standard input and standard output, as when uucico is run as a login shell.

‘direct’

For a direct connection to another system.

‘tcp’

For a connection using TCP.

‘tli’

For a connection using TLI.

‘pipe’

For a connection through a pipe running another program.

protocol string

Specify a list of protocols to use for this port. This is just like the corresponding command for a system (see section Protocol Selection). A protocol list for a system takes precedence over a list for a port.

protocol-parameter character strings [ any type ]

The same command as the protocol-parameter command used for systems (see section Protocol Selection). This one takes precedence.

seven-bit boolean [ any type ]

This is only used during protocol negotiation; if the argument is true, it forces the selection of a protocol which works across a seven-bit link. It does not prevent eight bit characters from being transmitted. The default is false.

reliable boolean [ any type ]

This is only used during protocol negotiation; if the argument is false, it forces the selection of a protocol which works across an unreliable communication link. The default is true. It would be more common to specify this for a dialer rather than a port.

half-duplex boolean [ any type ]

If the argument is true, it means that the port only supports half-duplex connections. This only affects bidirectional protocols, and causes them to not do bidirectional transfers.

device string [ modem, direct and tli only ]

Names the device associated with this port. If the device is not named, the port name is taken as the device. Device names are system dependent. On Unix, a modem or direct connection might be something like ‘/dev/ttyd0’; a TLI port might be ‘/dev/inet/tcp’.

speed number [modem and direct only ]

baud number [ modem and direct only ]

The speed this port runs at. If a system specifies a speed but no port name, then all ports which match the speed will be tried in order. If the speed is not specified here and is not specified by the system, the natural speed of the port will be used by default.

speed-range number number [ modem only ]

baud-range number number [ modem only ]

Specify a range of speeds this port can run at. The first number is the minimum speed, the second number is the maximum speed. These numbers will be used when matching a system which specifies a desired speed. The simple speed (or baud) command is still used to determine the speed to run at if the system does not specify a speed. For example, the command ‘speed-range 300 19200’ means that the port will match any system which uses a speed from 300 to 19200 baud (and will use the speed specified by the system); this could be combined with ‘speed 2400’, which means that when this port is used with a system that does not specify a speed, the port will be used at 2400 baud.

carrier boolean [ modem and direct only ]

The argument indicates whether the port supports carrier.

If a modem port does not support carrier, the carrier detect signal will never be required on this port, regardless of what the modem chat script indicates. The default for a modem port is true.

If a direct port supports carrier, the port will be set to expect carrier whenever it is used. The default for a direct port is false.

hardflow boolean [ modem and direct only ]

The argument indicates whether the port supports hardware flow control. If it does not, hardware flow control will not be turned on for this port. The default is true. Hardware flow control is only supported on some systems.

dial-device string [ modem only ]

Dialing instructions should be output to the named device, rather than to the normal port device. The default is to output to the normal port device.

dialer string [ modem only ]

Name a dialer to use. The information is looked up in the dial file. There is no default. Some sort of dialer information must be specified to call out on a modem.

dialer string … [ modem only ]

If more than one string follows the dialer command, the strings are treated as a command that might appear in the dial file (see section The Dialer Configuration File). If a dialer is named (by using the first form of this command, described just above), these commands are ignored. They may be used to specify dialer information directly in simple situations without needing to go to a separate file. There is no default. Some sort of dialer information must be specified to call out on a modem.

dialer-sequence strings [ modem or tcp or tli only ]

Name a sequence of dialers and tokens (phone numbers) to use. The first argument names a dialer, and the second argument names a token. The third argument names another dialer, and so on. If there are an odd number of arguments, the phone number specified with a phone command in the system file is used as the final token. The token is what is used for \D or \T in the dialer chat script. If the token in this string is \D, the system phone number will be used; if it is \T, the system phone number will be used after undergoing dialcodes translation. A missing final token is taken as \D.

This command currently does not work if dial-device is specified; to handle this correctly will require a more systematic notion of chat scripts. Moreover, the complete and abort chat scripts, the protocol parameters, and the carrier and dtr-toggle commands are ignored for all but the first dialer.

This command basically lets you specify a sequence of chat scripts to use. For example, the first dialer might get you to a local network and the second dialer might describe how to select a machine from the local network. This lets you break your dialing sequence into simple modules, and may make it easier to share dialer entries between machines.

This command is to only way to use a chat script with a TCP port. This can be useful when using a modem which is accessed via TCP.

When this command is used with a TLI port, then if the first dialer is ‘TLI’ or ‘TLIS’ the first token is used as the address to connect to. If the first dialer is something else, or if there is no token, the address given by the address command is used (see section Placing the Call). Escape sequences in the address are expanded as they are for chat script expect strings (see section Chat Scripts). The different between ‘TLI’ and ‘TLIS’ is that the latter implies the command ‘stream true’. These contortions are all for HDB compatibility. Any subsequent dialers are treated as they are for a TCP port.

lockname string [ modem and direct only ]

Give the name to use when locking this port. On Unix, this is the name of the file that will be created in the lock directory. It is used as is, so on Unix it should generally start with ‘LCK..’. For example, if a single port were named both ‘/dev/ttycu0’ and ‘/dev/tty0’ (perhaps with different characteristics keyed on the minor device number), then the command lockname LCK..ttycu0 could be used to force the latter to use the same lock file name as the former.

service string [ tcp only ]

Name the TCP port number to use. This may be a number. If not, it will be looked up in ‘/etc/services’. If this is not specified, the string ‘uucp’ is looked up in ‘/etc/services’. If it is not found, port number 540 (the standard UUCP-over-TCP port number) will be used.

version string [ tcp only ]

Specify the IP version number to use. The default is ‘0’, which permits any version. The other possible choices are ‘4’, which requires ‘IPv4’, or ‘6’, which requires ‘IPv6’. Normally it is not necessary to use this command, but in some cases, as ‘IPv6’ is rolled out across the Internet, it may be necessary to require UUCP to use a particular type of connection.

push strings [ tli only ]

Give a list of modules to push on to the TLI stream.

stream boolean [ tli only ]

If this is true, and the push command was not used, the ‘tirdwr’ module is pushed on to the TLI stream.

server-address string [ tli only ]

Give the address to use when running as a TLI server. Escape sequences in the address are expanded as they are for chat script expect strings (see section Chat Scripts).

The string is passed directly to the TLI t_bind function. The value needed may depend upon your particular TLI implementation. Check the manual pages, and, if necessary, try writing some sample programs.

For AT&T 3B2 System V Release 3 using the Wollongong TCP/IP stack, which is probably typical, the format of TLI string is ‘SSPPIIII’, where ‘SS’ is the service number (for TCP, this is 2), ‘PP’ is the TCP port number, and ‘IIII’ is the Internet address. For example, to accept a connection from on port 540 from any interface, use ‘server-address \x00\x02\x02\x1c\x00\x00\x00\x00’. To only accept connections from a particular interface, replace the last four digits with the network address of the interface. (Thanks to Paul Pryor for the information in this paragraph).

command strings [ pipe only ]

Give the command, with arguments, to run when using a pipe port type. When a port of this type is used, the command is executed and uucico communicates with it over a pipe. This permits uucico or cu to communicate with another system which can only be reached through some unusual means. A sample use might be ‘command /bin/rlogin -E -8 -l login system’. The command is run with the full privileges of UUCP; it is responsible for maintaining security.

5.9 The Dialer Configuration File

The dialer configuration files define dialers. By default there is a single dialer file, named ‘dial’ in the directory newconfigdir. This may be overridden by the dialfile command in the main configuration file; see Configuration File Names.

Any commands in the file before the first dialer command specify defaults for all the dialers in the file. All commands after a dialer command up to the next dialer command are associated with the named dialer.

dialer string

Introduces and names a dialer.

chat strings

chat-timeout number

chat-fail string

chat-seven-bit boolean

chat-program strings

Specify a chat script to be used to dial the phone. This chat script is used before the login chat script in the ‘sys’ file, if any (see section Logging In). For full details on chat scripts, see Chat Scripts.

The uucico daemon will sleep for one second between attempts to dial out on a modem. If your modem requires a longer wait period, you must start your chat script with delays (‘\d’ in a send string).

The chat script will be read from and sent to the port specified by the dial-device command for the port, if there is one.

The following escape addition escape sequences may appear in send strings:

\D

send phone number without dialcode translation

\T

send phone number with dialcode translation

See the description of the dialcodes file (see section Configuration File Names) for a description of dialcode translation.

If both the port and the dialer support carrier, as set by the carrier command in the port file and the carrier command in the dialer file, then every chat script implicitly begins with \M and ends with \m.

There is no default chat script for dialers.

The following additional escape sequences may be used in chat-program:

\D

phone number without dialcode translation

\T

phone number with dialcode translation

If the program changes the port in any way (e.g., sets parity) the changes will be preserved during protocol negotiation, but once the protocol is selected it will change the port settings.

dialtone string

A string to output when dialing the phone number which causes the modem to wait for a secondary dial tone. This is used to translate the = character in a phone number. The default is a comma.

pause string

A string to output when dialing the phone number which causes the modem to wait for 1 second. This is used to translate the - character in a phone number. The default is a comma.

carrier boolean

An argument of true means that the dialer supports the modem carrier signal. After the phone number is dialed, uucico will require that carrier be on. One some systems, it will be able to wait for it. If the argument is false, carrier will not be required. The default is true.

carrier-wait number

If the port is supposed to wait for carrier, this may be used to indicate how many seconds to wait. The default is 60 seconds. Only some systems support waiting for carrier.

dtr-toggle boolean boolean

If the first argument is true, then DTR is toggled before using the modem. This is only supported on some systems and some ports. The second boolean need not be present; if it is, and it is true, the program will sleep for 1 second after toggling DTR. The default is to not toggle DTR.

complete-chat strings

complete-chat-timeout number

complete-chat-fail string

complete-chat-seven-bit boolean

complete-chat-program strings

These commands define a chat script (see section Chat Scripts) which is run when a call is finished normally. This allows the modem to be reset. There is no default. No additional escape sequences may be used.

complete string

This is a simple use of complete-chat. It is equivalent to complete-chat "" string; this has the effect of sending string to the modem when a call finishes normally.

abort-chat strings

abort-chat-timeout number

abort-chat-fail string

abort-chat-seven-bit boolean

abort-chat-program strings

These commands define a chat script (see section Chat Scripts) to be run when a call is aborted. They may be used to interrupt and reset the modem. There is no default. No additional escape sequences may be used.

abort string

This is a simple use of abort-chat. It is equivalent to abort-chat "" string; this has the effect of sending string to the modem when a call is aborted.

protocol-parameter character strings

Set protocol parameters, just like the protocol-parameter command in the system configuration file or the port configuration file; see Protocol Selection. These parameters take precedence, then those for the port, then those for the system.

seven-bit boolean

This is only used during protocol negotiation; if it is true, it forces selection of a protocol which works across a seven-bit link. It does not prevent eight bit characters from being transmitted. The default is false. It would be more common to specify this for a port than for a dialer.

reliable boolean

This is only used during protocol negotiation; if it is false, it forces selection of a protocol which works across an unreliable communication link. The default is true.

half-duplex boolean [ any type ]

If the argument is true, it means that the dialer only supports half-duplex connections. This only affects bidirectional protocols, and causes them to not do bidirectional transfers.