LharcUUCP --- written by Peter Simons
Release 1 ()

Copyright:
**********

GNU GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE
Version 2, June 1991

     Copyright (C) 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
                              675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

     Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
     of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

Preamble
========

The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software--to make sure the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation's software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too.

When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.

To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.

For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, 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 show them these terms so they know their rights.

We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software.

Also, for each author's protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original authors' reputations.

Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone's free use or not licensed at all.

The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow.

TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION
===============================================================

 0. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in the term "modification".) Each licensee is addressed as "you".

     Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.

 1. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program's source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.

     You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.

 2. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 1 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:

      a. You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.

      b. You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.

      c. If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on the Program is not required to print an announcement.)

     These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.

     Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program.

     In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.

 3. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 2) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above provided that you also do one of the following:

      a. Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

      b. Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 1 and 2 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,

      c. Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with Subsection b above.)

     The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.

     If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.

 4. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License.  Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.

 5. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it.  However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works.  These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License.  Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.

 6. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions.  You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients' exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.

 7. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License.  If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all.  For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

     If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other circumstances.

     It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the integrity of the free software distribution system, which is implemented by public license practices.  Many people have made generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed through that system in reliance on consistent application of that system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot impose that choice.

     This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a consequence of the rest of this License.

 8. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the original copyright holder who places the Program under this License may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among countries not thus excluded.  In such case, this License incorporates the limitation as if written in the body of this License.

 9. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.

     Each version is given a distinguishing version number.  If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.  If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.

 10. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author to ask for permission.  For software which is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes make exceptions for this.  Our decision will be guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.

NO WARRANTY
===========

BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.

IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

What is it?
***********

LharcUUCP is a small tool to speed your uucico transfers up. uucico's performance goes down, when you have to transfer plenty of small files, like e-mail and the corresponding description file. Larger files, however, are transferred at satisfying speed and efficiency---at least with a larger block size.

The idea is to batch all your e-mail and to transfer this large file rather than all of them separately. Additionally, this larger file can be crunched much better than the smaller ones. Ideas like this are available for several years now, namely BSMTP or RSMTP.

But these methods have one significant disadvantage: Once, the mails are batched, you can't add any files anymore! This means, that you can't run the batcher several times a day without having several smaller files again. And if you batch only a few times a day, you're stuck with certain poll-times.

``So,'' I thought, ``why not use lharc or any similar archiver?'' These archivers can crunch the data very well and they can still add files at a later time. Additionally, lzh-archives are understood on virtually every platform.

This is what LharcUUCP does! It scans your spool directory for queued jobs and archives them into one file using lharc. Currently, only mail- and news jobs are processed. Future versions might batch UUCP file transfers, too. Then an appropriate command- (X.system*) and description file (D.systemX*) is created---to tell uucico what to do with the archive.

In case, such an archive already exists when LharcUUCP is issued, it adds the new jobs to that archives, not creating a second file to transfer!

On the other side of the transfer, an uuxqt that recognizes the new job-type rlharc is required.

Installation:
*************

Copy LharcUUCP and rlharc somewhere into your command path, usually UUCPC: or UUCP:c/. Please make sure that the rlharc script has its S-bit set or uuxqt won't be able to start it! Additionally, you have to copy the netsupport.library to your LIBS: directory or LharcUUCP won't work.

A quick test
============

LharcUUCP is installed and you're ready to batch a few outgoing jobs. Send a testmail to someone and call LharcUUCP with the system the mail is spooled to as parameter, for example:

     LharcUUCP dino

This will result in an output like this:

     Processing queued jobs for >dino<.
     LharcUUCP: processing <C.dinoA0jsq>
     LhA m dino D.petiB0jss X.petiA0jsr
     LhA V1.50r - Copyright (c) 1991,92 Stefan Boberg.
     Registered to Peter Simons

     Creating new archive 'dino.lha':
     Frozen: ( 43.7%)     553 =>    311 : D.petiB0jss
     Frozen: ( 14.0%)      71 =>     61 : X.petiA0jsr
     2 files moved, all files OK.

     Operation successful.

and your UUSpool: directory will contain three files, like these:

     Directory of UUCP:Spool
       ------rwed      118  06-Dez-93 00:21:43  C.dinoA0000
       ------rwed       47  06-Dez-93 00:21:43  D.dinoX0jsu
       ------rw-d      443  06-Dez-93 00:21:32  dino.lha
      6 Blocks, 608 Bytes used in 3 files

Attention: Please take note, that this is just an example from my machine! Of course, the filenames, dates and sizes will vary on your site!

Okay, what happened here? LharcUUCP tries to `cd' into the spool directory for the target system. It tries UUSpool:<systemname>/ first. If this fails, it looks for the same directory, but with the systemname truncated to 7 characters  (This was common with older versions of wUUCP.) and last but not least it just `cd's into UUSpool:.

Now LharcUUCP scans for queued command files (C.<sysname>*. If any files are found, LharcUUCP processes them and moves the result into an archive, named <systemname>.lha  (The archive postfix may vary on other platforms. *.lzh is pretty common, too.). Usually, this processing is done while uucico transfers the file. But now that uucico can't access the single files anymore, we have to do it before the transfer. Actually, `processing' means a simple renaming of the files.

Last but not least, LharcUUCP will create the command- and description files required by uucico.

Configuration
=============

You should call LharcUUCP regularly, maybe using a cron, for all systems that poll you, eg.

     00    19   *      *      *        uucp:c/lharcuucp peti dino badtaste

to make sure that as many jobs as possible are moved into the archive.

Furthermore, you can configure LharcUUCP's behavior by setting a local shell variable, a global enviroment variable or by adding the keyword to the main UUCP configfile (S:UUConfig or UULIB:Config). The following names are recognized:

NodeName

     This is the name of your UUCP site, eg. peti. Additionally, LharcUUCP will check for the global enviroment variable HOSTNAME to be set. If HOSTNAME is set, it has priority over the configfile.

RLharc

     Here you can specify the path of the command that is called to handle the incoming rlharc-packets. You're uuxqt will check for a DOS- and an environment variable of the same name, before using this entry. Default is a plain `RLharc', what should work in 99% of all cases.

MaxBatchSize      <not implemented yet>

     Here you can specify the maximum size one single batch can become. Since uucico's `g' protocol can't resume a packet after a carrier loss or something similar, too large batches will hurt your performance more than they'll add, in case of instable telephone lines. I'd recommend a size of ~500 kilobyte (what is the default). ISDN connections, for example, may set this entry to `0', disabling the batchsize limit.

BatchOnlyGrade
BatchOnlyGrade_<systemname>
     You may use this entry to select which jobs shall be batched by LharcUUCP. The parsed parameter is exactly one character, defining the grade. Then, LharcUUCP will only batch jobs with a grade character lower (based on ASCII order) or equal to the one specified.

     Newsbatches, for example, usually (should) have a grade of `N', thus specifying

          BatchOnlyGrade  M

     makes our LharcUUCP batch only jobs with grade characters ` ' to `M'. The grade character is the one following the, possibly abbreviated, system name in command files (e. g. in `C.dinoB0815' is `B' the grade)  (Refer to the uux man page for further information.). The default value is 'z'.

     While `BatchOnlyGrade' is global for any systems, you may specify a different grade for certain systems, appending the systemname to the keyword, for example:

          BatchOnlyGrade_badtaste A

     If the system-specific grade is invalid, the global entry is used.

LharcBatchGrade
     Here you can set the grade, LharcUUCP's job will have. It's recommend to choose at least the same grade as e-mail, so the LharcUUCP job will be transferred pretty early. This has the advantage, that most of the e-mail included in the LharcUUCP job will be processed while uucico is still on-line and things like return-receipts or mailing lists will go out immediately. Default is 'A'.

     ATTENTION: Never change the grade for LharcUUCP jobs while such a job is still queued or you'll get into trouble. Make sure, all jobs are delivered. Usually, the default works perfectly, so you should know what you're doing when you change this entry.

What uuxqt do I need?
*********************

Currently, I know at least two different uuxqts supporting the ``rlharc''-type: The uuxqt included in wUUCP 0.0.19 (or later versions) and the uuxqt from Dillon UUCP 1.17. You shouldn't have any problems when you're using these babies.

For certain reasons you may want to use your own uuxqt. So what do you have to change in your version to make it understand LharcUUCP-batches?

All you have to do, is to add the ``rlharc'' type in the internal list of recognized job-types. Usually, you'll find a block like this in any uuxqt:

     if (strnicmp(ccmd, "rmail", 5) == 0) {
             sprintf(cmd, "%s <%s %s", GetConfigProgram(RMAIL), dfile, ccmd_args);
     }
     else if (strnicmp(ccmd, "cunbatch", 5) == 0) {
             sprintf(cmd, "%s <%s %s", GetConfigProgram(CUNBATCH), dfile, ccmd_args);
     }
     else if (strnicmp(ccmd, "rnews", 5) == 0) {
             sprintf(cmd, "%s <%s", GetConfigProgram(RNEWS), dfile);
     }
     else if (strnicmp(ccmd, "frnews", 6) == 0) {
             sprintf(cmd, "%s <%s", GetConfigProgram(RNEWS), dfile);
     }
     else if (strnicmp(ccmd, "rfnews", 6) == 0) {
             sprintf(cmd, "%s <%s", GetConfigProgram(FRNEWS), dfile);
     }

Now just add the following lines

     else if (strnicmp(ccmd, "rlharc", 6) == 0) {
             sprintf(cmd, "%s %s", GetConfigProgram("RLharc"), dfile);
     }

and you're done! That's all!  (Please pay attention to the fact that rlharc gets the name of the file as parameter! It doesn't use standard input like most other programs, rmail or rnews for example. If you want rlharc to receive the archive-data via pipe/stdin, you'll have to change the rlharc script that unpacks the archive.)

More sophisticated uuxqts support a parameter file, where you can easily add the `rlharc' type without changing the code, but please refer to your documentation for more details.

If you want to change the program:
**********************************

First of all: You're welcome to add features to LharcUUCP, port it to other platforms and do whatever you consider useful, but you MUST redistribute the source, or at least the diffs, with the program or make it available for those who are interested.

Additionally, I'd be very happy to see a copy of your version, so I can add these features into the master revision tree.

I'd recommend the usage of RCS to keep the different versions under control, at least that's what I am doing.

The Amiga version of LharcUUCP should be pretty easy to port to another system like UNIX or MS-DOS, I hope someone does this actually.

What LharcUUCP needs to work:
*****************************

  - LharcUUCP requires at least Kickstart 2.04.

  - LharcUUCP requires less than 4k stack. If the shell's default stack is too small, it allocates it's own stack using StackSwap() under 2.04.

  - Of course, LharcUUCP is only useful when used together with an installed UUCP package. This UUCP package must use the file locking mechanism introduced in Dillon UUCP 1.15! File locking is very important for LharcUUCP or you'll get into serious trouble when uucico and LharcUUCP try to access the spooled jobs at the same time.

     Be careful, some uucico's use the OwnDevUnit.Library to lock their files. If you happen to own such a version, you'll need to author some scripts synchronizing the whole thing using LockSerial somehow.

  - LharcUUCP expects the Lha archiver to be found in your command path.

How to contact me:
******************

If you want to contact me (e-mail preferred), you may use the following addresses:

     SnailMail: Peter Simons         E-Mail: simons@peti.GUN.de (Usenet)
                Europaring 20
                53123 Bonn           Voice: +49 228 746061
                Germany

Additionally, there exists an LharcUUCP mailing lists for bug reports, questions, enhancement requests and discussion. You can post to the list by sending e-mail to <LharcUUCP@peti.GUN.de> and subscribe by sending e-mail to <listserv@peti.GUN.de>, featuring the following lines in the message body:

     ADD your_address LharcUUCP
     HELP

and a few hours later you'll be subscribed to the list. Please take note that you should always receive an answer from the daemon.

Acknowledgments:
****************

Thanks a lot to Frank Bergknecht and Stefan Thielscher for taking the risk of beta testing this program. :-)

Furthermore, I'd like to express my appreciation for Kai 'wusel' Siering, who added immediate support in his uuxqt, provided his wUUCP sources and spent a fair amount of time, answering my phone calls. :-)

Additionally, thanks a lot to Judith, one of the most beautiful girls I've ever known, for beeing such a kind person and for having so much understanding for my time-consuming hobby. (Although she'll never read this, I suppose.)

My final greetings for general support and beeing all-time good friends go to {Thomas|Walter} Mildenberger, Mark Constable, Mike Meyer, Michael B. Smith and Shaquille O'Neal.