Internet Info 1993

home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search

/ Internet Info 1993 / Internet Info CD-ROM (Walnut Creek) (1993).iso / answers / alt / amiga / AmigaUUCP-FAQ / part2 < prev next >

Wrap

Text File | 1994-03-30 | 40.2 KB | 993 lines

Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.uucp,alt.answers,news.answers Path: bloom-beacon.mit.edu!gatech!howland.reston.ans.net!pipex!sunic!EU.net!chsun!imp.ch!alphanet.ch!uucpfaq From: uucpfaq@alphanet.ch (UUCP Faq Handler) Subject: alt.sys.amiga.uucp Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ 2/2) - AmigaUUCP technical information Summary: AmigaUUCP installation, utilities and common problems. Message-ID: <CnDo8G.9FF@alphanet.ch> Sender: UUCP-Faq@alphanet.ch (UUCP-Faq handler) Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu Date: Mon, 28 Mar 1994 14:00:16 GMT Expires: Tue, 5 Apr 1994 08:00:00 GMT Reply-To: UUCP-Faq@alphanet.ch Comment: This is an automated monthly posting, part 2 of 2. Organization: ALPHANET NF, Colombier (NE) - Switzerland Followup-To: alt.sys.amiga.uucp Lines: 975 Xref: bloom-beacon.mit.edu alt.sys.amiga.uucp:4530 alt.answers:2262 news.answers:16986 Archive-name: amiga/AmigaUUCP-FAQ/part2 AMIGA-UUCP-FAQ version 2.B.14 [Posting 23] MONTHLY POSTING, last update Mar 21 12:52 This FAQ is posted monthly (28th of month) author: Marc SCHAEFER, <schaefer@alphanet.ch> Bugs, typos, ideas to <UUCP-Faq@alphanet.ch> (ch stands for Switzerland) NOTE: This is the second part of the FAQ. The first part contains more general information. This part contains technical problems and solutions to common AmigaUUCP problems, along with information on how to get UUCP distributions, patches, enhancements and third party utilities. You should however consider reading the first part first. CHANGES FROM ORIGINAL MATT DILLON'S FAQ ARE NOTED WITH A (*). To skip to a topic, search for the roman numeral surrounded by parenthesis. For example, (I). FAQ.1 (another post) (*) 0. Changes from last posting (*) I. Introduction to alt.sys.amiga.uucp[.patches] II. Introduction to AmigaUUCP (*) III. Principal utilities IV. Constructing mail addresses V. Using DCRON VI. US domain clarification FAQ.2 (this article) (*) VII. Common problems (new, please submit things to go in here). VIII. Using SENDMAIL directly. (*) IX. Other UUCP utilities. (*) X. How to get UUCP stuff ? (*) XI. BBS software supporting UUCP. (*) XII. Other UUCP implementations for AmigaOS. (*) XIII. Unresolved topics. (0) RECENT CHANGES TO THIS FILE (PART 2) Changes are listed below. Cosmetical, None. (VII) COMMON PROBLEMS 1. AS225 TCP/IP PACKAGE Apparently there is a line in the startup: inet:c/config >env:user -v user Which screws up DMail due to the \n appended to the ENV: variable (not supposed to be a newline). Fixed for 1.14. Work around is to use, under 2.0: setenv user `inet:c/config -v user` 2. Batch news, yes but how ? [Autobatch entry in UULIB:Config] if you add the config line (UULIB:CONFIG) "autobatch autobatch", news article will be compressed separately at each posting. You will end up with a lot of files in UUSPOOL:, decreasing throughoutput. However if you don't post a lot of articles, this can be interesting (you don't need to deal with DCRON or nasty uucico options.) If you only poll another site, it would perhaps be more efficient to use the pre-batching capability of uucico (uucico -b). This will batch all posted articles in one file (if possible) and then call the specified host. If you have downsites (if you feed other sites that calls you), you could also set up a "BatchNews" entry in S:Crontab (if you use DCRON) to pre-batch news before calling hours. Don't specify -b in UULIB:Passwd, because then the other uucico would have to wait (and possibly time-out) while online paying taxes. The only situation you want to add the "Autobatch autobatch" config line to UULIB:CONFIG is when you don't know a lot about DCRON, you don't post a lot of articles and you don't have sites that you feed. More information, see UUMAN:Batchnews, UUMAN:UUCICO, UUMAN:CONFIG. 3. RNews uses hardlinks. How to prevent it ? Under the 2.0 operating system, RNews uses hardlinks to prevent cross-posted article to use n times the space on the harddisk. However, some utilities do not like very well hardlinks. It is then possible to disable hardlinks with the following change to UULIB:Config: RNEWS UUCP:C/RNEWS -h WARNING! Hardlinks to directories are buggy with ALL releases of the Operating System (V37-V39). Harlinks to files are also buggy under OFS and DCFS. Hardlinks should be turned off if not under FFS as shown above. 4. The UULIB:SEQ field. The UULIB:SEQ fields is used to assign unique id's to files in the spool directory and to messages/articles sent out. Note that some news and mail systems (not AmigaUUCP) uses the ID's to prevent newsloops/mailloops. If you clear (or restore from a backup) the UULIB:SEQ, you should set it to a high value (or more than the last number it was) so your message are not getting filtered. 5. UUencode problems. If you edit a mail and insert an uuencoded file, you may have problems if the editor changes spaces to tabs. With DME, you simply set this option to off ("savetabs off"). If you don't the file won't uu-decodable. By the way the syntax for uuencode, if you want to uuencode file "test.lha" is something like uuencode <test.lha >test.lha.uu test.lha The "test.lha.uu" file is the one to insert in your mail/news. Some NEWS utilities allow automatic posting of binaries (GRN). 6. UUCICO G protocol. UUCico 1.16a and 1.15c implement also a "G" protocol besides the normal "g" protocol: If you poll one of these UNIX sites which support the 'G' protocol you have to force your own uucico to first try to use 'G' instead of 'g' when asking for the supported protocolls at connection startup. To do this, poll with $ uupoll ... "-u -pG" ... or $ uucico ... -pG ... Note that I couldn't test this. There are a LOT more infos in the UUCP.internal FAQ, especially about other UUCP protocols. 7. Trimnews New trimnews have been implemented, last is version 04, which supports new OS2.04 ExAll() calls which diminush the risk of a partition being trashed when deleting articles. It also offers trimming by hours rather than day and ALL trimming. It can be found on FTP/BMS/UUCP/FSP sites. 8. Multiple UUCICOs A lot of changes have been made on native UUCICO, and most of them in an uncontrolled way. When you specify a UUCICO version, you should also give the size of the file. The latest UUCICO is something like 65504 bytes long (1.16.23.sd.3) (uucico_sd3.lha) 9. Problems with newsloops due to Path-naming. Suppose your newssite is called "foo". However, for an unknown reason, for example adminstration, it puts on the "Path" something like "foo.bar" or "bar" or "bar.edu". You will then have looping problems. The solution is to add the following entry to your sys file, replacing foo:* by foo:foo.bar:bar:bar.edu:* 10. Augmenting throughoutput. The UUCP protocol, because it is a "send-ack-send" protocol, which needs an acknowledge of each packets before resuming sending, may be very slow. The following are some ideas to augment throughoutput. a) Try to augment the window size. The window size is the amount of packets that may have been sent without being ack'ed in return. The bigger the better. Usually, 7 is OK. You set it via the -n uucico parameter (e.g. -n7). However some implementations of your feed's UUCP software will not allow above 3 (e.g. SYSV Basic Networking Utilities). b) Try to augment the packet size. It is how much data are being sent in one packet. This is done via the -P uucico keyword. For example -P5 selects 512 bytes packets. c) Try to batch news in bigger packets. Avoid the "autobatch autobatch" configuration line in UULIB:CONFIG. Only batch once just before the outgoing call (for example use the -b switch for uucico). d) Try to batch mail. Ask your feed if he can use BSMTP on both sides. This will diminush the number of small files to transmit. e) In some case SUPPRESSING any error correction *AND* data compression protocol may decrease response time and increase throughoutput. Measures have been done concluding that it should be tested if your feed cannot do more than 3 windows and 64-bytes packets. If you do not send a lot of small files and can use 7-window packets with big size, usually disabling data compression and error correction may not be needed nor useful. In general, you should TRY and figure out if anything helps. There is no universal solution to such problems. 11. Don't use tabs inside configuration files A lot of problems have been reported with using TABs in your configuration files. For example, the BSMTP package written in Arexx does not accept any TABs in UULIB:Config. Also it has been reported that Batchnews will not understand a TAB in UULIB:L.Sys between the name of the node and "Any". This will result in no batching for the specified site. Beware that some editors will compress spaces into tabs. To force saving TAB to spaces use "savetabs on" in DME. 12. Using the mail/newssystem with "detaching" editors. Most of AmigaUUCP software when calling external editors relies on the fact that the editor will only return control when the user has either cancelled (ie not changed the original edit file), or created a message (ie changed the oroginal edit file). DNEWS, GRn, DMAIL, and other software detect the cancel/ok condition from the length/modification date of the file. If it was not modified, then nothing is to be sent. Of course if the editor detaches itself it will prevent this mechanism from correctly working. The only solution is to force the editor not to return immediately. For example, with CED (CygnusEditor, commercial), you have to add Editor "CED -keepio" to your config file. 13. Miscellaneous Q&A. Q: All news are stored in the JUNK newsdirectory A: Edit the UULIB:Newsgroups file, there must be a line with the newsgroup name (in . notation), a space/tab and the expiration delay Q: My news partition is growing, nothing seems to be deleted A: You have to either use cron to automatically run trimnews at specified times, or run trimnnews by hand. trimnews -all will delete all news. You should redirect the output to NIL: if you use it interactively (it will execute faster). Don't forget to use ONLY the latest version of trimnews. Some of them did awful things. Remember that a newspartition must be on a FFS disk. Using DCFS or other filesystems may create problemes due to bugs in the OS. Q: My machine name is 'testa', but the world knows me as 'test.com' A: Add the following to UULIB:Domain: 'test.com MD UU testa', and add Reply-To: to your messages (or use testa.test.com) Q: I have two news feeds from which I get same newsgroups (eg. for backup in case of lost news), however, I'm making dupes and sending the news from one feed to the other. A: If your feeds are sitea and siteb, update your UULIB:Sys config to: sitea:siteb:comp.sys.amiga.* siteb:sitea:comp.sys.amiga.* Q: I keep getting 'Received x expected y' messages while uucico'ing. A: Use hardware flow control, minimize other tasks running, augment uucico priority or buy a faster Amiga. These messages mean the two uucico speaking to each other are out of sync. This is not fatal, and will be recovered automatically by the protocol. (VIII) USING SENDMAIL DIRECTLY In many cases you will want to have scripts run from dcron to send automated postings, mailings, or do other automated tasks such as backups. Usually bookeeping is made a lot easier if you have these script files send you local mail containing the results of their actions (such as log files or a success/failure message). The easiest way to send a message to yourself from a script is to use the sendmail program. Please refer to the manual page for more information. Essentially there are two ways to do this depending on the type of message you want to send: If you wish to send a simple message to yourself and include some sort of generated log file which is not formatted mail (i.e. has no headers), you can specify various headers through options to sendmail and also include the -raw option. sendmail -raw -f cron -t dillon -s "backups completed" <t:logfile On the otherhand, if you have some sort of monthly posting, such as this FAQ sheet, and want to send it automatically, and the file IS formatted mail (has normal mail headers such as 'From:' and 'To:' and 'Subject:') you can use the following: sendmail <mail_file Since the headers are in the file, no other command line options are necessary, though you can effectively ADD additional recipients through appropriate command line options. (IX) OTHER UUCP UTILITIES. 1. Other crons. There are to my knowledge 3 crons available: DCRON AmiCron (fish disk) CyberCron (later fish disk) This one is 2.0 only and has special features like "at" command, and resembles a lot the UNIX cron. TPTCron from the DLG Pro package (however has been released for public use) 2. Logging in remotely. Since 1.15, the following method can be used to log in remotely. It is very stable and allows for custom AmigaShell scripts. You NEED LIBS:fifo.library & L:fifo-handler (latest version if possible, some versions do not work with Getty. It is available, with source, on overload.Berkeley.CA.US as BMS:PUB/fifo37.4). I use version 37.3, length 4260, and fifo-handler length 7432. Note that it is possible that more than one version 37.3 exists, that's why I added the length). Note that fifo-handler, although it is a DOS handler, *cannot* be mounted. You have to RUN it. Eg in your S:user-startup (or S:Startup-Sequence under 1.3) you have to add RUN <NIL: >NIL: L:Fifo-Handler Now you have two possibilities: a) You want an user with full shell access. Set up the following line in your UULIB:Passwd file: sysop,sysop_password,1,1,(Sysop Shell Login),RAM:,* Drawback: The Ctrl-C and Ctrl-D signals are not passed. By the way, More does not work (FIFO: does not support DISK_INFO Console packet used by More to retrieve window information). However most commands do work. Requesters will be disabled automagically by getty. b) You want to launch a script. Note that Getty will not pass Ctrl-C and Ctrl-D, as in a). In this case this is an advantage. Set up the following line in UULIB:Passwd guest,*,2,2,(Guest login),RAM:,*Guest-Startup This is a guest login without password. In S:Guest-Startup you may have the following lines. It won't be stoppable and if it fails there won't be any requesters, and the script won't return to a shell. Echo "Welcome on as a guest" Type MY_DATA:Information EndCLI You may well also create a complete menu system with options. Note that the old method using a Newshell AUX: cannot be used anymore due to Getty new method of locking the serial port. If you do you will get errors. See also "AuxSupport", and AXSH. 3. AXSH AXsh is a multiuser shell with built-in protections. It can be used with UUCP. Users may then send/receive mail & news. Current version is 1.30 (works under 1.3 with arp.library, under 2.0, or under WB 2.1 for localization. It is shareware (US $30), mail to albert@cs.tut.fi for more information. See included information how to install it with UUCP, and the BBS section below. A full-working demo version is available from aminet: util/shell/ and from nic.funet.fi:/pub/amiga/shells/AXsh/. 4. Archiving newsgroups. Archiving newsgroups can be automatically done with the following steps: a) Edit S:CronTab and add the following lines. This will launch a script at 00:30 each day. 30 00 * * * UUArchive-Newsgroups b) Edit UULIB:Sys and add # dummy node(s) for archiving news, will never be batched since not in L.Sys uuarchive:alt.sys.amiga.alphanet,alphanet.* c) Create S:UUArchive-Newsgroups. Note you need an TRASH: assign to some temporary directory. We use LHA as an archiver. We could also first join the article and then LHA them (it would be more efficient). --- cut here --- Echo "UUArchive-Newsgroups(4)" ; What follows to prevent forgetting articles. ; Convert "." format to "/" format (1.16D) ; Does not prevent from being launched twice, however. CD UUNEWS: ; ALPHANET newsgroups IF EXISTS UUSPOOL:BATCH/UUArchive Delete TRASH:#?UUArchive Rename UUSPOOL:BATCH/UUArchive TRASH:_UUArchive ; Needed for batchnews multitasking. ConvertNewsgroup TRASH:_UUArchive TRASH:UUArchive LhA -iTRASH:UUArchive a ARCHIVES:Newsgroups/ALPHANET_NEWSGROUPS EndIF --- cut here --- d) Create S:ConvertNewsgroup which converts "." syntax to "/" syntax as used in UUCP V1.16d and above. Note we use SED (Stream Editor). It can be found on fish disks. Probably the use of the Amiga stream editor "edit" would be possible. --- cut here --- .key source,dest .bra { .ket } Sed < {source} > {dest} -fS:Sed-Newsgroup-Script --- cut here e) Create S:Sed-Newsgroup-Script, which is the SED macro itself --- cut here --- y%.%/% --- cut here --- 5a. MAIL to NEWS Gateway. It is very easy to set up a (working but ugly) Mail to News gateway. For example you want all mail to user "alphanet-general" to be posted automatically on alphanet.general. Simply add the following lines to your UULIB:aliases file : alphanet-general: "|postnews -R UULIB:alphanet-general-refs" Also create the "UULIB:alphanet-general-refs file on the following skeleton: Newsgroups: alphanet.general Distribution: alphanet Sender: alphanet-general@alphanet.ch (Mail to News gateway) This will work easily, but is not always of a pretty sight. 5b. NEWS to MAIL Gateway CNEWS users may want to use newsgate/mailgate, posted to .patches some time ago (available at litamiga /pub/amiga/uucp, or at alphanet). Contact the author, wusel@hactar.hanse.de, if you have problems locating a copy. AmigaUUCP 1.16D users should find Newsgate.lha on litamiga.epfl.ch /pub/amiga/uucp directory, or contact its author postmaster@megalith.miami.fl.us. 6. Mail Vacation programs. A mail vacation program is a program that replies automatically to received mail while you are absent. I know of two versions that are available at litamiga, and were posted a while ago on a.s.a.u.patches. Look for MailVacation.lha & vacation.lha. A new vacation program "mwm_vacation.lha", done by Mike Meyer, is also available (just posted on .patches with the "vacation.lha" name) Authors: MailReflect.Rexx, CB@brewhq.swb.de (Christian Balzer) ARexx.Reflector, fgent@gentle.nbg.sub.org (Friedrich Gentner) vacation.rexx, heiner@amross.cpr.sub.org (Heiner Kordewiner) 7. UUPoll UUPoll is a polling server. It supports the following features: - controls the execution of a UUCICO child as the parent part - checks for correct hostname and polling-time violation - controls abortion of UUCICO due to a precalculated restriction time - operates dependendly on status of last session - operates dependendly on (specific) pending work - controls dialup retries due to busy line or other UUCICO failures - controls abortions due to user interupts - can be disabled through a job control feature for crontab interventions - can abort a startup due to or break an already running UUCICO process - can give information about polling times and host status - can setup your modem before start of a polling session - can spawn UUCICO with additional options - can spawn own user command after a (successful) session - full UUCP logfile support similar to UUCICO - can run under full runtime debugging with variable debug level Author: UUPoll R0.68, rse@angle.sub.org (Ralf S. Engelschall) 8. UUTraf UUTraf sums up all xferstat entries of your UUCICO connections and calculates a statistic chart. It can also pack the original log entries into a shorter form which will be also understand by UUTRAF when scanning the xferstat. Basically resembles the UNIX version, but gives more information. Requires UUCICO Release 1.13n, 1.15c or 1.16a. Author: UUTraf R0.15, rse@angle.sub.org (Ralf S. Engelschall) 9. UUAcct UUAcct resembles UUTraf, but gives more accounting-related information (such as last call from node x) Author: UUACCT 1.3, wusel@hactar.hanse.de (Kai 'wusel' Siering) 10. Elm Elm is a more user friendly mailreader, based on its unix equivalent. Last version is 1.19. Shareware $US10. Supports MIME. Author: ELM 1.15beta, amk@zikzak.in-berlin.de (Andreas M. Krichwitz) 11. GRN GRN is a fully intutionized Newsreader. Works well on flicker-free systems. 2.0 only. By Mike Schwartz, latest releases by Michael B. Smith. It supports NNTP also, on top of Commodore's AS225, or by itself. 12. BMS BMS stands for Batch Mail Server. It allows to either request files from another node which has BMS installed, or to create a BMS node which will process file requests from other nodes. By Matt Dillon. 13. BSMTP (Batch Simple Mail Transfer Protocol) Normal mail pieces ready for sending via UUCP are stored each in 3 files. One local control file, and two data files (mail is not batched) Moreover, mail is not compressed. If you send a lot of mail, the overhead and the fact mail is not compressed may slow down your connection. You may then choose to go for BSMTP. BSMTP is an additionnal layer on the UUCP system. You continue writing independant files in the UUSPOOL: directory. At a specified (DCRON) time, you run the BSMTP batcher for a specified site, and this will create one batched and compressed file to send to the specified site. Batched means that data all is in one single file. NOTE: The other site MUST have set up his BSMTP system correctly. Ask also for the type of compression (compress-14, compress-16, freeze, none). Best is freeze. To my knowledge there are two packages available (litamiga or Aminet): - A set of ARexx script + modified UUXQT - C executables. - SmailAmiga Authors: BSMTP 0.14 rse@angle.sub.org (Ralf S. Engelschall) BSMTP-ARexx: georg@bluemoon.GUN.de (Georg Sassen) SmailAmiga, see the SmailAmiga subsection. 14. AVM AVM's last version is 1.3.2 and is available on ftp.eunet.ch Author: gstark@misvax.mis.arizona.edu (Gavin Stark). 15. UUXQT L:Commands A special version of the UUXQT executable is available. It allows the launching of more commands than the usual UUXQT. Launchable commands are configurable. This can be used for special needs (BSMTP, ...). Couldn't find the author name. 16. MIME [Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions] Mime is at this time a mail standard. Amiga packages include "metamail-2.3" available by ftp on ftp.eunet.ch mirrors. It is an extension to standard mail message, allowing to pass enhanced text, graphics, audio, and more, in a standardized and interoperable manner. It's far more than just ASCII text. The only News system that is supposed to include something similar is the NeXT NewsGrazer which uses RTF (rich text format). GRn and GMail will probably support MIME in some future releases. The metamail-2.4 port for the Amiga (by Johan Widin) requires a suite of other programs as well (as most Amiga MIME implementation will) to convert the text and graphics formats to things that can be displayed on the Amiga (GIF, TIFF, TeX, etc.) 17. XStat XStat is a traffic analyser for UUCP connections. It allows not only reporting usual figures, but also may be used to calculate real phone costs based on user-settable rates. It needs at least AmigaOS 2.04. Available on Fish 714 (with Modula-2 source). A newer version was distributed in December 1993 (1.14) Author: Juergen Weinelt, jow@rz.uni-wuerzburg.de 18. AuxSupport In order to log in remotely, you may also use the AuxSupport.lzh package (posted a while back) which uses a special aux handler which will work with getty. It also does pass control C,D etc... and includes emacs that works over aux, and AZ (an XPRZmodem util) that allows interactive zmodem transfers while logged in. With this method you do not need fifolibrary nor fifo-handler. Drawback: the sd-aux-handler currently does not work with multi serial line cards, and the newshell command must be done via script that also invokes a wait process to prevent getty from getting back on port until shell exits (examples supplied in archive). Author: Steve Drew, drew@cgou11.enet.dec.com 19. Remote-WShell Could allow you to use WShell remotely. Seems to be based on AuxSupport. Incorporates TNews to read news. I have not registered to WShell so I couldn't test it. 20. ANN Newsreader. Very configurable. Similar to Unix's nn. Author: Walther Mildenberger (wasp@chumly.ka.sub.org) 21. TIN TIN is a threaded (meaning it groups articles by Subject: and References:) and interactive (meaning you move a cursor to the group/article you want to read and type return) newsreader ported from its UNIX version. There is also a special BBS version (e.g. for DLG or similar Bulletin Board Systems). It is distributed with full source code. Latest version, directly compilable on Amiga (SAS/C) is 1.20 PL0. Author: Iain Lea <iain.lea@erlm.siemens.de>, ported to AmigaOS by Mark Tomlinson <mark@garden.equinox.gen.nz>. 22. WPL WPL is a telecomunications interpreted language, in many ways similar to AREXX. It is a grouping of shared libraries, with the main libraries being 'wpl.library' for the main interpreter, 'xferq.library' for address parsing/handling and the outbound list, xpr*.library(xprfts.library, xprzedzap.library,etc) for actual file transfers, and a number of new libraries 'yet to be written' that will allow third party authors to add commands to this language (In much the same way as RXLib'd libraries work for AREXX, only much faster). For more information, join the following mailing lists. wpl-programmer@alfred.ccs.carleton.ca - For the WPL language developers, people writing support utilities or language extensions, protocol authors, language beta testers. wpl-application@alfred.ccs.carleton.ca - For the users of WPL based mailers, the GUI users, etc. This conference will remain as non-technical as we possibly can, and is the place where WPL programmers can support their software. 23. AmigaMail AM (AmigaMail) is a completely Intuition controlled mail user agent for use with AmigaUUCP and AmigaUUCP+. It runs only on OS 2.04 and above, and its goal is to provide a consistent user interface for mails. Note that it is still beta, latest version is AM V1.19beta, installation needs good comprehension of UUCP internals. Author: Christian Riede <chr@senga.ka.sub.org> 24. UUFS UUFS is a file-mailserver. However it seems it has some security leaks. Author: Andrew Koppa & others 25. mpack/munpack mpack is a program for encoding binary files and sending them through the mail and news. The messages it creates follow the MIME (see the MIME section in this FAQ for more information) format outlined in RFCs 1521 and 1522. Being of more recent design, it has several technical advantages over messages containing uuencoded files. It was designed to send binaries through mail and news, and it is easier to use than raw uuencode for posting. munpack is the unpacker that goes with mpack. It has many of the same advantages over uudecode that mpack has over uuencode. The one drawback is that you cannot save all the parts of an mpack posting in one file to be fed to munpack. munpack must be able to distinguish the separate messages from each other in some way. The obvious advantages - not having to save the messages at all, not having to worry about what order you process them in, and being able to process parts from two postings in intermixed order - outweigh this disadvantage. Exactly how you unpack an mpack archive depends on your news reader. The hard - but always possible - way is to save the each part of an mpack message as a separate file and run munpack with those files as arguments. As stated above, you must put each part in a separate file, but order doesn't matter. You can save multiple multipart postings in a directory, cd to that directory and issue the command "munpack `list lformat %p%n`". If your newsreader supports MIME format messages, it may decode and unpack mpacked files without any action on your part, or it may require you to issue a command to process each part as a MIME message. If it does not support MIME format messages, the easiest way to unpack mpacked files is to arrange to run munpack on each message from inside your newsreader. Details of how this is done depend on your newsreader. The central release mechanism for mpack and munpack is FTP from export.acs.cmu.edu, in the directory pub/mpack. This directory has MS-DOS, Mac and Amiga binaries, as well as sources for those and the Unix version. Amiga-specific distributions are also available via BMS from various sites, including contessa.phone.net and adastra.cvl.va.us. If none of those work, the maintainer of the Amiga version can be contacted via email to mwm@contessa.phone.net, and will send you a uuencoded version of munpack. 26. SmailAmiga (V2.5) This is a port from aussem@mavhh.hanse.de of the popular SMAIL UNIX mailer, including BSMTP. It is a full replacement for the original sendmail, mainly useful for gateway-site Amigas. It is available on Aminet. (X) HOW TO GET UUCP STUFF. 1. UUCP Patches FTP sites. The litamiga.epfl.ch:/pub/amiga/uucp directory is expected to contain all stuff posted in alt.sys.amiga.uucp.patches. Please allow some delay from the time things are posted on alt.sys.amiga.uucp.patches to the time they are available on litamiga. [128.178.151.32] The litamiga FSP daemon is on disun3.epfl.ch at port 9999. There is also an IRC client called ALPHABot. **NOTE** litamiga.epfl.ch is available from 1800 to 0900 GMT+2 Aminet: The ftp.eunet.ch mirrors (of which litamiga is) also have most of UUCP stuff. (/pub/aminet/comm/uucp) 2. Public UUCP sites. Site name: alphanet.ch Login: nuucp (changed) Phone number: +41 38 41 40 81 (changed) Country: Switzerland Modem norms: up to V32bis MNP/V42bis Calling hours: 24 hour a day. However access is only assured from 16h-22h00 CED (GMT+2) Contents-file: ~/README ~/ls-laR.gz Notes: alphanet.ch is a UNIX system (satcom.alphanet.ch), and archives alt.sys.amiga.uucp.patches. It also has some aminet files. It is scheduled that in February it will start mirroring Aminet again. Date of entry: Sat, 28 August 1993 11:00:04 CED Site name: hactar.hanse.de Login: nuucp Password: nuucp Phone number: +49 40 550 35 49 Country: West Germany Modem norms: up to V32bis MNP/V42bis Calling hours: 21:00-10:00 UTC Contents-file: UUPUB:Contents(.Z|.F|.lha) Notes: Get `~/$readme.1st` the first time you call. Running BMS and a mailserver, mailserv@hactar.hanse.de Date of entry: Mon, 14 Sep 1992 23:51:39 +0200 3. BMS sites Generally the file to get is BMS:PUB/FILES. Site address: overload.Berkeley.CA.US Restrictions: None known. Notes: UUCP sources and binaries Site address: hactar.hanse.de Restrictions: None (yet). But make SURE you ARE reachable before getting large files !! Notes: UUCP sources and binaries. AmigaUUCP Plus. Refer to BMS:pub/Files Site address: anaconda.bloomington.in.us Restrictions: None Notes: Most files were lost in a disk crash. Some will be restored. Probably only the UUCP system will remain downloadable. BBS is +1 812 332 7379 (V32bis/V42bis) (Fido also) Site address: brunz.Santa-Cruz.CA.US Restrictions: None known. Notes: None Site address: haadav.boston.ma.us Restrictions: None known. Notes: 2400 baud connection. Please limit your requests. Site address: moose.cs.indiana.edu!dolmen Restrictions: None known. Notes: None Site address: uunet.uu.net!decvax!ftlcpu Restrictions: None known. Notes: UUCP Patches. Site address: seq.uncwil.edu!marin Restrictions: None known. Notes: Contains UUCP sources and binaries for AmigaOS, MacOS, and MS-DOS. Site address: dacami.cmhnet.org Restrictions: None known. Notes: ??? Site address: alphanet.ch ###### NOT AVAILABLE NOW ###### Restrictions: Currently BMS requests are processed by an amiga computer which is not always running. alphanet.ch itself is a UNIX box, which forwards mails to the BMS server. Due to space limitations on amiga1.alphanet.ch, files are being moved to the UNIX box. Replacement include nuucp directly to the UNIX box, which has all alt.sys.amiga.uucp.patches files and some aminet files. Notes: Files to get are UUPUB:CONTENTS.LHA and UUPUB:TREE.LHA. Manager is BMSMgr@alphanet.ch Site address: mirkwood.cam.org Restrictions: None known. Notes: BETTY server. (see paragraph 4) Site address: peti.GUN.de Restrictions: none Notes: Holds the latest versions of all programs Peter Simons is responsible for (eg AGetty, PMAIL, PGP, UUCP library project) System administrator is Peter Simons <simons@peti.GUN.de> 4. BETTY Betty is an automatic "archie"-like system for BMS servers. It maintains a list of known BMS sites and their files. You can even request a server's list or find a program on a server via this method. Betty maintains a database that lists all the files available on some BMS sites. To consult the Betty database, you send a mail message to the server describing what you are looking for. The server will reply your message with the results of the query. Here is an example: To: betty@mirkwood.cam.org Subject: prog commodity quit And the reply would contain: From: nobody@mirkwood.cam.org To: hebrais@mirkwood.cam.org Subject: Betty [ ... ] Matches on deepthot.cary.nc.us: File:DOS2.0/ FBLANK.LZH 26509 28-Sep-91 01:52:44 : SCN BLNK USING FRACTALS - COMMODITY Matches on mirkwood.cam.org: PUB:utilities/system/workbench/ KCommodity.lha 218914 14-Jun-92 11:17:58 [ ... ] Betty understands a number of commands. To get the HELP file, send a mail message to "betty@mirkwood.cam.org" with the word "help" in the subject line. You may contact the maintainer of Betty at "betty-request@mirkwood.cam.org". 5. FSP sites Try disun3.epfl.ch at port 9999, in subdirectory uucp. 6. Mailservers for getting the UUCP FAQ (this FAQ) mail to fileserver@caron.ati.com request format xsend auucp_faq.txt bms to caron.ati.com request files:auucp_faq.txt (XI) BBS SOFTWARE SUPPORTING UUCP Most BBS software support FIDONET, most do not support UUCP directly. That means that often they need to import news and mail, thus using precious diskspace. Moreover they often do not translate news format correctly, or have problems with mails. If the BBS does only support FIDONET, a special package called UNETGATE (or something similar) can be used to translate news & mail into FIDONET echomail & netmail. Or when it is possible to run external programs ('Doors'), one can use Tin for reading news. 1. DLG State: COMMERCIAL Contact: *no idea* UUCP: News and mail are being imported to DLG internal mail and news format, which is more a FIDONET derivate. This means that users have to see ugly newsheaders, and some of the features of the newssystem are lost. After an import, it's a good idea to do a trimnews -all to remove dupes. News are expired not on a time basis but rather on an amount per area basis. However when posting an article, the underlying UUCP system is used to post directly mail & news. Doors: There is a special version of TIN (dlgtin.lha) usable as a 'Door' 2. AXsh 1.3 State: Shareware, with a full-working demo version available on Aminet and nic.funet.fi. Registration is US$30 Contact: Pasi 'Albert' Ojala <albert@cs.tut.fi> UUCP: AXsh is infact "simply" a shell. Custom scripts and commands may be installed by the operator. The standard version includes a readnews program which reads UUCP and CNews news directly. So you need UUCP or CNEWS as the transport layer for mail and news if you don't talk with another AXsh BBS (if yes, transport is assured by zmodem and lha). It uses a special AUX handler which passes signals (C-D-E-F) and allows XPR filetransfers. An interesting utility is the FFE program which allows to browse through directories and select the file(s) you want to download. AXSH can be used with any serial device driver or unit number, and shared mode is available, along with handshake settings, speed an carrier detection. Examples and tested settings are included. Doors: Almost full CLI/Shell support. 3. 4D-BBS V2.x+ State: Shareware, with a full-working demo version available on Aminet and many BBS/Commercial services. Registration is US $49.95 with educational and competetive upgrades available. Contact: Dale E. Reed Jr. <daler@crnstn.spk.wa.us> UUCP: 4D-BBS directly reads and writes native news message store formats, so no importing/exporting is needed. It presents this is the SAME format as mail and other network messages offering the user the same frontend, no matter which network the message is from/to. The AmigaUUCP package is needed in order to support news/mail over UUCP. 4D-BBS uses sendmail and postnews to actually write the messages out to the network, allowing a seamlesses integration. News is setup on either a time expire or on an amount limit configurable by the SysOp. Doors: In the works in a full featured news and mail reading door, along with a qwk packer/reader which allows both mail and news to be read and replied to off-line. (XII) OTHER UUCP IMPLEMENTATIONS FOR AMIGAOS. This sections lists known UUCP implementations for AmigaOS: 1. AmigaUUCP, by Matt Dillon and others. 2. AmigaUUCP+, originally written by Ingo Feulner, loosely based on AmigaUUCP V1.06 and CNEWS. Its news-system can handle an active file, control messages and dupes. However, Ingo has moved to NeXT, so he abandoned this project. Its last version was 1.02. This project has been taken over by Kai 'wusel' Siering <wusel@hactar.hanse.de>, using the CNews port of Frank 'Crash' Edwards (instead of the older one used as the base for AmigaUUCP+), this version is called 'wCNews'. Along with modified uucico-stuff (subdirectory support) it has been posted to .patches in mid-february 1993. (No, that's NOT true :-; ) There is also a rewrite of the uucico by Andrew Kopp (charly@brewak.swb.de). Henning Schmiedehausen do plan a new release of the AmigaUUCP+ for '92, but this is not absolutely certain. AmigaUUCP+ is available via ftp from ftp.uni-erlangen.de (131.188.1.43) along with the sources and binaries of AmigaUUCP 1.16. A bug fixed version of the AmigaUUCP+ sendmail (sendmail1.02i21) also exists. (XIII) UNRESOLVED TOPICS. - Fido <-> UUCP gateway software - More BBS software. EOF = END OF FAQ :-)