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Path: cs.tu-berlin.de!mailgzrz.TU-Berlin.DE!news.netmbx.de!Germany.EU.net!mcsun!chsun!impch!alphanet!UUCP-Faq From: UUCP-Faq@alphanet.alphanet.ch (Marc SCHAEFER (Monthly posting)) Newsgroups: alt.sys.amiga.uucp,news.answers Subject: alt.sys.amiga.uucp Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) - Newcomers please read - Sender: UUCP-Faq@alphanet.ch (UUCP-Faq handler) Reply-To: UUCP-Faq@alphanet.ch Followup-To: alt.sys.amiga.uucp Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu Comment: This is an automated monthly posting Expires: 30-Mar-93 21:00:00 GMT+1 Summary: AmigaUUCP installation, utilities and common problems. Distribution: world Message-ID: <UUCP-Faq.0kmq@alphanet.alphanet.ch> Date: 28 Feb 93 21:00:07 GMT+1 Organization: ALPHANET Network First - Colombier (NE), Switzerland Lines: 1307 Xref: cs.tu-berlin.de alt.sys.amiga.uucp:4642 news.answers:6208 Archive-name: amiga/AmigaUUCP-FAQ AMIGA-UUCP-FAQ Version 1.8 [Posting 8] MONTHLY POSTING, last update 14 February 1993 This FAQ is posted monthly (30th of month at 21:00 GMT+1) author: Marc SCHAEFER, <sysop@alphanet.ch> Bugs, typos, ideas to <UUCP-Faq@alphanet.ch> ("ch" stands for Switzerland) NOTE: Since this FAQ is getting bigger and bigger, I'm thinking splitting it or removing some parts from it. Especially Kai proposed to split it into two parts, one informative one on AUUCP history, and one being the real FAQ. Any more suggestions ? NOTE: The primary goal for this FAQ is to prevent questions from looping over and over. If you have new and interesting material, post it to alt.sys.amiga.uucp with "Addition to FAQ" somewhere in the subject. I will add it for the next "release". You may also send any ideas, changes, flames, typos to the address UUCP-Faq@alphanet.ch. They will be incorporated in the next release with your name in the CHANGES section as a reward :-) NOTE TO UUCP-BEGINNERS: Please take some of your time and READ the UUCP documentation. Most of the questions posted on a.s.a.u are related to manual pages. This FAQ contains also some information on common problems and utilities. Don't forget to get the FAQS from news.announce.newusers. You may also read UUMAN:Standards (for UUCP internals) and UUMAN:how2usenet. 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). (*) 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 (*) 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. Other UUCP implementations for AmigaOS. (*) XII. Unresolved topics. (0) RECENT CHANGES TO THIS FILE Changes since 30-Jan-93 are listed below [Last posting was posting 7] Other UUCP utilities (IX) - AXSH supports UUCP Mail & News - More XStat comments [Juergen Weinelt, jow@sun.rz.uni-wuerzburg.de] - last uucico version is sd2. - Problems with hardlink: Commodore's statement taken into account. [Stefan Seggers, seggers@semzam.dinoco.de] - AXSH version updated [Kai 'wusel' Siering, wusel@hactar.hanse.de] - Mail to news gateway for DUUCP [Kai 'wusel' Siering, wusel@hactar.hanse.de] - Elm 1.19 [Kai 'wusel' Siering, wusel@hactar.hanse.de] How to get UUCP stuff (X) - alphanet.ch no longer BMS site - caron mailserver for FAQ - litamiga's FSP available - Two versions of the litamiga's ftp text, one was wrong. Other UUCP implementation for AmigaOS (XI) - wCNews [Kai 'wusel' Siering, wusel@hactar.hanse.de] (I) INTRODUCTION TO ALT.SYS.AMIGA.UUCP[.PATCHES] (1) Configuration ALT.SYS.AMIGA.UUCP and ALT.SYS.AMIGA.UUCP.PATCHES are two newsgroups dedicated to the UUCP system for the Amiga microcomputer, AmigaUUCP. Both news groups are gatewayed to two mailing lists containing additional recipients who would otherwise not have access to the ALT groups. That is, posting to an alt group will automatically relay to the appropriate mailing list, and mailing to the mailing will automatically relay to the alt group. If you do not have ALT group access and are not on the mailing list, and would like to be on the mailing list, send your request to: amiga-uucp-request@uunet.uu.net and/or amiga-uucp-patches-request@uunet.uu.net To get off the mailing list, you can send your request to either address. I manually read this alias. Note that you must provide a proper return address as part of your signature if you are a UUCP node so I can properly format your return address. If you are on the internet (i.e. have a fully domained address), it isn't a problem. TO POST ARTICLES VIA THE MAILING LIST, send email containing your posting to either of the following two addresses: amiga-uucp@uunet.uu.net amiga-uucp-patches@uunet.uu.net Sending email to either address causes it to be automatically posted to the alt.sys.amiga.uucp[.patches] newsgroup. You do not have to be on the mailing list to be able to post via the list. (2) Usage Of The purpose of alt.sys.amiga.uucp is to convey the bulk of any discussion relating to AmigaUUCP. Discussion, bug reports, questions, etc... The purpose of alt.sys.amiga.uucp.patches is for the posting of any source code, scripts, or binaries relating to AmigaUUCP. Full distributions will NEVER be sent over alt.sys.amiga.uucp.patches. Anybody may post to alt.sys.amiga.uucp.patches and, in fact, it is best that any code you wish to submit to be merged into the master distribution that I keep be submitted to this newsgroup instead of to me personally. This will allow anybody to pick off the code and immediately implement it on their own system without waiting for the next master distribution. I will also use alt.sys.amiga.uucp.patches to post updates to the current master distribution, generally small to medium sized SHAR or uuencoded LHARC files. I personally would like to get a system together so multiple-source postings can be archived in a text form instead of a uuencoded form because all netnews is compressed anyway, and compressing uuencoded lharc files generally makes the result larger than the original instead of smaller. (3) BUG / ENHANCEMENT REPORTS [Note that the following text author is considered to be the current UUCP source maintainer which seems to be Michael B. Smith, mbs@adastra.cvl.va.us] The alt.sys.amiga.uucp and alt.sys.amiga.uucp.patches groups are fed through a filter when they reach my machine, and any bug or enhancement reports of a specific format will be automatically extracted and appended to my TODO file. To issue a bug report or enhancement request, use the following format: ##B unique-id <bug report goes here> ## Note that there are TWO '#'s. ##B stands for a bug report, ##E stands for an enhancement request. WARNING! The ##'s must begin a line, you CANNOT PRECEDE ## WITH WHITESPACE. Doing so will result in the filter passing the report by. For example, the ##B/## lines in the example above, not being flush with the left margin, will be ignored by my filter program. The unique-id should be a unique identifier for your bug report, for example, I might use '##B dillon.23'. Do NOT encode the date in the unique ID because my filter program will automatically extract the Date: and From: fields from the news message header. I will use the ID when refering to previous bug reports rather than posting the whole bug report. (4) This FAQ sheet If you have information you think would be useful on this FAQ sheet, please submit it to me personally (UUCP-Faq@alphanet.ch). (II) INTRODUCTION TO AmigaUUCP This section consists of a brief introduction to AmigaUUCP. It is not meant to describe installation of the distribution. Installation of the distribution is more involved and best served by the instructions that come with the distribution. AmigaUUCP was originally derived from GNU-UUCP and UUPC (was UUPC derived from GNU? I dunno). This was several years ago. It eventually fell into William Loftus's hands who molded it into a workable system for the Amiga. From there, about a year later, it fell into my hands and has since remained. What little GNU/UUPC code remains is in uucico, and even that is rapidly disappearing. AmigaUUCP is now almost entirely made up of code written after the original port to the Amiga. At this point, there is no comparison at all between the older GNU/UUPC stuff and the state of the art AmigaUUCP distribution. AmigaUUCP is a public domain project, though not properly in the public domain because all authors involved have maintained copyrights on the code. legally, this may not mean much, but it does give us a sense of security and more control over what is done with the code. Be that as it may, the entire distribution, source and all, is available to anybody who wants it. There are about a dozen principal authors and a few dozen contributors, not to mention the hundreds of people who have sent in helpful suggestions and bug reportrs. What is AmigaUUCP? Well, if you are reading this article then you have some idea how EMAIL and NETNEWS works ... AmigaUUCP is a set of utilities and documentation to implement an EMAIL/NETNEWS link directly on your amiga. All you need to do is find what is known as a 'feed' site who is willing to give you a UUCP connection, and, of course, a modem with which to communicate with that feed. (III) PRINCIPAL UTILITIES AmigaUUCP is made up of a plethora of utilities. Many of the utilities mimic their UNIX counterparts but it should be noted that none are really based on actual UNIX C code except for those sections still existing from the original GNU/UUPC port. Only the major utilities are listed below: UUCico UUCico is the workhorse of the system. It calls your feed site via the modem and transfers both outgoing and incoming mail and news. This mail and news will have been previously stored by you or your feed site. Getty Getty handles incoming calls. It allows remote login (interactive and uucico logins). Sendmail/RMail Sendmail/RMail is the workhorse of the MAIL subsystem. The two utilities are actually the same executable just renamed and I will refer to them collectively as 'sendmail' from now on. Sendmail handles incoming mail, breaking it apart and sending it to the appropriate mailbox, or re-queueing it if it is simply passing through your system to another system down the line. Sendmail deals with any aliases you might have defined and also with any domains you have defined for routing email. Sendmail also handles, under the aegis of 'rmail', all incoming mail. RNews RNews handles all incoming news, including local news you send out. It breaks apart compressed batches and creates an individual file for each article in the UUNEWS: directory. It also creates a directory for each newsgroup. BatchNews Batchnews compresses and batches any news you have sent posted into a single batch file, making its transfer to your feed that much more efficient. Read the Newssetup.doc in the distribution for more information on how to set up news. DMail DMail is the amiga's mail shell. It scans your mail box and presents mail in an orderly fashion, allowing you to reply to the mail and do other operations. DNews DNews is the amiga's news reader. It is not quite as sophisticated as RN but is getting there. It sports an intuition windowing system to make it easy to scan through news. UUcp UUcp (the command) can be used to copy files from your local system to some of your neighbours. Note that the way it is implemented on the AmigaUUCP system is a little different than in Unix. In Unix, as soon as the uucp command has been executed, a copy of the implied file is done in a data file in the spool directory. Then uucico copies it to the other unix system that extracts the file from the data file. In AmigaUUCP, if sending the file is only read while UUCico is online, and that explains why if you UUCP a file which path is NOT authorized in the UULIB:Security file, there will be an error while online. This prevents the ability to forward the file to another host. However most of the time in UNIX, uucp is very restricted. AmigaUUCP does not allow directory-deep file send. For sending to a far site, BMS is more convenient. (IV) CONSTRUCTING MAIL ADDRESSES (1) GENERAL Unfortunately, the internet mail system is made up of a huge number of nearly incompatible networks. Mail addresses are constructed with various types of punctuation that mean various things .. indeed, some punctuation means one thing in one domain and another in another domain. I have found that the absolute best way to construct a mail address is either with the '@' format or with a '!' path. If your feed is a 'smart' host, any fully domained mail address can be replied to with simply: user@fubar.subdomain.subdomain....domain dillon@overload.Berkeley.CA.US Any address with dots in it is called a fully domained address. Unfortunately, there are a few exceptions... any address ending with .UUCP is *NOT* I repeat, *NOT* a domained address... it's a hack that some sendmails will add to properly route the mail internally. This hack generally extends to the From: field of an email message, and AmigaUUCP will do this, but not being a domain, you cannot SPECIFY a .UUCP trailer in the To: address. For example, my UUCP address is: uunet.uu.net!overload Note that there is NO .UUCP specification tacked on to overload. Note also that when you specify your UUCP address in your signature you should start with a fully domained machine name, *not* one ending with .UUCP. On other fronts, some unexperienced administrators will give their machines a full domain name without properly registering it. If you have not registered your domain with the proper authorities, DO NOT GIVE YOUR MACHINE A FULL DOMAIN. For example, when I first connected to my feed, which is uunet, I did not have a .US domain and so my machine name was simply 'overload'. After I registered in the .US domain I changed my machine name to its registered equivalent, 'overload.Berkeley.CA.US'. (2) BANG PATHS Nearly all the systems on the internet accept what are known as bang paths. There are only a few exceptions. One of the design decisions for AmigaUUCP was to convert all addresses into bang paths before sending them out. There have been one or two sites (so far) that have been unable to run AmigaUUCP because the feed they picked was running news software so old it did not recognize bang paths. To those sites I say: find a different feed, AmigaUUCP would become extremely messy were I to implement UNIX sendmail style address parsing. A bang path work by specifying the exact path your mail is to go along, in the following format: first_machine!machine!machine!users_machine!user Any machine name in the path may be a fully domained name. If you have a smart feed it will be able to optimize the path accordingly. For example, the bang path to me would normally be: uunet.uu.net!overload!dillon If your feed has a STUPID mailer, it may be necessary to use a bang path to get *past* your feed to a nearby site that has a SMART mailer. For example, lets say your feed is named 'fubar' and has a dumb mailer. Let us also say that the feed has a UUCP connection to 'harvard' which just happens to have a smart mailer. To get your message to me you might use: fubar!harvard!uunet.uu.net!overload!dillon your feed may or may not accept harvard's fully domained name, which is harvard.harvard.edu, it depends on how stupid your feed's mail system is. If it does, it makes more sense to use: fubar!harvard.harvard.edu!uunet.uu.net!overload!dillon (3) INTERNET DOMAINS VERSES UUCP MAP ENTRIES The internet domain system is based on domain servers, real time servers residing on known machines that know all the machines in a particular domain and how to get to them. When you send mail through an internet machine, like this (assuming you have a UUCP connection to UUNET): uunet!caps.ibm.com!user uunet (actually uunet.uu.net) will talk to the domain server for the .COM domain to find caps.ibm.com (a name I made up). UUCP works differently. While the internet is a real time network, UUCP is a batch network. UUCP has what is known as a MAP entry for every UUCP site that submits one. If you are a new UUCP site just connected to your feed, you should send a MAP entry to the appropriate administrator. A MAP entry is *NOT* a domain entry. The UUCP MAPS are used by machines on the USENET to find other machines on the USENET without the aid of domains. Not all machines on the USENET use MAPS to find some destination. uunet.uu.net does, so here is an example. I can send email from overload to (again, a made up name): uunet.uu.net!fubar!user Even if uunet does not talk directly to fubar.. assuming fubar has a MAP entry. uunet will search its maps to find the best path to reach fubar, and then route the mail accordingly. The actual route that uunet constructs might be: mcsun!gab!fubar!user If your feed is a machine that does NOT use maps, then you must specify an explicit bang path to get past your feed to a site that does. For example, lets say your feed is named 'char00' and has a dumb mailer, but connects to harvard.harvard.edu via UUCP. You want to email me. you can do it in two ways: char00!harvard!uunet.uu.net!overload!dillon. or char00!harvard!overload.Berkeley.CA.US!dillon But, since your mailer is dumb, you would not be able to use: char00!overload.Berkeley.CA.US!dillon If, on the otherhand, char00 is a SMART USENET mailer that uses the USENET MAPS (but still isn't on the internet itself), you can use: char00!overload!dillon Finally, if char00 is on the INTERNET, you can use: char00!overload.Berkeley.CA.US!dillon (4) WHEN ALL ELSE FAILS - BOUNCED EMAIL email will bounce for a variety of reasons. The fact that the global email system is made up of so many different types of mail systems causes lots of havoc... in many cases a system will munge the path you attempt to send email through by misinterpreting it or by attempting to 'optimize' it. When all else fails, and your attempt to reply to a piece of email bounces, you may have to construct the return address by hand. Several possibilities come to mind. You want to use the 'h' command from dmail to look at the actual mail headers (use dmail's help command to get full info on the header command). You want to look at both the original message that was sent to you, and the headers of your BOUNCED reply. -------- SAMPLE OF ORIGINAL MESSAGE ------- From uunet!SASK.USask.CA!telepro!oliphant Fri, 28 Dec 90 13:04:57 PST Received: by overload.Berkeley.CA.US (V1.07/Amiga) id AA00000; Fri, 28 Dec 90 13:04:57 PST Received: from sask.usask.ca by uunet.UU.NET (5.61/1.14) with SMTP id AA22874; Fri, 28 Dec 90 01:30:48 -0500 Received: from herald.USask.Ca by SASK.USask.CA with PMDF#10255; Fri, 28 Dec 1990 00:30 CST Received: by herald.USask.Ca (5.57/GLH-1.0); Fri, 28 Dec 90 00:30:06 -0600 id AA01058 for amiga-uucp-patches-request@overload.berkeley.ca.us Received: by telepro.UUCP (1.05D/Amiga) id AA04612; Thu, 27 Dec 90 21:25:00 CST Date: Thu, 27 Dec 90 21:25:00 CST Message-Id: <9012280325.AA04612@telepro.UUCP> X-Envelope-To: amiga-uucp-patches-request@overload.berkeley.ca.us From: uunet!SASK.USask.CA!telepro!oliphant (Mike Oliphant) To: amyuucp@sask.usask.ca Subject: Mailing list Please add me to amiga-uucp-patches. Thanks. -- Mike Oliphant UUCP: alberta!herald!telepro!oliphant Internet: oliphant@telepro.uucp -------- ADDRESS I SENT MY RESPONSE TO ------ uunet!SASK.USask.CA!telepro!oliphant -------- SAMPLE OF BOUNCE THAT CAME BACK TO ME ------- From uunet!sask.usask.ca!postmaster Mon, 31 Dec 90 01:02:30 PST Received: by overload.Berkeley.CA.US (V1.07/Amiga) id AA00000; Mon, 31 Dec 90 01:02:30 PST Received: from sask.usask.ca by uunet.UU.NET (5.61/1.14) with SMTP id AA13985; Sat, 29 Dec 90 17:18:48 -0500 Date: Sat, 29 Dec 1990 16:18 CST Message-Id: <B13C1C282040350C@SASK.USask.CA> X-Envelope-To: overload!dillon@uunet.UU.NET From: PMDF Mail Server <uunet!sask.usask.ca!Postmaster> To: overload!dillon Subject: Undeliverable mail: local delivery failure The message could not be delivered to: Addressee: telepro!oliphant Reason: %MAIL-E-LOGLINK, error creating network link to node TELEPRO -SYSTEM-F-NOSUCHNODE, remote node is unknown -------- END OF SAMPLE HEADERS -------------------- So, why did my response fail? First, I have to tell you something about mail headers: Except for Received: headers, intervening systems can and will turn the standard headers into mush. That is, the 'From ' encapsulation, the From: header, the To: header, even the Reply-To: header might be modified by an intervening system. There are only two things that are not mushed. They are the Received: headers and the mail message itself - which might contain the sender's signature at the end. This is a good reason to always put your email address in your signature, and always base it at a known internet node so anybody can figure out how to get back to you. A Received: header is PREPENDED by *EVERY* site a piece of email goes through, and is NEVER modified by any other site. These headers tell you *exactly* how the mail was routed. If you look at the original message, you will note that one of the machines, probably SASK.USask.CA, modified the From: line in an attempt to optimize it: From: uunet!SASK.USask.CA!telepro!oliphant (Mike Oliphant) Note that, by the From: line, SASK.USask.CA talks directly to telepro. The 'From ' encapsulation was also modified, and there is no Reply-To: header. When I sent my reply to SASK using From:, the mail bounced because SASK was unable to find telepro ... if you look at the Received: lines you can see why ... because telepro talked to Herald before getting to Sask. It is amusing because SASK is probably the node that ripped out Herald's name in the From: and 'From ' lines in the first place. Also, take a look at Mike's signature line: Mike Oliphant UUCP: alberta!herald!telepro!oliphant Internet: oliphant@telepro.uucp Interesting, eh? The Internet: address is actually wrong (sorry Mike!) using .UUCP is not legal because it is not a proper domain. However, if you forward through an internet host that also uses the UUCP MAPS, and assuming mike is in the maps, the address *will* work. It's the first address that confirms our fears... mike shows telepro talking to herald. This combined with the knowledge we gained from the Received: lines tells us that the path: SASK.USask.CA!herald!telepro!oliphant Will work as a return address. When in doubt, trace the Received: headers to determine the return path. Sometimes a UUCP MAP entry will be incorrect, in which case using the Received: headers will be the ONLY way to reply to a message. There are some situations which are impossible to reply to ... if a message goes through a broken node that allows it to be propogated one way but not the other, even using the headers will not work. Also, some sites will attempt to optimize the path you specified. If SASK.USask.CA were to optimize the path: SASK.USask.CA!herald!telepro!oliphant To SASK.USask.CA!telepro!oliphant Before processing, the mail could fail due to SASK.USask.CA breaking itself. There are many nodes, especially gateways between networks, that are broken in this manner and there will be times when you will not be able to reply at all. (V) USING DCRON Many AmigaUUCP users leave their machines on 24 hours a day. With the advent of 2.0, and assuming the serial.device gets fixed, you can conceivably run your Amiga 24 hours a day under a heavy load for weeks without a crash. DCron is a program that runs in the background and executes other programs at intervals defined in S:CRONTAB. It is quite flexible.. you can run a program or script at specific times of day, every X minutes, only on certain days of the week, or even only in certain months! I will not discuss the actual format, that can be looked up in UUMAN:DCron. There are two reasons to run DCron: (1) Maintenance. (2) Automatic polling. If you call a system on a regular basis and want to automate the process, you can run UUCico from DCron at specific times of the day. First maintenance. Programs like UUCico, Getty, DCron itself, and sendmail generate log files which, if left alone, would eventually fill up your disk. Also, if you are receiving NEWS, you need to delete expired articles. Due to the volume of news, not deleting old articles can fill up your HD very quickly. The TRIMFILES utility trims log files to a specified number of lines, default 100. I normally run TRIMFILES on the various log files once a day early in the morning. The S:CRONTAB entry I use is: # trim log files at 3:01 A.M. 1 3 * * * uucp:c/trimfile tmp:dcron.log uu:spool/logfile getty:logfile Note that the file paths will be somewhat different for your system. Second, keeping your UUNEWS: directory reasonable. The TRIMNEWS utility will handle this. TRIMNEWS scans your UULIB:Newsgroups file for the list of newsgroups, then scans each news group deleting articles over N days old, where N is specified in the Newsgroups file. A sample NewsGroups file might be: comp.sys.amiga 7 comp.sys.amiga.tech 7 comp.sys.amiga.programmer 7 comp.sys.amiga.announce 7 alt.sys.amiga.uucp 14 alt.sys.amiga.uucp.patches 30 Which essentially tells TRIMNEWS to delete all articles in comp.sys.amiga.* over 7 days old (7 days from reception), to delete all articles in alt.sys.amiga.uucp over 14 days old, and to delete all articles in alt.sys.amiga.uucp.patches over 30 days old. I normally run TRIMNEWS in the morning too, my S:CRONTAB file has: # run TRIMNEWS at 3:06 A.M. 6 3 * * * uucp:c/trimnews --- DCRON is also useful to control the modem configuration. You can run the Getty utility from DCron to turn off the modem speaker while you are asleep. I use DCRON for other things as well, such as to automatically revise UUNET's amiga-uucp[-patchces] mailing list whenever I make a local change, and to backup my hard disk. I also use it to post this sheet once a month. (VI) .US DOMAIN CLARIFICATION This is a clarification to the information on registering in a .US domain. It turns out that you can register in the .US domain even if your 'feed' node is NOT on the internet. What you need to do is find some node that IS on the internet that is willing to be an MX FORWARDER to your machine (via a path). This might prove difficult, but it is possible. (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 ... 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 last UUCICO is something like 57524 bytes long (1.16.23.sd.2) VERSION TABLE Version Size By Infos (**** to be filled ****) (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". 3. AXSH AXSH is a program which allows some sort of multiuser access to your computer. It is shareware. The registration fee is $US30, mail to po87553@cs.tut.fi for more information. A new version, (1.26) is now available, this one allows read/write access to UUCP news & mail from AXsh's rn & AXsh's mailer. To use it with UUCP the following *should* work (with getty 1.16D) UULIB:Passwd bbs,*,444,0,(BBS-login),ram:,execute getty:AXsh-startup2.0 AXSH-Startup2.0: (under 1.3 use two separate > and < with two times AXAUX:) AXsh:bin/AXsh <>axaux:serial.device/0/shared -log You evidently have to mount the AXAUX: before. AXSH 1.26 is on on nic.funet.fi:/pub/amiga/shells/AXsh/AXshDemo126.lha, and also on aminet, AXSH 1.3 should be released soon. 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:ConverNewsgroup 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 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 package available (litamiga): - A set of ARexx script + modified UUXQT - C executables. Authors: BSMTP 0.14 rse@angle.sub.org (Ralf S. Engelschall) BSMTP-ARexx: georg@bluemoon.GUN.de (Georg Sassen) 14. AVM AVM's last version is 1.3.2 and is available on amiga.physik.unizh.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 amiga.physik.unizh.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 works however only under 2.0. Available on Fish 714 (with Modula-2 source). A new version will be distributed on normal channels real soon. Author: Juergen Weinelt, jow@sun.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 UNIX newsreader ported to AmigaOS by Mark Tomlinson (tomlin@elec.canterbury.ac.nz) (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] *NEW* The litamiga FSP daemon is on disun3.epfl.ch at port 9999. *NEW* There is also an IRC client called ALPHABot. Aminet: The amiga.physik.unizh.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: public Phone number: +41 38 41 29 29 Country: Switzerland Modem norms: up to V32bis MNP/V42bis ### CURRENTLY 2400 bps ONLY ### Calling hours: 21h-24h GMT+1 Contents-file: UUPUB:CONTENTS.LHA [LhA compressed] [for uucp UUPUB: is equivalent to ~/] Notes: You better change your sitename (in UULIB:Config) to public. Has 50 megabytes of software, and archives everything from alt.sys.amiga.uucp.patches. First login please get ~/TREE.LHA. Date of entry: Sat, 31 Dec 1992 16:56:24 +0100 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: moose.cs.indiana.edu!charon!anaconda Restrictions: Specify full path, not domain'ed. Notes: 31.5 megabytes online. BBS is +1 821 332 7379 (V32bis/V42bis) 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 ### CURRENTLY NOT AVAILABLE ### Restrictions: Please do not ask for huge files or think about donating :-) Notes: More than 50 MB online. 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) NOTE THE PARAGRAPH 4 FOR BETTY ! 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) 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. 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. (XII) UNRESOLVED TOPICS. - UUCICO list EOF = END OF FAQ :-)