1 This is the README file for version 1.06 of the Taylor UUCP package.
3 It was written by Ian Lance Taylor. I can be reached at ian@airs.com,
4 or, equivalently, uunet!cygint!airs!ian, or c/o Cygnus Support,
5 48 Grove Street, Somerville, MA 02144, USA.
7 There is a mailing list for discussion of the package. The list is
8 hosted by Eric Schnoebelen at cirr.com. To join (or get off) the
9 list, send mail to taylor-uucp-request@cirr.com. Mail to this address
10 is answered by the majordomo program. To join the list, send the
11 message ``subscribe ADDRESS'' where ADDRESS is your e-mail address.
12 To send a message to the list, send it to taylor-uucp@cirr.com. The
13 old list address, taylor-uucp@gnu.ai.mit.edu, will also work. There
14 is an archive of all messages sent to the mailing list at ftp.cirr.com.
16 This package is covered by the Gnu Public License. See the file
17 COPYING for details. If you would like to do something with this
18 package that you feel is reasonable but you feel is prohibited by the
19 license, contact me to see if we can work it out.
21 The most recent version may be obtained from any Gnu archive site.
22 The canonical site is prep.ai.mit.edu. There are many mirror sites,
23 including ftp.uu.net and wuarchive.wustl.edu.
27 This is the complete source code for a Unix UUCP package. It provides
28 everything you need to make a UUCP connection. It includes versions
29 of uucico, uusched, uuxqt, uux, uucp, uustat, uulog, uuname, uuto,
30 uupick, and cu, as well as uuchk (a program to check configuration
31 files), uuconv (a program to convert from one type of configuration
32 file to another) and tstuu (a test harness for the package).
34 This is the standard UUCP package of the Free Software Foundation.
36 The package currently supports the 'f', 'g' (in all window and packet
37 sizes), 'G', 't' and 'e' protocols, as well a Zmodem protocol, the FX
38 UUCICO 'y' protocol, and two new bidirectional protocols. If you have
39 a Berkeley sockets library, it can make TCP connections. If you have
40 TLI libraries, it can make TLI connections. It supports a new
41 configuration file mechanism which I like (but other people dislike).
43 The package has a few advantages over regular UUCP:
45 You get the source code.
47 It uses significantly less CPU time than many UUCP packages.
49 You can specify a chat script to run when a system calls in,
50 allowing adjustment of modem parameters on a per system basis.
52 You can specify failure strings for chat scripts, allowing the
53 chat script to fail immediately if the modem returns ``BUSY''.
55 If you are talking to another instance of the package, you can use
56 the new bidirectional protocol for rapid data transfer in both
57 directions at once. You can also restrict file transfers by size
58 based on the time of day and who placed the call.
62 It only runs on Unix. The code is carefully divided into system
63 dependent and system independent portions, so it should be
64 possible to port it to other systems. It would not be trivial.
66 You don't get uuclean, uusend, uuq, uusnap, uumonitor, uutry,
67 uupoll, etc. If you have current copies of these programs, you
68 may be able to use them. Shell scripts versions of uuclean and
69 uutry are provided, with most, if not all, of the functionality of
70 the usual programs. I believe the supplied uustat program allows
71 you to do everything that uuq, uusnap and uumonitor do. uupoll
72 could be written as a shell script.
74 The package does not read modemcap or acucap files, although you
75 can use V2 configuration files with a BNU Dialers file or a dialer
76 file written in my new configuration file format.
78 The package cannot use SCO dialer programs directly, although it
79 can with a simple shell script interface.
81 If you start using this package, I suggest that you join the mailing
82 list (see above) to keep up to date on patches and new versions. I am
83 also open to suggestions for improvements and modifications.
87 The documentation is in the file uucp.texi, which is a Texinfo file.
88 Texinfo is a format used by the Free Software Foundation. You can
89 print the documentation using TeX in combination with the file
90 texinfo.tex. DVI, PostScript and info versions of the documentation
91 are available in a separate package, uucp-doc-1.06.tar.gz.
93 See the TODO file for things which should be done. Please feel free
94 to do them, although you may want to check with me first. Send me
95 suggestions for new things to do.
97 The compilation instructions are in uucp.texi. Here is a summary.
99 Edit Makefile.in to set installation directories.
101 Type ``sh configure''. You can pass a number of arguments in the
102 environment (using bash or sh, enter something like ``CC=gcc
103 configure''; using csh, enter something like ``setenv CC gcc; sh
105 CC: C compiler to use; default is gcc if it exists, else cc
106 CFLAGS: Flags to pass to $CC when compiling; default -g
107 LDFLAGS: Flags to pass to $CC when only linking; default none
108 LIBS: Library arguments to pass to $CC; default none
109 INSTALL: Install program; default install -c or cp
110 The configure script will compile a number of test programs to see
111 what is available on your system, so if your system is at all
112 unusual you will need to pass in $CC and $LIBS correctly.
114 The configure script will create config.h from config.h.in and
115 Makefile from Makefile.in. It will also create config.status,
116 which is a shell script which actually creates the files. Please
117 report any configuration problems, so that they can be fixed in
120 Igor V. Semenyuk provided this (lightly edited) note about ISC
121 Unix 3.0. The configure script will default to passing -posix to
122 gcc. However, using -posix changes the environment to POSIX, and
123 on ISC 3.0, at least, the default for POSIX_NO_TRUNC is 1. This
124 means nothing for uucp, but can lead to a problem when uuxqt
125 executes rmail. IDA sendmail has dbm configuration files named
126 mailertable.{dir,pag}. Notice these names are 15 characters long.
127 When uuxqt compiled with -posix executes rmail, which in turn
128 executes sendmail, the later is run under POSIX environment too!
129 This leads to sendmail bombing out with 'error opening 'M'
130 database: name too long' (mailertable.dir). It's rather obscure
131 behaviour, and it took me a day to find out the cause. I don't
132 use -posix, instead I run gcc with -D_POSIX_SOURCE, and add
135 On some versions of BSDI there is a bug in the shell which causes
136 the default value for CFLAGS to be set incorrectly. If ``echo
137 ${CFLAGS--g}'' echoes ``g'' rather than ``-g'', then you must set
138 CFLAGS in the environment before running configure. There is a
139 patch available from BSDI for this bug. (Reported by David
142 On AIX 3.2.5, and possibly other versions, cc -E does not work,
143 reporting ``Option NOROCONST is not valid.'' Test this before
144 running configure by doing something like
147 This may give a warning about the file being empty, but it should
148 not give the ``Option NOROCONST'' warning. The workaround is to
149 remove the ",noroconst" entry from the "options" clause in the
150 "cc" stanza in /etc/xlc.cfg. (Reported by Chris Lewis).
152 Examine config.h and Makefile to make sure they're right.
154 Edit policy.h for your local system.
158 Use ``uuchk'' to check configuration files. You can use
159 ``uuconv'' to convert between configuration file formats.
161 Type ``make install'' to install. Note that by default the
162 programs are compiled with debugging information, and they are not
163 stripped when they are installed. Read the man page for strip for
166 On older System V based systems which do not have the setreuid
167 system call, problems may arise if ordinary users can start an
168 execution of uuxqt, perhaps indirectly via uucp or uux. UUCP jobs
169 may wind up executing with a real user ID of the user who invoked
170 uuxqt, which can cause problems if the UUCP job checks the real
171 user ID for security purposes. On such systems, it is safest to
172 put ``run-uuxqt never'' in the `config' file, so that uucico never
173 starts uuxqt, and invoke uuxqt directly from cron.