karl@giza.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) (06/08/89)
Once again, I want to remind people about some things you must remember when accessing the UUCP'able archives on osu-cis. [1] You cannot make multi-file requests in a single uucp(1) command with quoted metacharacters. That is, don't try to do this: uucp osu-cis!~/SomePackage/XXXXX-part-\* /usr/tmp Use of metacharacters (*, ?, []) in uucp(1) causes it to use uux to queue up a uucp command to osu-cis, in order that metacharacter expansion can happen on osu-cis. We don't support remote execution of uucp for what should be transparently obvious reasons. [2] Don't forget the syntax: the ls-lR.Z file you can pick up describes lots of things you can pick up, but remember that you must prefix all paths with ~/ when picking them up. That is, uucp osu-cis!doc/usd/08.mh/tmac.e /usr/spool/uucppublic doesn't work, but uucp osu-cis!~/doc/usd/08.mh/tmac.e /usr/spool/uucppublic does. [3] The directory in which you want things to land on your system must be writable by uucp. Usually this means it must have 777 permissions, or else uucp will at best put them somewhere else (probably /usr/spool/uucppublic) or else will flatly refuse to perform the copy for you. Execution of uucp osu-cis!~/SomePackage/stuff-part-aa ~ is almost certain to fail. [4] If you must write mail to us to get help, MAKE SURE THAT WE CAN GET BACK TO YOU. Keep in mind that osu-cis knows almost none of the systems which call it. So I can't write mail back to yoursystem!you because my Systems file doesn't list yoursystem. Worse, a lot of the systems calling osu-cis are not registered, so even rerouting by smail won't cut it. In particular, there is a problem system out there called "robecdc," on which a user "ghost" lives who has been writing me mail. I can't get mail back to this person, and I tire of seeing such mail. I hope I'm not coming across rudely here, but the rules should be either intuitively obvious to anyone with even minimal skill in using UUCP, or obvious due to having been explicitly listed in GNU.how-to-get. Cheers, --Karl