[comp.unix.questions] help with uucp needed

jay@gdx.UUCP (Jay A. Snyder) (12/25/90)

$ uucp wa3wbu!eds1!psuvax1!rutgers!uunet!rayssd!anomaly!/usr/spool/uucppublic/archives/egrep.tar.Z ~uucp

yeilds:

illegal  syntax wa3wbu!eds1!psuvax1!rutgers!uunet!rayssd!anomaly!/usr/spool/uucppublic/archives/egrep.tar.Z

How do I get this file via uucp w/o a direct connection to anomaly?

J.

mpd@anomaly.sbs.com (Michael P. Deignan) (12/26/90)

jay@gdx.UUCP (Jay A. Snyder) writes:


>$ uucp wa3wbu!eds1!psuvax1!rutgers!uunet!rayssd!anomaly!/usr/spool/uucppublic/archives/egrep.tar.Z ~uucp

Interesting.

>yeilds:

>illegal  syntax wa3wbu!eds1!psuvax1!rutgers!uunet!rayssd!anomaly!/usr/spool/uucppublic/archives/egrep.tar.Z

Understandably.

>How do I get this file via uucp w/o a direct connection to anomaly?

You don't. Even assuming we allowed rayssd to UUCP files from us, each
site in your path would also have to allow the calling site to UUCP to/from
them.

Sorry to break it to you, but either give up, or break down and call long
distance.

MD
-- 
-- Michael P. Deignan, President     -- Small Business Systems, Inc. --
-- Domain: mpd@anomaly.sbs.com       -- Box 17220, Esmond, RI 02917  --
-- UUCP: ...uunet!rayssd!anomaly!mpd -- Telebit:  +1 401 455 0347    --
-- XENIX Archives: login: xxcp, password: xenix  Index: ~/SOFTLIST   --

pacolley@violet.uwaterloo.ca (Paul Colley) (12/29/90)

In article <88@gdx.UUCP> jay@gdx.UUCP (Jay A. Snyder) writes:
>
>$ uucp wa3wbu!eds1!psuvax1!rutgers!uunet!rayssd!anomaly!/usr/spool/uucppublic/archives/egrep.tar.Z ~uucp
>
>yeilds:
>
>illegal  syntax wa3wbu!eds1!psuvax1!rutgers!uunet!rayssd!anomaly!/usr/spool/uucppublic/archives/egrep.tar.Z
>
>How do I get this file via uucp w/o a direct connection to anomaly?

Indirect UUCP doesn't work for me either.  So far, the only reply has
been along the lines of "tough, call direct".

Which doesn't answer the question!  The manual claims it's fine, but
any attempt to have a!b!file as source gives "illegal syntax".  Assuming
I have permissions from the machines in the path, what's the problem?

Better yet, what's the fix?

Reason for doing this:  I have accounts on two machines, which are
connected through a third machine.  I'd like to request files from the
machine I'm working on, instead of having to login to the remote
machine and send the files (not always easy to do).  A direct UUCP
connection isn't possible between the two machines I'm interested in.

Any constructive advice appreciated.

- Paul Colley
  pacolley@violet.waterloo.edu or .ca
  "Quantum Mechanics:  The dreams stuff is made of"    - Ken Burnside

jpr@jpradley.jpr.com (Jean-Pierre Radley) (12/29/90)

In article <1990Dec28.190803.19672@watdragon.waterloo.edu> pacolley@violet.uwaterloo.ca (Paul Colley) writes:
>In article <88@gdx.UUCP> jay@gdx.UUCP (Jay A. Snyder) writes:
>>
>>$ uucp wa3wbu!eds1!psuvax1!rutgers!uunet!rayssd!anomaly!/usr/spool/uucppublic/archives/egrep.tar.Z ~uucp
>>
>>yeilds:
>>
>>illegal  syntax wa3wbu!eds1!psuvax1!rutgers!uunet!rayssd!anomaly!/usr/spool/uucppublic/archives/egrep.tar.Z
>>
>>How do I get this file via uucp w/o a direct connection to anomaly?
>
>Indirect UUCP doesn't work for me either.  So far, the only reply has
>been along the lines of "tough, call direct".
>
>Which doesn't answer the question!  The manual claims it's fine, but
>any attempt to have a!b!file as source gives "illegal syntax".  Assuming
>I have permissions from the machines in the path, what's the problem?

The uucp man page offers the syntax:
	uucp source.files destination.file
and then goes on to talk about how a "file name" may be of the form
a!b!..!file.

This is disingenuous and not fair, since there really IS a differerence in
what's OK to actually type for source.files as opposed to destination.file.

There is a comment line in the source code which is traduced by the man page.

The comment is:
	    /*  source files can have at most one ! */

The code which follows disallows more than one 'bang' in a source.files
specification but the man page doesn't tell you this!
(Hardly the only example of a less than perfect man page, is it?)

It's designed that way, IOW.

 Jean-Pierre Radley	    NYC Public Unix	jpr@jpr.com	CIS: 72160,1341

edhew@xenitec.on.ca (Ed Hew) (12/30/90)

In article <892@anomaly.sbs.com> mpd@anomaly.sbs.com (Michael P. Deignan) writes:
>>How do I get this file via uucp w/o a direct connection to anomaly?
>
>You don't. Even assuming we allowed rayssd to UUCP files from us, each
>site in your path would also have to allow the calling site to UUCP to/from
>them.
>
>Sorry to break it to you, but either give up, or break down and call long
>distance.
>-- Domain: mpd@anomaly.sbs.com       -- Box 17220, Esmond, RI 02917  --
>-- UUCP: ...uunet!rayssd!anomaly!mpd -- Telebit:  +1 401 455 0347    --

We could argue whether the uucp man page is broken as we did in
sco.list a few months back, or I could suggest that "uuencode"
is the common tool used to allow one to email non-ascii files 
along a multiple hop path.
--
  Ed. A. Hew  <edhew@xenitec.on.ca>,  XeniTec Consulting Services
  or if you're really stuck:  ..!{watmath|lsuc}!xenitec!eah

shawn@marilyn.UUCP (Shawn P. Stanley) (12/31/90)

In article <1990Dec28.190803.19672@watdragon.waterloo.edu> pacolley@violet.uwaterloo.ca (Paul Colley) writes:
>Indirect UUCP doesn't work for me either.  So far, the only reply has
>been along the lines of "tough, call direct".

Perhaps one uux along the route is "broken".  It has to be able to send
a file more than one hop.  Another consideration is that many flavors of
uucp won't send a file greater than a certain size; you might try splitting
it up into pieces and combining them on the receiving end.

(Maybe you can split the file up using a uux command, assuming the
permissions are set, and then request the various pieces...?)
--
Shawn P. Stanley         shawn@marilyn.marilyn.mn.org
tcnet!marilyn!shawn      {rosevax,crash}!orbit!marilyn!shawn

stevef@bug.UUCP (Steven R Fordyce) (12/31/90)

In article <1990Dec28.190803.19672@watdragon.waterloo.edu> pacolley@violet.uwaterloo.ca (Paul Colley) writes:
>In article <88@gdx.UUCP> jay@gdx.UUCP (Jay A. Snyder) writes:
>>
>>$ uucp wa3wbu!eds1!psuvax1!rutgers!uunet!rayssd!anomaly!/usr/spool/uucppublic/archives/egrep.tar.Z ~uucp
>>
>>yeilds:
>>
>>illegal  syntax wa3wbu!eds1!psuvax1!rutgers!uunet!rayssd!anomaly!/usr/spool/uucppublic/archives/egrep.tar.Z
>>
>>How do I get this file via uucp w/o a direct connection to anomaly?

This may be obvious, but if you are using csh (I don't know about the other
shells), you have to escape the `!' and `~' because these have meaning to
the shell and will be interpreted.  Try this line:

uucp wa3wbu\!eds1\!psuvax1\!rutgers\!uunet\!rayssd\!anomaly\!\~/archives/egrep.tar.Z \~egrep.tar.Z

Someone else said you can have so many machines in the from path . . . I
have no idea: I've never tried to go more than one machine.

Steven R. Fordyce

shwake@raysnec.UUCP (Ray Shwake) (01/03/91)

shawn@marilyn.UUCP (Shawn P. Stanley) writes:

>Perhaps one uux along the route is "broken".  It has to be able to send
>a file more than one hop.  Another consideration is that many flavors of
>uucp won't send a file greater than a certain size; you might try splitting
>it up into pieces and combining them on the receiving end.

	No, nothing is broken! Uucp file transfers involving more than two
hosts is theoretically possible, but such transfers are supported on  
few platforms, provided permission is granted. The means of granting such
permission varies between platforms and implementations. Given the number
of hops between the original poster's source and destination systems, the
likelihood that all would accommodate is virtually nil. Lucky for us all,
given the security implications alone.

chrisc@astroatc.UUCP (Chris Czerwinski) (01/04/91)

In article <1990Dec28.190803.19672@watdragon.waterloo.edu> pacolley@violet.uwaterloo.ca (Paul Colley) writes:
:-)In article <88@gdx.UUCP> jay@gdx.UUCP (Jay A. Snyder) writes:
:-)>
:-)>$ uucp wa3wbu!eds1!psuvax1!rutgers!uunet!rayssd!anomaly!/usr/spool/uucppublic/archives/egrep.tar.Z ~uucp
:-)>
:-)>yeilds:
:-)>
:-)>illegal  syntax wa3wbu!eds1!psuvax1!rutgers!uunet!rayssd!anomaly!/usr/spool/uucppublic/archives/egrep.tar.Z
:-)>
:-)>How do I get this file via uucp w/o a direct connection to anomaly?
:-)
:-)Indirect UUCP doesn't work for me either.  So far, the only reply has
:-)been along the lines of "tough, call direct".
:-)
:-)Which doesn't answer the question!  The manual claims it's fine, but
:-)any attempt to have a!b!file as source gives "illegal syntax".  Assuming
:-)I have permissions from the machines in the path, what's the problem?
:-)
:-)Better yet, what's the fix?
:-)

I encountered this problem when I first started experimenting with uucp.
One thing you may want to try is to precede your ! with \ (ie. a\!b\!file)
This will have the shell interpret the ! literally instead of a command
such as !!...

--
USENET, a cooperatively run anarchic worldwide bulletin-board that receives
an estimated 8 Mbytes of traffic daily and is received by more than 1 million
nodes worldwide, from New York to Moscow. -Keep this in mind, I don't.
          
          Chris Czerwinski     ...!uunet!uwvax!astroatc!chrisc
	  Astronautics Corp. of America

prg@mgweed.UUCP (Gunsul) (01/04/91)

In article <190@raysnec.UUCP>, shwake@raysnec.UUCP (Ray Shwake) writes:
> shawn@marilyn.UUCP (Shawn P. Stanley) writes:
> 
> >Perhaps one uux along the route is "broken".  It has to be able to send
> >a file more than one hop.  Another consideration is that many flavors of
> >uucp won't send a file greater than a certain size; you might try splitting
> >it up into pieces and combining them on the receiving end.
> 
> 	No, nothing is broken! Uucp file transfers involving more than two
> hosts is theoretically possible, but such transfers are supported on  
> few platforms, provided permission is granted. The means of granting such
> permission varies between platforms and implementations. Given the number
> of hops between the original poster's source and destination systems, the
> likelihood that all would accommodate is virtually nil. Lucky for us all,
> given the security implications alone.

Having had several 'conversation' via mail with Paul (original poster),
straightened me out on what the problem was exactly.  He was saying
the he could not do multiple hops for the SOURCE file, not the DESTINATION
file...

Sure enough Paul, I get the same syntax error that you do when I enter:

	uucp system1!system2!~/file ~/file
	illegal  syntax uucp system1!system2!~/file

Whereas:
	uucp ~/file system1!system2!~/file

works quite nicely, if the downstream systems allow multiple hops..

Our locations manual page indicates that the first form shown above
will not work, Pauls manual page did not.


-- 
AT&T 		|	 This space		| (708)-859-4485
Phil Gunsul	|	intentionally		| att!mgweed!prg
Montgomery, IL	|	 left blank..		| AT&T Information Systems