[net.unix-wizards] UUCP

lee@utexas-11@sri-unix (06/03/82)

From: Bill Lee <lee@utexas-11>
Date: 17 May 1982 at 1126-CDT
Does anyone understand why uucp (and uucico) should be setuid and owned
by uucp? This is claimed several times in "Uucp Implementation Description"
by D.A. Nowitz in the Seventh Edition, vol 2b manual. Should the uucp uid
then be the same as the root uid? I don't understand how uucp can copy
files to the spool directory unless the file protection is such that
anyone can read it. And how is uucico able to put incoming files in the
correct place if he doesn't have root privs? I have just brought uucp up
on a PWB system and cannot make things happen correctly unless both programs
are setuid root. In addition, is anyone aware of any hidden zingers in
moving uucp and uucico to PWB other than the stat system call
incompatibility? The ioctl stuff appears to be handled by the ioctl.c code
that comes along with uucp (for the most part although a minor tty.c hack is
needed for 8 bit raw input). Has anybody else done this?

p.s. mine appears to work (i have successfully transferred files between
the PWB system and a v7 machine) in case someone else wants to do this
or know exactly what to do.
-------

parker@Nrl-Css@sri-unix (08/21/82)

From: parker at Nrl-Css (Alan Parker)
Date: 11 Aug 1982 12:32:49-EDT
I am bringing up uucp on our 4.1 system.  We want to use it to talk to
a unix system that is connected through a Gandalf front-end.  When the
fe answers the phone, it waits for a <return> to determine your line
speed.  It then prompts for a system .  After supplying the system name
you get the Unix login prompt.  My problem is how to make uucp send an
initial <return> before starting its [expect] [send] protocol.  I don't
see how this can be done from looking at the documentation that I
have.  (I have found some differences between the documentation and the
code already).  Is there a simple answer before I make a special case
modification?

hartwell%Shasta@SU-Score@sri-unix (12/08/82)

From: Steve Hartwell <hartwell%Shasta at SU-Score>
Date: Wednesday,  1 Dec 1982 14:28-PST
in versys.c, while reading from the L.sys file, right after the fgets(line...,
there is a line:
	*(index(line, ' ')) = '\0';

If the L.sys line does not terminate the system name with a blank (i.e., with
a tab (\t) instead), this will cause a core dump on some systems.
Index should never be used 'blindly', I have learned.

This line, and the "line[7] = '\0'" statement below it can be replaced with
the statement:
	sscanf(line, "%7s", line);

I frequently use sscanf to do string parsing for me.  This will guarantee that
the string is null-terminated and at most 7 characters long.

Apologies if this bug has already been reported.

Steve Hartwell

dedwards%usc-isi@sri-unix.UUCP (03/09/84)

From:  Howard S. Weiss <dedwards@usc-isi>

We have a version of UUCP running on a V6 and PWB kernel.  You do
need a V7 license and UUCP is distributed as part of V7.  On a
system with a PWB tty driver it will come up real fast.  On a V6
system the tty driver uses the octal 377 value for special
purposes in erase/kill processing or some such thing.  The trouble 
is that in raw mode they end up throwing the 0377 away, even thought
they don't have to.  if uucp sends tat value in the checksum field
everything comes to a grinding halt.  it is a simple fix once you look at
the tty driver.  Other V6 things that require minor corrections are
8 bit versus 16 bit user-ids, etc.  The UUCP sources shuld be compiled
using the V7 include directories on the V6 system.
-------

chris@umcp-cs.UUCP (Chris Torek) (07/04/86)

In article <1884@brl-smoke.ARPA>
es!Robert_Toxen%anvil.UUCP@HARVARD.HARVARD.EDU writes:

>>From: Josh Diamond <jdia%osiris.uucp@BRL.ARPA>
>>I am trying to send a file that I have in my account on on machine to
>>another account on another machine via uucp. ... The destination is ...
>>reached via the following route: aplcen!umcp-cs!seismo!rochester!ur-tut!jdia

>The easy solution is to mail the file if it is <100k and not binary, i.e.
>     mail aplcen!umcp-cs!seismo!rochester!ur-tut!~jdia/test.uucp.file \
>       < test.uucp.file

That is indeed the easy solution, but the constraints and the command
are a bit different.  I believe that somewhere along that path the
file must be no more than 50000 bytes.  Also, mailing directly to files
does (or at least should) not work that way, for security reasons; use

	mail aplcen!umcp-cs!seismo!rochester!ur-tut!jdia

and use your mail reader to save it to a file.

>If all the systems involved are System V . . .

Neither umcp-cs nor seismo run System V.
-- 
In-Real-Life: Chris Torek, Univ of MD Comp Sci Dept (+1 301 454 1516)
UUCP:	seismo!umcp-cs!chris
CSNet:	chris@umcp-cs		ARPA:	chris@mimsy.umd.edu