[comp.mail.uucp] uucp speed

gnu@hoptoad.UUCP (04/05/87)

In article <7326@boring.mcvax.cwi.nl>, jack@mcvax.cwi.nl (Jack Jansen) writes:
> However, if you add the time taken to deposit files in the appropriate
> places, *which kermit does during conversation*, things get far worse.
> I'm not sure how fancy uucp's like honey-danber handle this, but one of
> the gross misfeatures of most uucp's is that they deliver files while
> they're still eating phone time.

There is a good reason for uucp to avoid putting files "in the
appropriate places" until the whole file is there.  I ran across this
debugging uuslave, the free uucp.  The problem is that if a transfer
aborts, you are left with half a file claiming to be the real file.
Also, when running on a multitasking system (e.g.  my Unix machine), it
sure doesn't work to have half the mail message "in the appropriate
place" while the rest comes in over the phone, since uuxqt runs
asynchronously and will pick it up and try to mail it off.  I fixed it
by creating a temp file, filling that, then renaming it -- the same
thing uucp does.  Got a better idea?

>                                This, combined with the fact that, for small
> files, the overhead is enourmous (two files transmitted for each tiny
> mail message) makes me dislike uucp.

Uucp only moves the two files because the mailer uses uux.  It could as
easily move one file and use a different daemon than uuxqt; or uux/uuxqt
could be improved to include standard input in the command file.

Anyone volunteering to speed things up?  Please do!
-- 
Copyright 1987 John Gilmore; you can redistribute only if your recipients can.
(This is an effort to bend Stargate to work with Usenet, not against it.)
{sun,ptsfa,lll-crg,ihnp4,ucbvax}!hoptoad!gnu	       gnu@ingres.berkeley.edu