[comp.mail.misc] How do you "kill" a message in uucp?

dheller@cory.Berkeley.EDU (Dan Heller) (07/26/89)

I get mailer-daemon messages every once in a while from sites
that say they can't contact site such-n-such for N days.. To
kill the job, issue the command uustat -k<job>.

Since I don't talk uucp to that machine, how do I issue the
command to kill the message?

Dan Heller	<island!argv@sun.com>

allbery@nc386.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) (07/31/89)

In article <15813@pasteur.Berkeley.EDU>, dheller@cory (Dan Heller) writes:
+---------------
| I get mailer-daemon messages every once in a while from sites
| that say they can't contact site such-n-such for N days.. To
| kill the job, issue the command uustat -k<job>.
+---------------

One of the few bogosities in HDB UUCP:  the "uustat -k" stuff only works for
local users, but HDB sends it to remote users with stuck mail as well.  It's
just as annoying for us remote uucp sites as it is to you:  I can't run a
"uustat -k" on someone else's system.

++Brandon
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery, moderator of comp.sources.misc	     allbery@NCoast.ORG
uunet!hal.cwru.edu!ncoast!allbery		    ncoast!allbery@hal.cwru.edu
   * This message brought to you courtesy the "Watcher" for the 4th NCoast *

honey@mailrus.cc.umich.edu (peter honeyman) (08/06/89)

i agree that the uustat -k message is gross.  locally, i changed it to
something along the lines of "we can't ... attempts will continue ..."
without the obtuse (and usually invalid) uustat -k advice.

but this requires source code.  (uucleanup was once a shell script; dan
fixed that bug ...)

	peter

ps:  yes, i sent my changes to summit, as if that ever mattered.

argv%eureka@Sun.COM (Dan Heller) (08/08/89)

In article honey@citi.umich.edu (Peter Honeyman) writes:
> i agree that the uustat -k message is gross.

Incidentally -- I got *lots* of responses to this which includes:
    "you can't kill a uucp message"
    "login to that host and do the uustat command like it says!"
    "Do you have a termcap entry for the commodore 64?"
    "Send email to postmaster@offending.site and ask them to do it for you."

I opted for the last one.  Perhaps it would be nice to set up an automation
script that can do this automatically (of course, authentication would be
highly desired :-).  Just email to "uukill@offending.site" and the subject
would contain the job to kill..  just an idea.

dan <island!argv@sun.com>
-----
My postings reflect my opinion only -- not the opinion of any company.

pcf@galadriel.bt.co.uk (Pete French) (08/08/89)

From article <119830@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>, by argv%eureka@Sun.COM (Dan Heller):
> 
> I opted for the last one.  Perhaps it would be nice to set up an automation
> script that can do this automatically (of course, authentication would be
> highly desired :-).  Just email to "uukill@offending.site" and the subject
> would contain the job to kill..  just an idea.
> 

How would you specify the message that you wanted to kill ? And if you
could then how would you stop other people blatting your outgoing mail ?
The best place to kill mail is surely at its point of origin ... I am not
sure that any other way is practical.

If anoyone here reads comp.unix.wizards they may have seen the "Tao of
programming" saga. Somebody posted a transcript of a (C) book to the net !
There should be some method of preventing things like that spreading, but
sadly to send out the "kill this uucp file" message requires it to overtake the
original posting/mail which in a lot of cases will not happed. The end result is
that anything which is posted will reach a large number of people despite the
best efforts of the postmasters.

-Pete French.

Inmcedentally - why should you have a termcap for a C64 ?

argv%eureka@Sun.COM (Dan Heller) (08/10/89)

In article <312@galadriel.bt.co.uk> pcf@galadriel.bt.co.uk (Pete French) writes:
> From article <119830@sun.Eng.Sun.COM>, by argv%eureka@Sun.COM (Dan Heller):
> > 
> > I opted for the last one.  Perhaps it would be nice to set up an automation
> > script that can do this automatically (of course, authentication would be
> > highly desired :-).  Just email to "uukill@offending.site" and the subject
> > would contain the job to kill..  just an idea.

> How would you specify the message that you wanted to kill ? And if you
> could then how would you stop other people blatting your outgoing mail ?

Uucp just sent you a message saying, "to kill the mail, issue the command
uustat -k..."  Well, you simply mail that same job number to the uustat
server.  If the job is still queued, it has the envelope for the message
going out -- just check that address against yours and verify that they
are the same.  After all, uucp successfully sent a message back to the
originating site of the mail that is queued, it should certainly be able
to check that the address is contructed to send you that mail matches the
the return address on the mail you just sent it.

Further, the uustat server could also reply to queries about what's in its
queue -- that way, you could check on things that are outgoing from that site.

Again, this "feature" would only work if the uustat server successfully
verified that the requestor's address matched the return address of the
originating author.  Short of that, the person must mail the postmaster
at that site and ask that person to do it manually.


dan <island!argv@sun.com>
-----
My postings reflect my opinion only -- not the opinion of any company.

les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) (08/11/89)

In article <120415@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> argv@sun.UUCP (Dan Heller) writes:
[ ..remote uustat server to kill jobs..]

>> How would you specify the message that you wanted to kill ? And if you
>> could then how would you stop other people blatting your outgoing mail ?

>Uucp just sent you a message saying, "to kill the mail, issue the command
>uustat -k..."  Well, you simply mail that same job number to the uustat
>server.  If the job is still queued, it has the envelope for the message
>going out -- just check that address against yours and verify that they
>are the same. 

The problem here is that it is trivial to fake authorship of uucp
mail.  SysV mail uses the environment variable LOGNAME as the
sender, so:
LOGNAME=you mail somewhere!someone
is all it takes.

>Further, the uustat server could also reply to queries about what's in its
>queue -- that way, you could check on things that are outgoing from that site.

This might be the ticket. Receiving mail is fairly secure, so if the uustat
server mailed you back a magic cookie id that couldn't be obtained any other
way, knowing that id could allow you to delete the job.  If you fake the
sender's name on the outgoing message, the real user will get the returned
information. The normal uustat id number would not work as well, since it
can be obtained by anyone with access to the machine.

Les Mikesell