[comp.unix.xenix.sco] xnx155b munges uucp system names

russ@bbx.basis.com (Russ Kepler) (04/25/91)

I just installed xnx155b and found, to my distaste, that SCO has
managed to attempt to limit all outgoing and incoming system names to
7 characters.  This really munged the news connections as news was
being queued up for system 12345678 when the incoming connection was
looking in directory 1234567.  I wish that it had just been left
alone...

Anyone else encounter this?  Am I alone in being all pissed off 'cause
I had to changes Systems, Permissions, half of /usr/lib/news, etc.?

-- 
Russ Kepler -  Basis Int'l     SNAIL:  5901 Jefferson NE, Albuquerque, NM 87109
UUCP: bbx.basis.com!russ                                    PHONE: 505-345-5232

chip@chinacat.Unicom.COM (Chip Rosenthal) (04/28/91)

In article <1320@bbx.basis.com> russ@bbx.basis.com (Russ Kepler) writes:
>I just installed xnx155b and found, to my distaste, that SCO has
>managed to attempt to limit all outgoing and incoming system names to
>7 characters.  [...] Am I alone in being all pissed off 'cause
>I had to changes Systems, Permissions, half of /usr/lib/news, etc.?

Possibly - I have no idea why you had to change all that stuff.

Yeah, the truncation is a pain in the butt if you happen to run a
machine with a name like...well...say for example...`chinacat'.  The
day I installed xnx155b my uucp connections started gagging saying `I
don't know you.'

In the end, I only had to change two things to get around the truncation.
First, I had to put `MYNAME=chinacat' in all the Permissions entries.
Second, my script which creates `C.sitenamn0000' files to force a poll
had to be modified.

But even with uucp neighbors like `cs.utexas.edu' everything else
continued to work fine.

I actually spent a little time looking at the uucico binary, and found
the strncpy() which appears to truncate the local sitename.  In the
end, I thought it was better and easier to just use MYNAME= (which is
not subject to 7-char truncation) rather than patch the uucp binaries.

Has anybody out there running 2.3.4 seen if this feature has been fixed?
-- 
Chip Rosenthal  512-482-8260  |
Unicom Systems Development    |    I saw Elvis in my wtmp file.
<chip@chinacat.Unicom.COM>    |

russ@bbx.basis.com (Russ Kepler) (05/01/91)

In article <1967@chinacat.Unicom.COM> chip@chinacat.Unicom.COM (Chip Rosenthal) writes:
>In article <1320@bbx.basis.com> russ@bbx.basis.com (Russ Kepler) writes:
>>I just installed xnx155b and found, to my distaste, that SCO has
>>managed to attempt to limit all outgoing and incoming system names to
>>7 characters.  [...] Am I alone in being all pissed off 'cause
>>I had to changes Systems, Permissions, half of /usr/lib/news, etc.?
>
>Possibly - I have no idea why you had to change all that stuff.

We figured it out while talking to SCO Support.  It seems that I had
many of the SLS fixes, and had installed VP/ix.  This made the system
report version 2.3.3 as being installed: but we had never added update
R.

Adding update R added the truncating versions of uux, etc.  All seems
to be OK, so far.  I'll put the system names back and see what happens.

-- 
Russ Kepler -  Basis Int'l     SNAIL:  5901 Jefferson NE, Albuquerque, NM 87109
UUCP: bbx.basis.com!russ                                    PHONE: 505-345-5232

paulz@sco.COM (W. Paul Zola) (05/07/91)

In article <1320@bbx.basis.com> russ@bbx.basis.com (Russ Kepler) writes:
}I just installed xnx155b and found, to my distaste, that SCO has
}managed to attempt to limit all outgoing and incoming system names to
}7 characters.  This really munged the news connections as news was
}being queued up for system 12345678 when the incoming connection was
}looking in directory 1234567.  I wish that it had just been left
}alone...
}

This is a *feature*.  No, really.  It was put in as a local fix when
trying to deal with a brain-dead BSD system which truncated system
names to 7 characters on the remote side.  As I recall, the resulting
mess was Not Pretty.

}Anyone else encounter this?  Am I alone in being all pissed off 'cause
}I had to changes Systems, Permissions, half of /usr/lib/news, etc.?


What did you have to do besides putting MYNAME=bbx in your Permissions
file?  (That should have taken care of it.)

}
}-- 
}Russ Kepler -  Basis Int'l     SNAIL:  5901 Jefferson NE, Albuquerque, NM 87109
}UUCP: bbx.basis.com!russ                                    PHONE: 505-345-5232


-
Paul Zola			Support Technical Lead, Operating System
				paulz@sco.COM 
Gotta tend the earth if you want a rose.  - Emily Saliers
    DISCLAIMER: I speak for myself, and not for SCO.

russ@bbx.basis.com (Russ Kepler) (05/07/91)

In article <16679@scorn.sco.COM> paulz@sco.COM (W. Paul Zola) writes:
>
>In article <1320@bbx.basis.com> russ@bbx.basis.com (Russ Kepler) writes:
>}[my tale of woe with xnx155 deleted]
>
>[feature vs. bug response deleted]
>
>What did you have to do besides putting MYNAME=bbx in your Permissions
>file?  (That should have taken care of it.)

It wasn't what I did, or what SCO did; it's what we didn't do.  The
xnx155 release docs said to install on a SCO > 2.3.2, and mine booted
with 2.3.3

Unfortunately for both of us, there's a way to get to 2.3.3 without
getting all of the nifty uucp changes in update R (xnx137) - and
that's by installing VP/ix.  VP/ix will take you from 2.3.0 to 2.3.3
without all of the fuss and bother of updating your utilities and
kernel and stuff.  Even more unfortunately, xnx155 doesn't check the
current level of the /etc/perms/{whatever}, allowing idiots like 
myself to thoroughly mung their systems.

Anyway, once this was recognized, I applied xnx137, xnx155 and things
appear to be back to normal.  You *never* want a uux that doesn't
truncate in combination with a uucico that does.  This leaves
directories full of stuff hanging around in /usr/spool/uucp, and a
frustrated uucico, pissed off folks trying to get uucp traffic in/out,
and a pissed system admin wondering just why he bothers to apply an
update.

Some fun, huh gang?

-- 
Russ Kepler -  Basis Int'l     SNAIL:  5901 Jefferson NE, Albuquerque, NM 87109
UUCP: bbx.basis.com!russ                                    PHONE: 505-345-5232