uucp(1bnu)

uucp, uulog, uuname -- UNIX-to-UNIX system copy

Synopsis

uucp [options] source_files destination_file

uulog [options] system

uuname [options]

Description

The uucp command copies files named by the source_files arguments to the destination_file argument.

The uulog command queries a log file of uucp or uuxqt transactions in the file /var/uucp/.Log/uucico/system or /var/uucp/.Log/uuxqt/system.

The uuname command lists the names of systems known to uucp.

Files

/etc/uucp/Systems
/etc/uucp/Permissions
/etc/uucp/Devices
/etc/uucp/Devconfig
/etc/uucp/Sysfiles
/etc/uucp/Limits
/usr/lib/uucp/*
/var/spool/uucp/*
/var/spool/locks/*
/var/spool/uucppublic/*
/usr/lib/locale/locale/LC_MESSAGES/uxbnu

Usage

Uucp

A source filename may be a pathname on your machine or may have the form:

system_name!pathname

where system_name is taken from a list of system names that uucp knows about. The destination system_name may also include a list of system names such as:

system_name!system_name!...!system_name!pathname

In this case, an attempt is made to send the file, via the specified route, to the destination. Care should be taken to ensure that intermediate nodes in the route are willing to forward information. The shell metacharacters ``?'', ``*'' and ``[...]'' appearing in pathname will be expanded on the appropriate system.

These utilities process supplementary code set characters according to the locale specified in the LC_CTYPE environment variable (see LANG on environ(5)), except that system-dependent names (for example, user names) and grade given to the -g option (see below) must be specified in ASCII characters. When shell metacharacters are used, the target system must also be able to process supplementary code set characters.

Pathnames may be one of:

a full pathname
a pathname preceded by ~user where user is a login name on the specified system and is replaced by that user's login directory
a pathname preceded by ~destination where destination is appended to /var/spool/uucppublic; note that this destination will be treated as a filename unless more than one file is being transferred by this request or the destination is already a directory; to ensure that it is a directory, follow the destination with a ``/''; for example, ~/dan/ as the destination will make the directory /var/spool/uucppublic/dan if it does not exist and put the requested file(s) in that directory
anything else is prefixed by the current directory

If the result is an erroneous pathname for the remote system, the copy will fail. If destination_file is a directory, the last part of the source_files name is used.

uucp removes execute permissions across the transmission and gives the following read, write, and ownership permissions (see chmod(2)):

with uucp files being transferred to a user who has a valid login on the destination system, the directory created will have 0770 permissions, the file(s) will have 0660 permissions, and they will be owned by the destination user
with uucp files being transferred to a non-existent user (for example, due to a typographical error) on the destination system, the directory created will have 1777 permissions (sticky bit turned on) and the file(s) will have 0666 permissions, and will be owned by uucp.

The -m option will only work when sending files or receiving a single file. Receiving multiple files specified by special shell characters ``?'', ``

'' and ``[...]'' will not activate the -m option.

The forwarding of files through other systems may not be compatible with the previous version of uucp. If forwarding is used, all systems in the route must have compatible versions of uucp.

The uucp command takes the following options:

-c: Do not copy local file to the spool directory for transfer to the remote machine (default).
-C: Force the copy of local files to the spool directory for transfer.
-d: Make all necessary directories for the file copy (default).
-f: Do not make intermediate directories for the file copy.
-g grade: grade can be either a single ASCII letter/number or a string of ASCII alphanumeric characters defining a service grade. The uuglist(1bnu) command can determine whether it is appropriate to use the single letter/number or a string of alphanumeric characters as a service grade. The output from uuglist will be a list of service grades that are available or a message that says to use a single letter/number as a grade of service.
-j: Output the uucp job identification string on the standard output. This job identification can be used by uustat(1bnu) to obtain the status of, or to terminate a uucp job. It is valid as long as the job remains queued on the local system.
-m: Send mail to the requester when the copy is completed.
-n user: Notify user on the remote system that a file was sent.
-r: Do not start the file transfer, just queue the job.
-s file: Report status of the transfer to file. This option overrides the -m option. When the status file is created, it is assigned the owner (chown(1)) and group (chgrp(1)) attributes of the parent directory. The parent directory where the status file is to be written must be publically writable to allow uucp to create the status file. If file already exists, it must be publically writable, so that uucp can append the status information to it.
-w: If a file exists in the target directory with the same name as the file being transferred, do not overwrite the existing file. Instead, try to create a new file. If the file is named file, create file.N where N is a two-digit number. The number appended to the filename will begin with 00 and will increase by 1 for each subsequent file of the same name to a maximum of 99. If another version of the file cannot be created, the user is notified by mail.
If the length of the filename is equal to the maximum for the system, no new version is created. If the length of the filename is less than the maximum for the system but the filename and the suffix are greater than the maximum, the suffix will be truncated. It is therefore possible for files whose names are one or two characters shorter than the maximum system filename length to be overwritten.
-x debug_level: Produce debugging output on standard output. debug_level is an integer between 0 and 9 inclusive; as it increases to 9, more detailed debugging information is given. This option may not be available on all systems.

Uulog

The uulog command takes the following options:

-s system: Print logging information about file transfer work involving system system.
-f system: Performs a tail -f of the file transfer log for system. (You must hit <Break> to exit this function.)
-x: Look in the uuxqt log file for the given system.
-number: Indicates that a tail command of number lines should be executed.

uulog with no options prints all logging information for every system that has contacted your machine.

Uuname

The uuname command takes the following options:

-c: Return the names of systems known to cu. The two lists are the same, unless your machine is using different /etc/uucp/System files for cu and uucp (see Sysfiles(4bnu)).
-l: Return the local system name.

Warnings

For security reasons, the domain of remotely accessible files may be severely restricted. You may not be able to access files by pathname. You may also not be able to send files to arbitrary pathnames. As distributed, the remotely accessible files are those whose names begin /var/spool/uucppublic (equivalent to ~/).

Protected files and files that are in protected directories that are owned by the requester can be sent by uucp. However, if the requester is root, and the directory is not searchable by other or the file is not readable by other, the request will fail.

When using uucp, it is currently not possible to configure the character size and parity for the connection. This information is hard-coded in uucpio. uucp attempts to establish a connection with a character size of 7 bits and even parity. If the remote system is not using this mode (or a compatible mode), the attempt to establish a connection will fail. If the connection succeeds, all subsequent data transfers will use full 8-bit characters.

References

chmod(2), Config(4bnu), Devices(4bnu), environ(5), mail(1), Permissions(4bnu), Systems(4bnu), Sysfiles(4bnu), uuglist(1bnu), uustat(1bnu), uux(1bnu), uuxqt(1Mbnu)