uucp(1)

NAME

uucp, uulog, uuname, uutry — UNIX system to UNIX system copy

SYNOPSIS

uucp [options] source_files destination_file

uulog -f system [-x] [- number]

uulog [-s system]... [-x] [- number]

uuname [-l]

uutry -r1 -s system [-x debug_level]

DESCRIPTION

uucp copies files named by the source_files argument to the destination identified by the destination_file argument. When copying files to or from a remote system, source_files and destination_file can be a path name on the local system, or have the form:

system_name!path_name

where system_name is the name of a remote system in a list of system names known to uucp. When copying files to (but not from) a remote system, system_name can also be a chained list of remote system names such as:

system_name!system_name!...! system_name!path_name

in which 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 configured to forward information (see WARNINGS for restrictions).

The shell metacharacters ?, *, and [...] appearing in path_name are expanded on the appropriate system.

path_name can be one of:

A full path name.
A path name preceded by ~user where user is a login name on the specified system and ~user is replaced by that user's login directory. (If an invalid login is specified, the default public directory (/var/spool/uucppublic) is used instead.
A path name preceded by ~/destination where destination is appended to /var/spool/uucppublic.
Note: This destination is treated as a file name unless more than one file is being transferred by this request or the destination is already a directory. To ensure that destination is a directory, append a / to the destination argument. For example, ~/dan/ as the destination argument causes directory /var/spool/uucppublic/dan to be created if it does not already exist, and places the requested file or files in that directory.
Anything else is prefixed by the current directory.

If an erroneous path name is specified for the remote system, the copy fails. If destination_file is a directory, the file name part of the source_file argument is used.

uucp preserves execute permissions across the transmission and sets read and write permissions to 0666 (see chmod(2) and Access Control Lists below).

Options

uucp recognizes 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.
-ggrade: grade is a single letter or number. A lower ASCII sequence value for grade causes the job to be transmitted earlier in a given conversation between systems.
-j: Output the ASCII job identification string on standard output. This job identification can be used by uustat to obtain the status or terminate a job (see uustat(1)).
-mfile: Send mail to the requester when the copy is completed.
-nuser: Notify user on the remote system that a file was sent.
-r: Do not start the file transfer; just queue the job.
-sfile: Report status of the transfer to file. Note that file must be a full path name.
-x debug_level: Produce debugging on standard output. debug_level is a number between 0 and 9; higher numbers give more information.

uulog

uulog queries a log file of uucp transactions in a file /var/uucp/.Log/uucico/ system.

The following options cause uulog to print logging information:

-s system: Print information about work involving system.
-f system: Do a tail -f (see tail(1)) of the file transfer log for system.

Other options used in conjunction with the -s and -f options above are:

-x: Search for the given system in the /var/uucp/.Log/uuxqt/system file instead of in the uucico log file.
-number: Do a tail(1) command of number lines.

uuname

uuname lists the uucp names of known systems. uuname -l returns the local system's default name.

uutry

uutry tests for the successful login to the remote system. This is executed for checking communication channel.

-r1: Starts uutry in the MASTER mode. The default is SLAVE mode.
-s system: Do work only for the system specified by system. If there is no work for system on the local spool directory, initiate a connection to system to determine if system has work for the local system. This option must be used if -r1 is specified.
-x debug_level: Produce debugging on standard output. debug_level is a number between 0 and 9; higher numbers give more information.

When started by a local program, uutry is considered the MASTER and attempts a connection to a remote system. If uutry is started by a remote system, it is considered to be in SLAVE mode.

Access Control Lists (ACLs)

A file's optional ACL entries are not preserved across uucp transmission. Instead, new files have a summary of the access modes (as returned in st_mode by stat(); see stat(2)).

EXTERNAL INFLUENCES

Environment Variables

LC_TIME determines the format and contents of date and time strings displayed by uucp and uulog commands.

LANG determines the language in which messages are displayed by uucp and uuname commands.

If LC_TIME is not specified in the environment or is set to the empty string, the value of LANG is used as a default for each unspecified or empty variable. If LANG is not specified or is set to the empty string, a default of "C" (see lang(5)) is used instead of LANG. If any internationalization variable contains an invalid setting, uucp, uulog, and uuname behave as if all internationalization variables are set to "C". See environ(5).

International Code Set Support

Single- and multibyte character code sets are supported with the exception that multibyte-character file names are not supported.

WARNINGS

The domain of remotely accessible files can (and for obvious security reasons, usually should) be severely restricted. In most cases, you cannot fetch files by path name from a remote system. Ask a responsible person on the remote system to send them to you. For the same reasons, you probably cannot send files to arbitrary path names. As distributed, remotely accessible files are those whose names begin /var/spool/uucppublic (equivalent to ~/).

All files received by uucp are owned by uucp.

The -m option only works when sending files or when receiving a single file. Receiving multiple files specified by special shell characters ?, *, and [...] does not activate the -m option.

Protected files and files in protected directories 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 fails.

uutry should be executed only with a request file that exists in the directory /var/spool/uucp/system_name/.

FILES

/etc/uucp: Configuration files
/var/uucp: Log and error files
/var/spool/uucp: Spool directories
/var/spool/locks: Lock files
/var/spool/uucppublic: Public directory for receiving and sending

STANDARDS CONFORMANCE

uucp: SVID2, SVID3, XPG2, XPG3

uulog: SVID2, SVID3, XPG2, XPG3

uuname: SVID2, SVID3, XPG2, XPG3