Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen
From: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (Wm E. Davidsen Jr)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386
Subject: Re: UUCP over ethernet
Message-ID: <899@sixhub.UUCP>
Date: 2 May 90 22:45:03 GMT
References: <70400005@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <1990May2.044758.22817@cs.columbia.edu>
Reply-To: davidsen@sixhub.UUCP (bill davidsen)
Organization: *IX Public Access UNIX, Schenectady NY
Lines: 38

In article <1990May2.044758.22817@cs.columbia.edu> ji@close.UUCP (John Ioannidis) writes:

| It doesn't really make sense to run UUCP over ethernet. Why not use
| ftp or rcp (or just NFS) to transfer files, and sendmail for mail?

  Not true in mant cases. uucp and uux are store and forward protocols,
which do not require that both machines be up at the instant you enter
the command. NFS, rcp, rsh all fail if the other system is down. Both
techniques have their good points, and there is no "wrong way" other
than to assume that either way will be best for all cases.


| Of course not! You are not supposed to do uucp that way. ANyway, if you 
| insist, the easiest way to do it is write a small program that opens
| a tty/pty pair and 'attaches' the master end to a telnet to the
| target machine. Your local uucp can then access the slave part of the
| tty/pty pair (/dev/ttyp?) and use it as if it were a normal tty. if all goes
| well, when you connect your local uucp process to the pseudo tty, it will
| see the login: prompt of the remote machine. It can then proceed to log
| on as uucp etc.

  Exactly so. And many versions of uucp provide a way to do this for
you, although there may still be a need to write your own. Pretty good
explanation of how to do it from someone who doesn't see why you do it
at all ;-)
| 
| I'm still not sure why you want to do that. Trying to exploit uucp 
| security holes again? :-) :-) :-)

  I think the reasons listed above are sufficient, particularly the uux
example, since for something which doesn't just use stdin/stdout you
need to ftp the input files, run on the remote machine, and ftp the
results back (deleting the files of course). uux does all this for you.
-- 
bill davidsen - davidsen@sixhub.uucp (uunet!crdgw1!sixhub!davidsen)
    sysop *IX BBS and Public Access UNIX
    moderator of comp.binaries.ibm.pc and 80386 mailing list
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -me