Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sun-barr!olivea!orc!inews!iwarp.intel.com!gargoyle!chinet!les
From: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: master mode only for uucico (question)
Message-ID: <1991Feb11.203846.27941@chinet.chi.il.us>
Date: 11 Feb 91 20:38:46 GMT
References: <1CE00001.2n6sxi@tbomb.ice.com>
Organization: Chinet - Chicago Public Access UNIX
Lines: 58

In article <1CE00001.2n6sxi@tbomb.ice.com> time@ice.com writes:
>
>In article <1991Feb04.211030.5635@chinet.chi.il.us>, les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) writes:
>> The REQUEST option applies to either inbound or outbound calls and
>> determines whether you will allow their requests to be handled
>> (i.e. in slave mode).  The SENDFILES option is only significant
>> for inbound calls (according to LOGNAME) and determines whether
>> you will send work you have already queued on this connection or
>> wait until you call them.

>I know it took me several times of reading this to realize that Les
>was saying what I was thinking.

Actually, I was mislead by the documentation as well.  From AT&T's
Operation/System Administraton guide for SysV3.2 (386):

  "The REQUEST option specifies whether or not the remote machine can
   request to set up file transfers from your computer."

Even though the rest of the context talked about the called machine
requesting files to be transferred to it, I took the meaning to
be that REQUEST referred to a command from the called machine
requesting a transfer in either direction.  I was wrong.

>To make it more blunt for persons
>like myself, what Les was saying here is that UUCP allows a host to
>both send a file (S command) and request a file (R command).

In fact, setting REQUEST=no means that any R commands from the remote
are denied and discarded with an error message. (These are generated on
the other machine with commands like:
    uucp your_machine!file /usr/spool/uucppublic
to create a request for a remote file). 

>The send and request commands can be executed in either call out or
>call in cases, but a given host only *services* requests in SLAVE mode.
>The requestor is of course in MASTER mode.

The calling machine starts out in MASTER mode, completes all the locally
queued commands, and then the machines switch roles.  The original
question was about preventing the switch to slave mode, and now it
appears that it can't be done.  Setting SENDFILES=call on both
machines might be what is really wanted, though.  This will keep
each machine from sending locally queued files back to the
caller (that is, it will wait until it has placed its own call)
but it requires the cooperation of the other site.

>This way, my machine can call your machine and say "I am requesting
>file FILENAME please send it now". I do not need to execute a uucp
>command on the other host. The REQUESTS=yes/no entry in the
>permissions file determines if the host is allowed to make such
>requests.

This is correct, but now I'm not sure what the original question was
trying to accomplish.

Les Mikesell
  les@chinet.chi.il.us