Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!decvax!ittvax!swatt
From: swatt@ittvax.UUCP (Alan S. Watt)
Newsgroups: net.news,net.bugs.uucp
Subject: Re: UUCP local file naming
Message-ID: <923@ittvax.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 11-Aug-83 11:44:45 EDT
Article-I.D.: ittvax.923
Posted: Thu Aug 11 11:44:45 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 11-Aug-83 19:01:04 EDT
References: csu-cs.2354
Lines: 69

I am glad awareness of this serious UUCP bug has hit a significant
number of net sites.  I have come up with several possible solutions.

  1)	Use Lauren's naming scheme for the "D." files such that
	when queued in the originating system, they are named

		D.<destination_system><seqno>
	
	but when they arrive at the destination system they
	are renamed

		D.<origin_system><seqno>
	
	As people have noted, this cannot be implemented on
	only a partial set of systems, as it will increase collision
	chances for systems running the original code.  To make
	it work, you would have to use subdirectories, or at least
	one for all "incoming" work.

	The file naming nonsense is spread out in several places in
	"uucp.c" and "uux.c", and perhaps others as well.  I looked
	into this slightly and it was a bit of a mess.  If you don't
	mind just calling "gename" several times, it is easy, but this
	is expensive unless your sequence numbers are cached (UUCP
	hack published long ago).

  2)	Use the "grade" character to differentiate incoming and
	outgoing stuff.  I, and perhaps others, do use this for
	its intended purpose of assigning priorities to work
	in the queues, but this only affects "C." and "X." files;
	its significance for "D." files is unused at present.
	"O" and "I" could be used to differentiate inbound and outbound
	data files.

	Similar comments as above.

  3)	Use "D.<mumble>" for outgoing stuff, and rename it to
	"d.<same_mumble>" when it arrives at the destination system.

	Same comments as above.

The problem with all of these methods is they require everyone to
adopt the same standards.  Hence my preferred (at present) method:

  4)	Create a separate directory in the UUCP spool directory
	for each system with which you connect.  Fix uucico to prefix
	all incoming spool-destined files with this system name.  Fix
	uuxqt to look there for work based on the "S" line in the "X."
	file which specifies origin system.

	You do have to be careful that uucico's idea of the current
	remote system is always correct, but I can't recall finding
	any bugs on this score.

	This can be done on the local system regardless of what the
	rest of the UUCP world does.

	I also feel a bit less queasy about this hack because I have
	already been into the appropriate places of uucico and uuxqt
	and have a clear idea of what to do.  It does add an extra
	step to the process of adding a new system connection however,
	as you have to create the new subdirectory.

I also tend to prefer this approach because I think the subdirectories
should be named for the system, not the arbitrary "C.", "D.", "X." files
and whatever else is leftover from UUCP kludgery.

	- Alan S. Watt
	(decvax!ittvax!swatt)