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From: grr@cbmvax.cbm.UUCP (George Robbins)
Newsgroups: net.news.adm
Subject: Re: Annoying completion messages from uuxqt
Message-ID: <596@cbmvax.cbmvax.cbm.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 8-Aug-86 22:47:13 EDT
Article-I.D.: cbmvax.596
Posted: Fri Aug  8 22:47:13 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 11-Aug-86 02:27:24 EDT
References: <117@tslvax.UUCP>
Reply-To: grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins)
Distribution: net
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 48

In article <117@tslvax.UUCP> tim@tslvax.UUCP (Timothy Beres) writes:
>
>	For about 7 months now (I'm busy) our newsfeed is sent by us (tslvax)
>the following message to root after news (only news, not mail)
>is done:
>
>	uuxqt cmd (rcnews) status (exit 0, signal 0)
>
>Being that I have had a few spare nanoseconds, I thought I would track
>this down.  I came up with zero.  I thought it was because our uucp lacked
>the -z option, as explained in the USENET installation manual; our uucp,
>however, does have this option.  I reviewed our news* programs and 
>...!ihnp4!{duke, akgua}!ucf-cs!tslvax!tim 		Tim Beres
>Tech-Source # subsidiary of Ciprico, Inc.

The problem is most likely that the system feeding you is not sending
your system the flag corresponding to the -z or -n on it's end.

First, check that they are actually trying to send you the flag - many
flavors of uucp default to no messages if no error, or make special
allowances for programs named 'rmail' or 'rnews', so they may never have
had to bother with the switch.

Unfortunatly, the news installation documents make an issue of these
switches but don't clearly explain what's going on.  And if they are
not implemented or documented on your system, then things can really
get confusing.

Here:

-z	Send completion messages only for non-zero return codes
-n	Never send completion messages

	Defaults vary and may be sensitive to particular program names.

The simplest way I've found to test the action of the various switches
is to add the programs 'true' and 'false' to your L-commands file, and
then remotely try to execute these with different switches.  You can also
create something called rnews which is actually a link to true or false.

If the sytem feeding you has a flavor of uucp that can't generate either
switch, it's not too hard to patch their uux executable to modifiy the
sprintf format used to write the command so that it includes the -n
option.  Too messy to explain here...
-- 
George Robbins - now working with,	uucp: {ihnp4|seismo|caip}!cbmvax!grr
but no way officially representing	arpa: cbmvax!grr@seismo.css.GOV
Commodore, Engineering Department	fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)