Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!uunet!lll-winken!pacbell!rtech!ralph
From: ralph@rtech.rtech.com (Ralph Harnden)
Newsgroups: unix-pc.general
Subject: Using ksh for command escapes from UA (UNIXPC)
Keywords: ua, ksh, !commands, UNIXPC
Message-ID: <2507@rtech.rtech.com>
Date: 30 Oct 88 02:33:32 GMT
Distribution: unix-pc
Organization: Relational Technology Inc. Alameda, CA 94501
Lines: 26

Ingore this article if you don't use the User Agent (UA) on your UNIXPC.  

When using "!command" to invoke commands from UA windows, it seems that UA
fork/exec's /usr/lib/ua/uasetx, passing the parameters "/bin/sh -c command".
Uasetx, in turn, seems to fork/exec the shell (first parameter) to invoke
the command.  And the shell, in turn, fork/exec's the command.  

UA ignores the $SHELL environment variable when invoking uasetx.  And 
uasetx ingores $SHELL.  If command is a ksh alias, you lose.

Am I missing something here?  Is there any way to coerce UA into using
ksh instead?

To circumvent this problem, I used bpe to zap the appropriate constant 
"/bin/sh" to "/bin/ks" in /usr/bin/ua, and I "ln /bin/ksh /bin/ks".
Works fine -- UA now uses ksh to invoke !commands, and alias' work.

I am running 3.5.1.4 (?), but the correct "/bin/sh" is just past the
message "You must be an expert to execute shell commands".  Probably
the same in 3.51.  

Anybody:  Is there an easier way?  If not, I hope this helps....

-- 
"People will do anything for a potato"

{amdahl, mtxinu, pacbell, sun}!rtech!gusano!ralph ralph%gusano@rtech.com