+This directory contains a number of modifications to UUCP that
+are useful for news. Only the minus.z mod is really crucial,
+the others are there primarily to boost performance so as to
+cut down on the load on your machine. There are many other
+mods to UUCP kicking around - many bug fixes and security improvements.
+Watch net.bugs.uucp for these. One large mod that is very useful
+is the Duke uudir mod, which puts files in SPOOL into subdirectories.
+This mod is very much a kludge, and it certainly could be done
+better, but until a wonderful version is made available, substantial
+performance gains can be attained. (Since scanning a UNIX directory
+is quadratic on the size of the directory, the 5-fold reduction in
+directory size from uudir can result in a factor of 25 improvement
+in disk utilization.) uudir is easy to install in any UUCP, but
+it contains some assembly language code, which has been written
+only for the VAX and PDP-11. All these changes are transparent to
+your UUCP neighbors - you can still talk to UUCP's that don't have
+these mods made - you can even exchange news with older systems.
+(Batching, with or without the =batch mod, requires at least a 2.10
+news system on the other end.)
+
+minus.z.5
+minux.z.v7
+ This mod implements the -z and -n options to uux. These
+ prevent uuxqt from mailing back annoying little messages to
+ whoever happened to start up the uucico daemon telling them
+ that the rnews command executed OK. -z says "only send a message
+ if the rnews command bombed out", -n says "never send one".
+ -z is recommended. In order for your users not to be bombarded
+ with these messages, all your USENET neighbors must install this.
+ "5" is for System V and UNIX 5.0, "v7" is for V7 and 4BSD.
+cpu.speedup
+ A simple fix to V7 and 4BSD UUCP to keep uicico from eating up
+ all the CPU time on your system when receiving files. Highly
+ recommended, especially if all your traffic is at 2400 baud
+ or slower.
+uux.minus.c
+ A mod to uux.c to support a uux -c option, e.g.
+ uux -c yoursys!rnews '<' /usr/spool/news/net/news/123
+ which prevents uux from making a separate copy of each article
+ in the spool directory for each system.
+=batch
+ Code to allow commands such as
+ uux -c yoursys!rnews '<' =/usr/lib/news/batch_/usr/spool/batch/yoursys
+ so that, once the connection is fired up and ready to transfer the
+ file, the command "/usr/lib/news/batch /usr/spool/batch/yoursys"
+ will be started up, and its output copied to the other system.
+ The advantage here is that batching is possible without keeping
+ a full copy of the news on spool waiting for a connection to
+ be established. This can be a big win if the other system is
+ down for any length of time. It does not good without the
+ uux.minus.c mod below. Beware of security issues - they have
+ not been carefully addressed here, and this mod opens up some
+ potential security holes. It only allows one command to
+ be fired up, and batch should check that the file of names
+ is in a safe directory (not /usr/lib/uucp/L.sys or /etc/passwd).
+ Ideally batch should be suid, since the command will run as uucp.
projects / unix-history / commitdiff