Taylor UUCP 1.07

Taylor UUCP was written by Ian Lance Taylor. I can be reached at ian@airs.com.

Feel free to download the source code or read the documentation.

There is a mailing list for discussion of the package. To join (or get off) the list, send mail to taylor-uucp-request@gnu.org. Mail to this address is answered by a person, not a program. When joining the list, make sure you include the address at which you want to receive mail in the body of your message. To send a message to the list, send it to taylor-uucp@gnu.org.

Taylor UUCP is covered by the GNU Public License. If you would like to do something with this package that you feel is reasonable but you feel is prohibited by the license, contact me to see if we can work it out.

What it is

This is the complete source code for a Unix UUCP package. It provides everything you need to make a UUCP connection. It includes versions of uucico, uusched, uuxqt, uux, uucp, uustat, uulog, uuname, uuto, uupick, and cu, as well as uuchk (a program to check configuration files), uuconv (a program to convert from one type of configuration file to another) and tstuu (a test harness for the package).

This is the standard UUCP package of the Free Software Foundation.

The package currently supports the f, g (in all window and packet sizes), G, t and e protocols, as well a Zmodem protocol and two new bidirectional protocols. If you have a Berkeley sockets library, it can make TCP connections. If you have TLI libraries, it can make TLI connections. It supports a new configuration file mechanism which I like (but other people dislike).

The package has a few advantages over regular UUCP:

• You get the source code.
• It uses significantly less CPU time than many UUCP packages.
• You can specify a chat script to run when a system calls in, allowing adjustment of modem parameters on a per system basis.
• You can specify failure strings for chat scripts, allowing the chat script to fail immediately if the modem returns BUSY.
• If you are talking to another instance of the package, you can use the new bidirectional protocol for rapid data transfer in both directions at once. You can also restrict file transfers by size based on the time of day and who placed the call.

On the other hand:

• It only runs on Unix. The code is carefully divided into system dependent and system independent portions, so it should be possible to port it to other systems. It would not be trivial.
• You don't get uuclean, uusend, uuq, uusnap, uumonitor, uutry, uupoll, etc. If you have current copies of these programs, you may be able to use them. Shell scripts versions of uuclean and uutry are provided, with most, if not all, of the functionality of the usual programs. I believe the supplied uustat program allows you to do everything that uuq, uusnap and uumonitor do. uupoll could be written as a shell script.
• The package does not read modemcap or acucap files, although you can use V2 configuration files with a BNU Dialers file or a dialer file written in my new configuration file format.
• The package cannot use SCO dialer programs directly, although it can with a simple shell script interface.

The O'Reilly Linux Network Administrator's Guide has some discussion of Taylor UUCP. The O'Reilly Using and Managing UUCP book appears to be out of print.