This chapter explains how to start UUCP operations after you have modified the database file that is relevant to your machines. The chapter contains procedures and troubleshooting information for setting up and maintaining UUCP on machines that run the Solaris OS, such as the following:UUCP Administration (Task Map) Adding UUCP Logins Starting UUCP Running UUCP Over TCP/IP UUCP Security and Maintenance Troubleshooting UUCP The following table provides pointers to the procedures that are covered in this chapter, in addition to a short description of each procedure.Task Description For Instructions Allow remote machines to have access to your system Edit the /etc/passwd file to add entries to identify the machines that are permitted to access your system. How to Add UUCP Logins Start UUCP Use the supplied shell scripts to start UUCP. How to Start UUCP Enable UUCP to work with TCP/IP Edit /etc/inetd.conf and /etc/uucp/Systems files to activate UUCP for TCP/IP. How to Activate UUCP for TCP/IP Troubleshoot some common UUCP problems Use diagnostic steps to check for faulty modems or ACUs. How to Check for Faulty Modems or ACUs Use diagnostic steps to debug transmissions. How to Debug Transmissions For incoming UUCP (uucico) requests from remote machines to be handled properly, each machine has to have a login on your system. To allow a remote machine to access your system, you need to add an entry to the /etc/passwd file as follows: &rolestepA;Edit the /etc/passwd file and add the entry to identify the machine that is permitted to access your system.A typical entry that you might put into the /etc/passwd file for a remote machine that is permitted to access your system with a UUCP connection would be as follows: Ugobi:*:5:5:gobi:/var/spool/uucppublic:/usr/lib/uucp/uucico By convention, the login name of a remote machine is the machine name preceded by the uppercase letter U. Note that the name should not exceed eight characters. Otherwise, you might have to truncate or abbreviate the name. The previous entry shows that a login request by Ugobi is answered by /usr/lib/uucp/uucico. The home directory is /var/spool/uucppublic. The password is obtained from the /etc/shadow file. You must coordinate the password and the login name with the UUCP administrator of the remote machine. The remote administrator must then add an appropriate entry, with login name and unencrypted password, in the remote machine's Systems file. Coordinate your machine name with the UUCP administrators on other systems.Similarly, you must coordinate your machine's name and password with the UUCP administrators of all machines that you want to reach through UUCP. UUCP includes four shell scripts that poll remote machines, reschedule transmissions, and clean up old log files and unsuccessful transmissions. The scripts are as follows: uudemon.poll uudemon.hour uudemon.admin uudemon.cleanup These shell scripts should execute regularly to ensure that UUCP runs smoothly. The crontab file to run the scripts is automatically created in /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.crontab as part of the Solaris installation process, if you select the full installation. Otherwise, the file is created when you install the UUCP package. You can also run the UUCP shell scripts manually. The following is the prototype uudemon.crontab file that you can tailor for a particular machine: # #ident "@(#)uudemon.crontab 1.5 97/12/09 SMI" # # This crontab is provided as a sample. For systems # running UUCP edit the time schedule to suit, uncomment # the following lines, and use crontab(1) to activate the # new schedule. # #48 8,12,16 * * * /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.admin #20 3 * * * /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.cleanup #0 * * * * /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.poll #11,41 * * * * /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.hourBy default, UUCP operations are disabled. To enable UUCP, edit the time schedule and uncomment the appropriate lines in the uudemon.crontab file. To activate the uudemon.crontab file, do the following: &rolestepA;Edit the /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.crontab file and change entries as required. Activate the uudemon.crontab file by issuing the following command:crontab < /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.crontab The default uudemon.poll shell script reads the /etc/uucp/Poll file once an hour. If any machines in the Poll file are scheduled to be polled, a work file (C.sysnxxxx) is placed in the /var/spool/uucp/nodename directory. nodename represents the UUCP node name of the machine. The shell script is scheduled to run once an hour, before uudemon.hour, so that the work files are in place when uudemon.hour is called. The default uudemon.hour shell script does the following: Calls the uusched program to search the spool directories for work files (C.) that have not been processed. The script then schedules these files for transfer to a remote machine. Calls the uuxqt daemon to search the spool directories for execute files (X.) that have been transferred to your computer and were not processed when they were transferred. By default, uudemon.hour runs twice an hour. You might want uudemon.hour to run more often if you expect high failure rates of calls to remote machines. The default uudemon.admin shell script does the following: Runs the uustat command with p and q options. The q reports on the status of work files (C.), data files (D.), and execute files (X.) that are queued. The p prints process information for networking processes that are listed in the lock files (/var/spool/locks). Sends resulting status information to the uucp administrative login by using mail. The default uudemon.cleanup shell script does the following: Collects log files for individual machines from the /var/uucp/.Log directory, merges these files, and places the files in the /var/uucp/.Old directory with other old log information Removes work files (C.) seven days old or older, data files (D.) seven days old or older, and execute files (X.) two days old or older from the spool files Returns mail that cannot be delivered to the sender Mails a summary of the status information that was gathered during the current day to the UUCP administrative login (uucp) To run UUCP on a TCP/IP network, you need to make a few modifications, as described in this section. &rolestepA;Edit the /etc/uucp/Systems file to ensure that the entries have the following fields:System-Name Time TCP Port networkname Standard-Login-ChatA typical entry would resemble the following: rochester Any TCP - ur-seneca login: Umachine password: xxxNotice that the networkname field permits you to specify explicitly the TCP/IP host name. This capability is important for some sites. In the previous example, the site has the UUCP node name rochester, which is different from its TCP/IP host name ur-seneca. Moreover, a completely different machine could easily run UUCP and have the TCP/IP host name of rochester.The Port field in the Systems file should have the entry -. This syntax is equivalent to listing the entry as uucp. In almost every situation, the networkname is the same as the system name, and the Port field is -, which says to use the standard uucp port from the services database. The in.uucpd daemon expects the remote machine to send its login and password for authentication, and in.uucpd prompts for them, much as getty and login do. Edit the /etc/inet/services file to set up a port for UUCP: uucp 540/tcp uucpd # uucp daemonYou should not have to change the entry. However, if your machine runs NIS or NIS+ as its name service, you should change the /etc/nsswitch.conf entry for /etc/services to check files first, then check nis or nisplus. Verify that UUCP is enabled.# svcs network/uucpThe UUCP service is managed by the Service Management Facility. To query the status of this service, you can use the svcs command. For an overview of the Service Management Facility, refer to Chapter 14, Managing Services (Overview), in System Administration Guide: Basic Administration. If necessary, enable UUCP by typing the following:# inetadm -e network/uucp After you have set up UUCP, maintenance is straightforward. This section explains ongoing UUCP tasks that relate to security, maintenance, and troubleshooting.The default /etc/uucp/Permissions file provides the maximum amount of security for your UUCP links. The default Permissions file contains no entries.You can set additional parameters for each remote machine to define the following: Ways that the remote machine can receive files from your machine Directories for which the remote machine has read and write permission Commands that the remote machine can use for remote execution A typical Permissions entry follows: MACHINE=datsun LOGNAME=Udatsun VALIDATE=datsun COMMANDS=rmail REQUEST=yes SENDFILES=yesThis entry allows files to be sent and be received to and from the “normal” UUCP directories, not from anywhere in the system. The entry also causes the UUCP user name to be validated at login time. UUCP does not require much maintenance. However, you must ensure that the crontab file is in place, as described in the section How to Start UUCP. Your concern should be the growth of mail files and the public directory. All email messages that are generated by the UUCP programs and scripts are sent to the user ID uucp. If you do not log in frequently as that user, you might not realize that mail is accumulating and consuming disk space. To solve this problem, create an alias in /etc/mail/aliases and redirect that email either to root or to yourself and others who are responsible for maintaining UUCP. Remember to run the newaliases command after modifying the aliases file. The directory /var/spool/uucppublic is the one place in every system to which UUCP by default is able to copy files. Every user has permission to change to /var/spool/uucppublic and read and write files in the directory. However, the directory's sticky bit is set, so the directory's mode is 01777. As a result, users cannot remove files that have been copied to it and that belong to uucp. Only you, as UUCP administrator logged in as root or uucp, can remove files from this directory. To prevent the uncontrolled accumulation of files in this directory, you should ensure that you remove files from it periodically. If this maintenance is inconvenient for users, encourage them to use uuto and uupick rather than removing the sticky bit, which is set for security reasons. See the uuto1C man page for instructions for using uuto and uupick. You can also restrict the mode of the directory to only one group of people. If you do not want to risk someone filling your disk, you can even deny UUCP access to it. These procedures describe how to solve common UUCP problems. You can check if the modems or other ACUs are not working properly in several ways. &rolestepA;Obtain counts and reasons for contact failure by running the following command: # uustat q Call over a particular line and print debugging information on the attempt.The line must be defined as direct in the /etc/uucp/Devices file. You must add a telephone number to the end of the command line if the line is connected to an autodialer or the device must be set up as direct. Type: # cu d llineline is /dev/cua/a. If you cannot contact a particular machine, you can check communications to that machine with Uutry and uucp. &rolestepA;Try to make contact: # /usr/lib/uucp/Uutry -r machineReplace machine with the host name of the machine you are unable to contact. This command does the following: Starts the transfer daemon (uucico) with debugging. You can get more debugging information if you are root. Directs the debugging output to /tmp/machine. Prints the debugging output to your terminal by issuing the following command:# tail fPress Control-C to end output. You can copy the output from /tmp/machine if you want to save the output. If Uutry does not isolate the problem, try to queue a job: # uucp -r file machine\!/dir/filefileUse the name of the file that you want to transfer. machineUse the name of the machine that you want to copy to. /dir/fileSpecify the location of the file for the other machine. Issue the following command:# UutryIf you still cannot solve the problem, you might need to call your local support representative. Save the debugging output, which can help diagnose the problem.You might also decrease or increase the level of debugging that is provided by Uutry through the x n option. n indicates the debug level. The default debug level for Uutry is 5. Debug level 3 provides basic information about when and how the connection is established, but not much information about the transmission. Debug level 9, however, provides exhaustive information about the transmission process. Be aware that debugging occurs at both ends of the transmission. If you intend to use a level higher than 5 on a moderately large text, contact the other site's administrator and decide when to change the level. Verify that you have up-to-date information in your Systems file if you are having trouble contacting a particular machine. Some information that might be out of date for a machine is the following:Phone number Login ID Password UUCP has two types of error messages: ASSERT and STATUS. When a process is aborted, ASSERT error messages are recorded in /var/uucp/.Admin/errors. These messages include the file name, sccsid, line number, and text. These messages usually result from system problems. STATUS error messages are stored in the /var/uucp/.Status directory. The directory contains a separate file for each remote machine that your computer attempts to communicate with. These files contain status information about attempted communication and whether the communication was successful. Several commands are available for checking basic networking information: Use the uuname command to list those machines that your machine can contact. Use the uulog command to display the contents of the log directories for particular hosts. Use the uucheck v command to check for the presence of files and directories that are needed by uucp. This command also checks the Permissions file and displays information about the permissions that you have set up.