UNIX Communications

The UNIX operating system features a variety of powerful built-in communication tools, but the standard documentation offers scant help to the prospective user. The manuals provide a bewildering array of programs, options, and settings, few examples of use, and little discussion of how they all fit together

This book demystifies UNIX communications by showing you step by step how to use, control, and program UNIX electronic mail, the UNIX bulletin board system (USENET), and UNIX file transfer (UUCP). The topics covered include:

• UNIX e-mail, including System V mailx, Berkeley Mail, and /bin/mail
• The complete set of steps involved in low-level mail transfers
• UNIX conferencing, including how to use write and talk
• How USENET is organized, and the resources it provides
• Reading, responding to, and posting news on USENET
• Effective newswriting and net etiquette
• Using the UUCP suite of communications programs to send text and binary files
• Error free file transfers with Kermit and Xmodem
• Understanding shar shell script, archiving, and compressing and unpacking files

No programming experience is necessary to use this book. Whether you are a new user, an experienced user, or a UNIX programmer, you will find a welcome place for UNIX Communications right next to your UNIX manuals.

• UNIX Communications Fundamentals
1. Welcome to UNIX Communications
• Why UNIX Communications
• UNIX and Computer Communications
• Some Examples of Computer Communication
• User-to-User Communication on One Computer
• Talking to the Computer from far Away
• Central UNIX Computer Talks to Many Remote Users
• Two UNIX Computers Talking Together
• A Nationwide Network of UNIX Computers
• Some UNIX Conventions
• Commands
• Typeface
• Format Statement
• Variations between Systems
• Bourne Shell and C Shell
• Where to Find More Information
• Summary
2. The UNIX Operating System
• Why Learn about UNIX?
• UNIX Is Flexible
• How We Will Cover UNIX
• The Different Versions of UNIX
• UNIX Introduction or Refresher
• What Is an Operating System?
• The Parts of UNIX
• Utility Programs
• A Multiuser System
• UNIX Files
• File Manipulation
• UNIX Directories
• The Current Directory
• The UNIX File Structure
• Redirect Output
• Redirect Input
• Combining UNIX Features
• Summary
• Part 1: UNIX Mail
3. Beginning Mail
• Electronic Mail on UNIX
• A Mail Scenario
• Sending Mail to a Group
• Reading and Replying to Mail
• Saving and Printing Messages
• Including a File in a Message
• Advantages of E-Mail
• Other Versions of Mail
• A Mail Tutorial — The Basics
• Sending Messages
• Understanding Message Headers
• Reading Messages
• Replying to Messages
• Saving Messages to the mbox File
• Saving Messages to Files
• Keeping Your Messages Private
• Command Power with Message Lists
• Printing Hard Copies of Messages
• Deleting Messages
• Leaving mailx
• Shortcuts
• A Look Behind the Scenes
• The System Mailbox
• The dead.letters File
• Summary
4. Intermediate Mail
• Tilde Commands — Power from Inside the Message Editor
• Using a More Powerful Editor and Displaying Text
• Adding to Your Message
• Changing Information in the Message Header
• Miscellaneous Tile Commands
• Sending Messages Written on Your PC
• Creating a Pure ASCII File
• Sending the File to UNIX
• Sending the File as a Message
• Sending Messages to People on Other Computers
• When Two UNIX Computers Are Connected to Each Other
• If Your Computer Isn't Connected to the Other System
• Finding a Remote Address
• Customizing mailx and Mail with the .mailrc File
• Modifying the .mailrc File
• Using Aliases to Send Messages to a Group
• Using alias to Avoid Lengthy User Names
• Using Folders to Organize Your Mail
• The Full Set of Commands for mailx/Mail
• Summary
5. Advanced Mail
• Setting mailx Variables
• Determining Which Variables Are Set
• Automatically Configuring mailx with the .mailrc
• The System-Wide Configuration File
• Programming a .mailrc File
• How We Will Cover the Options
• Options for Sending Mail
• Prompting for a Subject: ask (Berk)
• Prompting for a Subject: asksub (V)
• Exiting the Editor with a Period: dot
• Preventing Control-d from Ending a Message: ignoreeof
• Ignore Interrupt Characters: ignore
• Disabling the Saving of Cancelled Messages: nosave (Berk)
• Enabling the Saving of Cancelled Messages: save (V)
• Prompting for Carbon Copies: askcc
• Keeping a Record of Messages You Send: record
• Showing the Recipient of Messages: showto (V)
• Specifying a Program for Delivering Mail: sendmail
• Tilde Commands
• Defining the Escape Character: escape
• Defining the ~e Editor: EDITOR
• Defining the ~v Screen Editor: VISUAL
• Defining the String Inserted by ~a: sign (V)
• Defining the String Inserted by ~A: Sign (V)
• Options for Messages and Displays While Reading Mail
• Suppressing the Opening Message: quiet
• Suppressing the Header Display: noheader (Berk)
• Enabling the Header Display: header (V)
• Specifying the Number of Headers Displayed: screen
• Suppressing the Display of Header Fields: ignore
• Changing the mailx Prompt: prompt (V)
• Specifying the Number of Lines per Message Display: crt
• Specifying am Alternative Pager Program: PAGER (V)
• Command Options for Reading Mail
• Specifying the Number of Lines That top Displays: toplines
• Making delete Act like dp: autoprint
• Preventing Messages You Read from Disappearing: hold
• Preventing Messages You Save from Disappearing: keepsave
• Specifying the Shell to Which You Escape: SHELL
• Setting a Default Command for the Pipe Command: cmd (V)
• Inserting a Form Feed after Each Message: page (V)
• Options for Folders
• Defining the Folders Directory: folder
• Changing the Command to List Your Folders: LISTER (V)
• Placing Files of Outgoing Messages into the Folders Directory: outfolder (V)
• Options for Files and the mailx Program
• Preserving Your System Mailbox: keep
• Defining a New Dead Letter File: DEAD (V)
• Specifying a New Default File for Saving Messages: MBOX (V)
• Appending Messages to mbox: append
• Options for Names and Addresses
• Receiving a Copy of Messages That You Send: metoo
• Converting UUCP Addresses to Another Format: conv (V)
• Allowing for Accounts on Different Computers: allnet (V)
• Telling mailx about Your Accounts on Different Systems: alternates
• Preventing Rewriting of Remote Addresses: onehop (V)
• Summary
• Part 2: UNIX News: USENET
6. Introduction to USENET
• What Is USENET?
• Overview of USENET
• USENET History and Organization
• Participating in USENET
• USENET for System Administrators
• USENET for Users
• How the Netnews Software Is Constructed
• Layers of Connections
• How Netnews Works
• Distribution of Articles throughout the Net
• Backbone Sites and USENET Administration
• Administering the News at the Local Site
• More about Newsgroups
• Storage of Newsgroups in the UNIX File System
• Names and Organizations of Newsgroups
• A Newsgroup Sampler
• News and the User
• User Interfaces
• A Quick Tour of readnews
• The .newsrc File
• General Concepts of News Interfaces
• Setting Options
• Editing Your .newsrc File
• Summary
7. Reading News with readnews
• Starting readnews
• Reading Articles in a Newgroup
• Saving, Marking, and Killing Articles
• Special Kinds of Reading: Digests and Encrypted Articles
• Replying to Articles
• Cancelling an Article or Reply
• Using Informational Commands
• Moving between Newsgroups
• Using a Shell from readnews
• Using Option Flags in readnews
• Options for Newsgroup and Article Selection
• Options for Controlling Form of Output
• Options for Alternate Interfaces
• Using Environmental Variables
• Summary
8. Reading News with rn
• The Powerful rn Program
• Starting rn
• Entering rn Commands
• Prompts and Help Information in rn
• The Newsgroup Selection Level
• Moving through the Newsgroups
• Reading Articles: A Quick Preview
• Selecting Newsgroups by Name or Pattern
• Newsgroup Management Commands
• Moving Newsgroups in .newsrc
• Selecting a Subset of Newsgroups
• The Article Level
• Starting to Read an Article
• Moving through Articles in a Newsgroup
• Searching for Articles by Pattern
• Using Subject Mode
• More on the Pager Level
• Searching for Text in an Article
• Marking and Saving Articles
• Replies
• Follow-ups
• More Special Features of rn
• Regular Expressions
• Macros
• News Filtering with Kill Files
• Batch Processing Commands in rn
• Numeric Batch Commands
• Percent Escapes
• Command-Line Options
• Environmental Variables in rn
• Summary
• The rn Help Displays
9. Reading News with vnews
• Why vnews?
• Terminal and Speed Considerations
• Starting vnews
• The vnews Screen Display
• Prompts and Commands in vnews
• Reading an Article
• Moving within an Article
• Special Reading Commands
• Filing the Current Article
• Responding to an Article
• Moving Within the Newsgroup
• Moving between Newsgroups
• Shell Escape
• Options and Variables in vnews
• Command-Line Options in vnews
• Environmental Variables in vnews
• Summary
10. Posting News with postnews
• Netiquette: USENET with Grace and Style
• Where to Read about Netiquette
• Replying to Articles
• How to Reply: Some Examples
• When to Post, Follow-up Articles
• When to Quote Articles in Follo-ups
• Posting to Moderated Newsgroups
• Posting Articles with postnews
• Using the Appropriate Newsgroup
• Specifying Distribution
• Writing the Article
• Follow-ups from postnews
• More about Writing News
• Using Signatures
• Collecting and Summarizing Responses
• Using test Newsgroups
• Short and to the Point
• Helping Shape the Net
• Creating a New Newsgroup
• The Line-Eater: A USENET Art Form
• Summary
• Part 3: UNIX File Transfer: UUCP
11. An Overview of UUCP
• The UUCP Programs
• What Can UUCP Do for Me?
• How UUCP and mail interact
• The Concepts Underlying All UUCP Programs
• UUCP's View of a Network
• Finding the Names of Your Neighbor Machines with uuname
• Print Your Local Site Name (-l Flag)
• Print Descrfiptions of Neighbor Sites (-v Flag)
• Is Yours a System V or BSD uuname?
• UUCP Requests Are Queued and Spooled for Later Transmission
• How to Specify Names of Files on Neighbor Machines
• Remote File Permissions
• Relative Filenames
• Filename Expansion
• Summary of Uses and Caveats
• Summary
12. Copying Files with uucp and uusend
• How to Use uucp
• Copying Files into a Neighbor Site's PUBDIR Directory
• How uucp handles Errors
• Mail Notification of a Successful Transfer (-m Flag)
• Copying from One PUBDIR Directory into Another
• Copying into Your Own and Other Directories
• Notifying the Recipient with Mail (-n Flag)
• Copying Multiple Files with uucp
• Automatic Creating of Directories (-d and -f Flags)
• Defining Types of Spooling (-c, -C, and -s Flags)
• Advanced uucp Topics
• Copying Files between Remote Machines
• Executing uucp on a Remote Site (-e Flag)
• Queue But Don't Transmit (-r Flag)
• Watching uucp Work (-x Flag)
• Copy through a Series of Machines with uusend
• Setting Permisions of Destination File (-m Flag)
• Feeding uusend through a Pipe (-)
• Queue But Don't Transmit (-r Flag)
• Summary of Uses and Caveats
• Summary
13. Easy PUBDIR Copying with uuto and uupick
• Starting uuto
• Sending a File with uuto
• Sending a Directory with uuto
• Receiving Files and Directories with uupick
• Delete File or Directory: d
• Move File or Directory: m
• Move All Files or Directories from Same Site: a
• Print Contents of Files or Directories: p
• Quit uupick: q
• Run Program from uupick: !cmd
• Getting Help: *
• Improving uupick
• Restricting uupick to a Selected Sending System (-s Flag)
• Two uuto Flags
• Summary of Uses and Caveats
• Summary
14. Running Programs on Remote Machines with uux
• Which Program Can You Run with uux?
• How to Run a Program Remotely
• How to Capture a Remote Program's Output
• Permissions Required for "> file"
• Specifying the Local Filename
• How to Place a Remote Program's Output into a Remote File
• Local versus Remote Names — What's, Where
• How to Run a Local Program with Remote Files as Input
• Permissions for Input Files
• How to Use Files as Arguments to uux
• How to Prevent uux from Copying an Argument
• Specifying Output File Arguments
• Specifying Arguments That Contain a ! Character
• How to Run Multiple Remote Programs with One uux Request
• Running Multiple Programs Sequentially with uux
• Running Programs Simultaneously with Pipes
• How to Feed Local Input through a Remote Program
• Special Characters and uux
• Two Sample Applications of uux
• A C Shell Script as a Remote nroff Driver
• The uurecp Script as a Remote Recipe Fetcher
• Some uux Options
• Suppressing Mail Notification (-n Flag)
• Placing Mail into a File (-m Flag)
• Queue a Request But Don't Transmit (-r Flag)
• How to Watch It Happen (-x Flag)
• Summary of Uses and Caveats
• Summary
15. Status Reports and Job Control
• What a UUCP Job Is
• The UUCP Database Files
• Inside /usr/spool/uucp/LOGFILE
• Viewing LOGFILE with uulog
• Specifying the User with uulog (-u Flag)
• Specifying the System with uulog (-s Flag)
• Be Patient with UUCP
• Status and Job Control with uustat
• Explanation of uustat's Output
• Specifying Another User with uustat (-u Flag)
• Specifying the System with uustat (-s Flag)
• Killing a Job with uustat (-k Flag)
• Rejuvenating a Job with uustat (-r Flag)
• Getting Job Numbers with uucp and uux (-j Flag)
• Limiting by Time with uustat (-o and -y Flags)
• Displaying Numbers versus Text for Status of Machine Accessibility with uustat (-m and -M Flags)
• Summarizing Jobs for All Neighbor Sites with uustat (-q Flag)
• UCB's uusnap Program
• Summary of Uses and Caveats
• Summary
16. Copying Archives and Binary Files
• Transferring Directory Hierarchies with uucp
• Package Directories with tar
• Transfer Directories with cpio
• Transfer Directories with shar
• Package with shar
• Convert Full Pathnames to Relative Names (-b Flag)
• Check File Sizes When Unpacking (-c Flag)
• Change How Much shar Prints (-v Flag)
• Define Your Own End-of-File String (-d Flag)
• Make Permissions Match Original (-m Flag)
• Use sed for Unpacking (-p Flag)
• Turn On All Options (-a Flag)
• Turn Off All Options (-s Flag)
• Package Binary Files (-u Flag)
• Rolling Your Own shar.csh and shar.sh
• Transferring Binary Files with uucp and mail
• How to uuencode a File
• How to uudecode a File
• Rolling Your Own uudecode
• Summary of Uses and Caveats
• Summary
17. Calling Out with cu
• Invoking cu
• Specifying a Baud Rate with cu (-s Flag)
• Selecting a Line with cu (-l Flag)
• Dialing Manually with cu
• Calling by System Name with cu
• Getting cu to Ask for a Number (-n Flag)
• Handling Complex Telephone Numbers with cu
• Setting Parity with cu
• Interacting with the Remote Machine
• Logging into the Remote Machine
• Adjusting Modes with cu
• The Special Meaning of Tilde
• Accessing the Local System (~!, ~$m ~%cd)
• Pausing and Resuming cu
• Disabling XON and XOFF with cu
• Sending a Tilde to the Remote Machine with cu
• Chaining Machines
• Disconnecting cu
• Transferring UNIX Files
• Sending with ~%put
• Receiving with ~%take
• Capturing Data with Non-UNIX Machines
• Capturing into a Recording File (-r Flag)
• Capturing with Redirection
• Capturing with tee and script
• Watching It Happen (-d Flag)
• Summary of Uses and Caveats
• Summary
18. Putting It All Together
• Step 1: We Send an Electronic Mail Message
• Step 2: A Dispatcher Dispatches Our Message
• Step 3: A uux Request is Queued to Transmit Our Message
• The First File Created by uux Contains Our Message
• The uux Program Checks the Validity of "To:"
• The Next File Created by uux Describes the Actions to be Performed on the First
• The Last File Created by uux Describes the Transmission of the First Two Files
• The uux Program Exits
• Step 4: The Local uucico Transmits Our Message
• Part 1: uucico Looks for Work
• Part 2: uucico Connects to the Other UNIX Site
• Part 3: uucico Logs into the Other UNIX Site
• Part 4: Our uucico Starts Up a Conversation with the Remote Site's uucico
• Part 5: Both uucicos Agree on a Protocol for Transmission
• Part 6: Our uucico Transmits Its Files
• Part 7: Does the Other UNIX Site's uucico Have Anything for Us?
• Part 8: Our uucico Performs Housekeeping Tasks
• Part 9: Our uucico Looks to See If There Is Any Work for Other Sites
• Our Electronic Mail Message Has Been Sent
• Step 5: The Remote uucico Receives Our Message
• Step 6: The Remotre uuxqt Runs Our uux Request
• Step 7: The Remote rmail Forwards Our Message
• Summary
• Where Can You Go from Here?
• Appendices
1. A /bin/mail Tutorial
• Sending Messages with /bin/mail
• The Simple Message Editor
• Sending Off the Message
• Cancelling a Message
• Sending Mail to Several People
• Sending Messages to Other UNIX Systems
• Limitations of /bin/mail
• Sending Mail from a UNIX Editor File
• Preparing Messages on a PC
• Reading Your Mail
• Displaying a Summary of commands: ? and *
• Displaying Messages: Return or +
• Rereading Messages: p and -
• Deleting Messages: d
• Leaving /bin/mail: q and x
• Saving Messages: s
• Reading Messages in Files Other Than the System Mailbox: -f Option
• Saving Messages without Headers: w
• Forwarding Messages to Other Users: m
• Issuing UNIX Commands: !
• Other /bin/mail Command-Line Options
• Caveat
• Summary
2. On-Line Communications
• Sending Messages with write
• Holding Two-Way Conversations with write
• Writing to Users on Other UNIX Systems
• Running Other UNIX Commands While in write
• Preventing Interruptions: mesg
• Communicating with talk
• What talk Looks Like
• A New Form of On-Line Communication: chat
• Summary
3. UNIX to PC Communications with kermit, xmodem, and arc
• Error-Free Transmission
• The kermit Program
• Transferring Files with kermit between a Micro and a UNIX Machine
• Starting kermit
• Sending a File from a Micro to the UNIX System
• Sending a File from the UNIX System to a Micro
• Batch Transfers and Filenames
• Setting kermit Parameters
• Other kermit Features
• UNIX to UNIX kermit
• The xmodem Program
• Handling Special File Formats
4. Sources for Information about USENET
• Basic Information and Articles for New Users
• Lists of Statistics about USENET
• USENET Practices, Use of Newsgroups, and News Software
• News Configuration and Administration
5. Some Recommended Books and Articles
• UNIX Books for Beginners
• General reference Books
• UNIX Programming and Advanced UNIX
• USENET, UUCP, and Other Networks
• The kermit and xmodem Programs

This one is so old that communications here refers to UUCP and serial lines.´

Only of historical value.