387 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
387 lines
12 KiB
Plaintext
Things to do for the Taylor UUCP package. This list includes some of
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my thoughts, but is mostly suggestions from the net. They are in no
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particular order. Some of the numbers that were in here have been
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removed.
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2.
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John Cowan <cowan@snark.thyrsus.com> says:
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>I think you should accept a broader range of time specifications.
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>Consider using getdate() (from your handy Usenet news source code)
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>with its high-powered yacc parser.
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Of course, getdate() accepts a single date, but we want a range. A
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better syntax would be certainly be nice.
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4.
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John R MacMillan <chance!john@sq.sq.com> mentions the HDB notion of
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services; something like this should be added whenever I get around to
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writing a version of cu.
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6.
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T. William Wells <bill@twwells.com> says:
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>Something related that might be useful: when calling the other
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>system, at certain times I do not want the other system to gain
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>control and begin to send files. If that worked, I could call
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>them for e-mail without worrying about getting my newsfeed at
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>daytime rates. Unfortunately, I can't ask them to batch me at
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>night only; my site gets a multibatch. Note that call-timegrade
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>would do as well, provided that the other system respects it but
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>I have no way to know that, other than by trying it.
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9.
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Gordon Burditt <gordon@sneaky.lonestar.org> warns about modifications
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to the TZ environment variable, to fool uucico into dialing out at an
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inappropriate time.
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10.
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Gordon Burditt <gordon@sneaky.lonestar.org> says:
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>(4) Less important, because few people will have this problem, is a
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>port-specific dialcodes file. Why? Well, one system I had was connected
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>to 2 inside lines "dial 9 for outside line", and one outside line (which
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>doesn't want the 9). A number of the systems called were "inside", so
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>you didn't add the 9 on those lines dialing from inside, but you did add
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>"390" to the 4-digit number if you dialed it via "outside". Also not
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>unheard of are systems with 2 outside lines that are local to different
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>area codes, or one local outside line and one WATS line (which MUST
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>have an area code).
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>Example:
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> inside-line Dialcodes outside-line Dialcodes
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> pbx "" pbx "390"
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> local "9" local ""
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> nyc "9-1212" nyc "1212"
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12.
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Ralf E. Stranzenbach <ralf@reswi.ruhr.de> says:
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>It would be nice to also have the option of running a shell script each time
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>uucico connects/disconnects a systen. I do not mean shell scripts for dial/in.
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>I would like to do some accounting and batching when the connection
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>establishes.
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13.
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les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) writes:
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>>local-send /usr/spool/uucppublic !/usr/spool/uucpublic/private
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>>
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>>The directories are searched from left to right, and the last one to
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>>match determines whether the file may be sent or not. This is
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>>slightly more general than NOWRITE, since it permits a public
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>>directory within a private directory within a public directory,
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>>although probably nobody will ever want that.
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>
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>Interesting... The obvious enhancement is to generalize to shell-like
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>wild cards for the READ/WRITE/COMMANDS entries.
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14.
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Should there be a way for chat scripts to specify the parity to
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generate? I don't think there's much point to specifying what parity
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to accept.
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17.
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The -b and -s switches to uux are not implemented by uuxqt.
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18.
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If we are supposed to call a system back, we should do it immediately
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rather than merely queuing up an empty command file.
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19.
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Should there be some way to specify the maximum number of retries for
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each system using the new configuration scheme? The maximum number of
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retries is currently a compilation parameter.
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20.
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Write some protocols that support bidirectional transfers.
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James Gardiner says:
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> MHSnet has this but with also 3 channels per direction. Each channel
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> sends different size packets. This alows mail, which is usually smaller,
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> to overtake news or big files. Mail being the more important.
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> However, with high speed modems, this is no so important.
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21.
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Support transfers through systems using uucp and uux. Implement the
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``forward-to'' command to allow control of these transfers.
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22.
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Add an ftp port type which uses anonymous ftp rather than any of the
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UUCP protocols to do file transfers. This would allow ftp work to be
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done late at night.
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23.
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If we don't permit command execution, we still want to delete the work
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files we've been given for the command.
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24.
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Running uucico as a TCP server doesn't work right because only root
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can bind a port less than 1024. This is checked by effective user id,
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and our effective user id is always uucp. If we have saved set user
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id we could switch the effective user id to root and then back again;
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otherwise we have to not use setuid and start the program as root.
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Actually, we could use another program to start as root, bind the
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port, and invoke uucico. Or we could use a setuid program and pass
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the file descriptor back using a socketpair. Or we could just use
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inetd.
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31.
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David Nugent: add a -C option to uucico to only call the system if
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there was work to do.
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32.
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It would be nice if uucico could sleep until a line was available.
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This is complicated by the possibility of wanting to wait for any of
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several different lines, and one would really want some sort of
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semaphore function to do it right. If the available lines could be
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sorted, then each could be assigned to a byte in a line lock file.
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Looking for a line could be done by sleeping on a read lock on all
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possible lines. Once it came through, write locks would be attempted.
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If they all failed, somebody else snuck in, so you would sleep on a
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read lock again. This isn't great because a process could be starved,
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but it might be better than nothing.
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This could be tied in to uucp and uux, such that they wouldn't
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actually fire up uucico unless a line was known to be available; an
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additional switch would be used to fire up uucico anyhow (or one could
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switch the default behaviour and the switch).
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So how do you sort the lines? You could just use the index in the
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port (or Devices) file, but what if multiple ports used the same
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physical device? Hmmm.
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33.
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David Nugent: allow the minimum wait time to be specified for a
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system, such that calls to that system are not made more frequently
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than, say, once an hour.
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34.
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Bob Izenberg: HDB UUCP will retry a call once if it fails. This can
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be done in my system by adding an alternate and repeating the phone
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number. Should there be a configuration parameter to do it in a
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simpler way?
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43.
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David Nugent: it would be nice to be able to set debugging, log, and
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statistics files on a site by site basis.
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74.
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Yanek Martinson: allow each system to independently choose whether to
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permit shell execution.
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75.
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Mike Park: we should accept an Shere=foo message with an alias of the
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system we are calling.
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81.
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Marty Shannon: log reason for dial failure (chat-fail string) in
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.Status file.
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82.
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Support restart of failed transfers a la SVR4 UUCP.
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83.
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Switch between 'M' and 'S' correctly in the BNU log file output.
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85.
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Les Mikesell: add TLI and TLIS connection ability.
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86.
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Les Mikesell: allow a separate program to be specified to handle the
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communications with a particular system.
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105.
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T. William Wells: close and open the Debug file after each file
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transfer. Alternatively, cycle through a series of Debug file names
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every 1000 lines or so.
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106.
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Marty Shannon: add a time command for ports, to specify when they may
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be used.
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112.
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Franc,ois Pinard: allow defaults to appear at the top of the dial file
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(and presumably of the port file as well).
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115.
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T. William Wells: new options for uustat:
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-i display job ids only
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-K interactively kill jobs
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Also, there should perhaps be a configuration option to request uustat
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to only display jobs submitted by the user running uustat, except for
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root and uucp.
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117.
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Marc Unangst: provide some way to change the debugging level of a
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running uucico. T. William Wells suggests having it read a file to
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change arbitrary configuration information, although obviously one has
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to be careful of what gets changed while a connection is active.
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120.
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Jarmo Raiha: new chat-fail commands: one to not update the status file
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and require a retry wait, and one to permit the string to occur a few
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times before reporting an error.
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121.
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Jarmo Raiha: uucp and uux fail to copy a file that is not world
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readable, because they are running under the wrong euid. They should
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switch back and forth as necessary.
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124.
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Peter da Silva: perhaps there should be a ``chat-end-program'' command
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to let a program be run after the initial handshake has been completed
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and the protocol has been selected and turned on. This would let
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people run stty to change their terminal parameters.
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128.
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Richard Stallman: have an interactive program to set up a chat script.
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It would let you type directly to the port, recording what you type as
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send strings and recording what comes back from the other side as
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expect strings.
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129.
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Use POSIX fcntl locks when possible instead of creating a lock file.
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130.
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Chip Salzenberg: BSD lets you override the timeout for a particular
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expect string by using a trailing ~.
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132.
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Franc,ois Pinard: cut the total number of 'g' protocol errors by some
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fraction every X bytes. T. William Wells: only abort if you get a
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certain percentage of errors out of a certain number of packets.
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134.
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Chip Salzenberg: give .XQTDIR a mode of 0700 and the files put into it
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a mode of 0444.
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136.
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Thomas Fischer: every so often (1/2 hour) check to see whether there
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is any high grade work to be done and process it. This should happen
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even on the slave, which means the slave needs some way to ask the
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master to hang up. I think some uucico's do this by sending CYM.
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137.
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Support control over local executions by recognizing the local system
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name in the configuration file. Think about what is needed to use the
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same configuration files on multiple systems.
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138.
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T. William Wells: BNU apparently uses a file named A.whatever to hold
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the line number reached in current C. file processing. This is a
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hack, and won't work right with size control anyhow, but
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fsysdep_did_work could, for example, clobber the first byte in the
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line to a # or something to mark that it had been finished. Still a
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hack, but a better one.
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139.
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Patrick Smith: incorporate patches to generate full debugging traces
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with less debugging file overhead. The debugging file repeats too
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much information at great length right now--not good.
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140.
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Mark Pizzolato: put in the newer, better, 'g' protocol checksum
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calculation routine.
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141.
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Franc,ois Pinard: batch up pauses and delays in chat scripts and do
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them all at once in a single system call. This is particularly useful
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for pauses on systems which don't support subsecond sleeps. For
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everything else it's a fairly minor optimization.
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142.
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Franc,ois Pinard: give uustat an option to requeue jobs to another
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system. This only makes a lot of sense for rmail executions, but it's
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fairly easy to do for any type of command. I think uucico does all
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the file checking needed to ensure that this doesn't break security,
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but that should be double-checked.
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143.
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David J. MacKenzie: write a program to convert between the various
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different configuration styles. This should not be too difficult.
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144.
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T. William Wells: add a -g option to uucico to permit specifying the
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maximum grade to be transferred at that time. This could restrict the
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timegrade command further, but should not be permitted to override it.
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145.
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T. William Wells: if uucico or uuxqt get started with bad arguments,
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put an indication in the log file since stderr may be /dev/null.
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146.
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Richard Todd: it would be nice to sometimes be able to request the
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other side to turn on debugging.
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147.
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Bart Schaefer: some more possible options for uucico:
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-R reverse roles (hangup immediately). Not too exciting.
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some method to restrict calling to particular systems.
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148.
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Jarmo Raiha: some method to control the work queue at the remote end.
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This could get awfully general, though.
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149.
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The interaction of the time command and defaults can be confusing,
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since any time command in the actual system entry, even a fairly
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specific one, will wipe out the default entry. Not sure what can be
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done about this.
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150.
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