Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!uunet!cbmvax!ditto From: ditto@cbmvax.UUCP (Michael "Ford" Ditto) Newsgroups: unix-pc.general Subject: Re: 3B1 vs. 7300, uucp/mail Fight, Round One Summary: poll or use uugetty Keywords: babbling gettys Message-ID: <4825@cbmvax.UUCP> Date: 25 Sep 88 00:41:12 GMT References: <9377@cup.portal.com> Reply-To: ditto@cbmvax.UUCP (Michael "Ford" Ditto) Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA Lines: 43 In article <9377@cup.portal.com> thad@cup.portal.com writes: >Has anyone succeeded in connecting two UNIX-PCs via a single serial port on >each system and having bi-directional uucp and mail function between them? Yup. I've seen several systems working this way. >The "fight" occurs when both systems have their (respective) serial port >configured as "CALLER and HOST. Yes, it's called "babbling gettys", and it happens to any Unix systems when configured this way. >When one system is configured as "CALLER" and the other as "HOST", there is >no conflict, but mail and uucp traffic only flows from the CALLER to the >HOST; uucp or mail on the HOST remains queued forever. This is not quite true. In that setup, communication will flow in both directions, but a "conversation" can be initiated only by the "CALLER" system. This means that mail from the HOST will be queued until the next time the CALLER calls. You can make the CALLER machine poll the HOST periodically using cron; causing a poll every half-hour or so is usually quite acceptable for directly connected machines. crontab entry: 08 * * * * /bin/su uucpadm -c "/usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.hr > /dev/null" /usr/lib/uucp/uudemon.hr entry: rm -f /usr/spool/uucp/STST.${HOST} uucico -r1 -s${HOST} Another possibility is to use a special version of "getty" which doesn't "babble" (usually these work by not doing any output until they see something that looks like a login attempt). Several of these exist, usually called "uugetty". -- -=] Ford [=- "The number of Unix installations (In Real Life: Mike Ditto) has grown to 10, with more expected." ford@kenobi.cts.com - The Unix Programmer's Manual, ...!sdcsvax!crash!elgar!ford 2nd Edition, June, 1972. ditto@cbmvax.commodore.com