180 lines
9.5 KiB
Plaintext
180 lines
9.5 KiB
Plaintext
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By El Observador
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Copyright (C) 1995 by El Observador BBS
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BEATING THE PHONE COMPANY
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Modifying your UUCP login script to transfer batched news
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via an intermediary provider using "rlogin."
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I run a medium size BBS out of Monterey, California and as
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of just a short while ago was looking for a way to provide
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Internet connectivity to my users at a reasonable cost.
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Currently, the only provider in my area is Netcom, but when
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I called them to ask if they would provide me with a UUCP
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feed, the answer was an outright NO. The only other option
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I had was to find an inexpensive provider out of San Jose, a
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long distance call from Monterey. The good news is I did
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find a provider in San Jose called a2i Communications which
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offered me both a UUCP feed and an interactive shell account
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for a low monthly fee of twenty dollars. The bad news is
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that in order to carry the number of USENET newsgroups I
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wanted for my BBS (around 200-300) I was going to have to
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pay approximately four hundred dollars in long distance
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phone charges each month! There had to be a better way.
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The document that follows explains in detail how to
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configure a uucp script to exchange batched mail via the
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unix `rlogin' command. One of the primary reasons for
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exchanging mail in this manner is that it enables you to
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dial a local Internet provider--who may not offer a uucp
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feed--and `rlogin' to a remote provider that *does* offer a
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uucp feed. In this way, you will avoid the often horrendous
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long distance phone charges associated with running an
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Internet/Usenet feed for your BBS.
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In order to illustrate this process, let us say as an
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example that the only Internet provider in your town with a
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local access number is Netcom (as in my case).
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Unfortunately, Netcom (as previously mentioned) no longer
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offers UUCP feeds, so you are required to establish a feed
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account with another provider outside of your area code or
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local calling area. As you are no doubt well aware, a full
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UUCP feed (over 8,000 newsgroups) brings in about 55
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megabytes of new messages each and every day. Even a small
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selection (100-300 conferences) will often require several
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hours to download each night from the provider. This can
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add up to BIG phone charges each month. But there is a way
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to avoid this and pay nothing in long distance charges.
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First, you will need to establish a SHELL account with
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Netcom (or other local provider) and then of course a feed
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account with the provider outside your local calling area.
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Now, configure your BBS or network and ensure that your UUCP
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feed is working via the direct dialing of your out-of-town
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provider. Once you have ironed out all of the bugs and
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idiosyncrasies of running a UUCP feed, you are now ready to
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modify your uucp login script which is accessed by the
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program you are using to dial the provider and to initiate
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the transfer. Login scripts vary according to the software
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you are using. The example that follows is a script I wrote
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for PCBoard 15.21's UUXFER program. NOTE: It runs on one
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continuous line; however, I have split it over multiple
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lines so that it formats correctly to the page. In order to
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distinguish clearly the login names and passwords, let's use
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the following examples: for Netcom, we shall use login name
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`sugar' and password `uncle'; for a2i (the uucp feed) we
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shall use password `87jR2.Q'. There is no need to specify
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the login for the feed, as we will do that in the rlogin
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batch we will create and store in your Netcom's home
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directory.
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------------------------------------------------------------------
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| Original uucp script for direct dialing uucp provider |
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| #Systems file for a2i, created 5/25/95 by EO. |
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| a2i f1 f2 f3 f4 g "" ATZ OK \dATDT2939010 CONNECT \c gin:--gin |
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| Uamos word:--word 87jR2.Q |
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------------------------------------------------------------------
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------------------------------------------------------------------
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| MODIFIED SCRIPT FOR LOCAL NETCOM NODE |
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| #Systems file for a2i, modified 6/09/95 by EO. |
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| a2i f1 f2 f3 f4 g "" ATZ OK \dATDT6447850 CONNECT \c gin:--gin |
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| sugar word:-word uncle }:--} feed word:--word 87jR2.Q |
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------------------------------------------------------------------
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Ok, now that we have our script for direct dialing (long
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distance) our provider working, let's study our modified
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`rlogin' script. First, I have changed the dial-up number
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from the long distance provider to the number for the local
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Netcom node. Then I changed the login and password to
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reflect the local Netcom account. Following those changes,
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you will notice the `}' braces. After UUXFER logs into your
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local Netcom account and signs on with the proper password,
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it needs to be told what to look for next. The Netcom
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server you logon to--which varies with each call--is always
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enclosed in braces (check the prompt your local provider
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uses and substitute accordingly) so I have told UUXFER that
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when it sees the braces that it should execute the batch
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file called `feed.' You now will need to call Netcom (or
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local provider) and after logging in, type `pico feed' at
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the main prompt. This will create an empty text file called
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`feed.' At this point we will type out the rlogin command
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along with the parameters we will use for logging into the
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feed site. Substitute the following for your particular
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site:
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rlogin hustle.rahul.net -l Uamos
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Now do a ctrl-x to exit and save the file known as `feed.'
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At the Netcom prompt, type `chmod +x feed' and press enter.
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This will make `feed' executable as a batch file. Please
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note that you will need to find out the name of the specific
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server your provider uses for UUCP feeds and substitute it
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for the name I used: hustle.rahul.net. You will also have
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to ask your provider if he will configure his server to
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allow your incoming rlogin (Rahul of a2i Communications was
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very happy to assist me in my efforts and made all of this
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possible). He will need your Netcom login name to do this.
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Also notice the rlogin -l switch followed by the UUCP login
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you use with the feed site. Unfortunately, UUXFER treats
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any switches or other commands as separate commands or
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programs. Because of this, we have to tell our script to
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execute the batch file known as `feed."
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So, getting back to our script, we see that after UUXFER
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sees the braces, it will run the feed batch file which will
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in turn `rlogin' to the appropriate server with your UUCP
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username. The next thing that will happen is that you will
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be prompted for a password. When UUXFER sees `word' it will
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enter your UUCP password. (Please note that in the modified
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script I have removed the `CONNECT \c' when using rlogin to
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log into the UUCP server. I have done this because we are
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already logged in thanks to our feed batch file and the use
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of the `-l' parameter with rlogin. All we need do now is
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have our script enter the UUCP password).
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Once our UUXFER script enters the appropriate UUCP password
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(in this case, 87jR2.Q), you should see the following
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message "Shere=sitename." The transfer should begin just as
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it would had you dialed in directly. Please note that the
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throughput will be nearly the same, as the feed server is
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processing the job at the same speed as before. The good
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news is that you're connected to a local number and
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transferring all of your batched news through Netcom!
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Congratulations if everything works. With enough
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persistence and perspicacity, you should be able to adapt
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this script to work with nearly any program or environment.
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Addendum:
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In certain instances, the rlogin command may be unreliable.
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The rlogin command traps certain sequences of characters, when it
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sees a dot at the beginning of a line. If this is the case, you
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may want to experiment with BINARY telnet. If your provider does
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not support BINARY telnet, you will need to obtain the source code
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and recompile it on your local provider's system. With any luck your
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UUCP transactions will never include the character sequences trapped
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by rlogin, making this precaution unnecessary.
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You can increase the throughput of your UUCP transfers by
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modifying the 'g' parameter in PCBoard's uucp chat script. The g
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parameter controls the window and packet size used during the transfer.
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Try changing it to read g65, a setting which works well on my system
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(my transfer rate increased from 600cps to 1600+ cps). Consult your
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PCBoard manual for more detailed information.
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ÉÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍ»
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º ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ º
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º ³ CONTACT ORGANIZED CONFUZION VIA VOICEMAIL ³ º
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º ³ ----------------------------------------- ³ º
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º ³ UNITED STATES HEAD QUARTERS 1+212-415-0239 AFTER 22:00 ³ º
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º ³ ³ º
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º ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ º
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ÈÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍÍͼ
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