Peculiar uucp problem (long summery of responses)

[Harry Gross]

Recently, I posted two calls for help regarding a problem with uucp.  Uucico
would start up, initiate a file transfer and then appear to clobber itself.
Also, upon installing a 2400 baud modem, suddenly uucico was unable to open the
tty port to access the modem, unless it was started as root.

I received several helpful replies summerized below:

+------------
|The bulk of the replies suggested that there might be a problem with the
|permissions and/or ownership of various uucp-related files:
|
|cmcl2!rochester!biar!jhood (John Hood)
|uunet!ppgbms!moe!jeremy (Jeremy Levine)
|sun!Central!texbell!moray!siswat!buck (A. Lester Buck)
|sun!daver!cheers!greg (Greg Onufer)
|rutgers!bikini.cis.ufl.edu!novavax!ki4pv!tanner (Dr. T. Andrews)
|rutgers!nexus.yorku.ca!xrtll!rsnider (Richard Snider)
|uunet!visdc!jiii (John E Van Deusen III)
|rutgers!wolves!ggw (Gregory G. Woodbury)
|
|	Jeremy Levine also suggested using uucheck as someone other than root
|or uucp, but unfortunately, I don't have uucheck on my system.
|
|	A. Lester Buck also suggested restoring the 1200 baud modem to see if
|things would start working again, but I was able to resolve the problems before
|resorting to this test.
|
|	Greg Onufer suggested obtaining Plexus TCP/IP, but we can't run that
|unless (and until) we get S5 R2 V1.7 (which I am working on :-)
|
|	Greg Woodbury also described a problem he had on his machine which
|was somewhat similar, and offered his shell scripts that solved his problem.
|However, based on his discription, they would not have helped me.  (Thanks
|for the offer, anyway :-)
+------------

+------------
|A couple of suggestions were received concerning modem line settings (i.e. DCD)
|etc.:
|
|ncc!adec23!mark (Mark Salyzyn)
|uunet!pd1.ccd.harris.com!bill (Bill Davis)
|
|	Bill Davis also suggested that since root starting uucico worked, there
|was something going on involving privliges - but what it was remained unclear.
+------------


+------------
|A suggestion was received which turned out to be the proper work-around! :
|
|rutgers!xait.xerox.com!lakart!dg (David Goodenough) suggested:
|
|>This won't solve the problem, but it will allow your system to work
|>without manual intervention. Add lines of the following form to
|>your crontab:
|>
|>25 1,4 * * *	root	/usr/lib/uucp/uucico -r1 -ssystem1
|>25 2,5 * * *	root	/usr/lib/uucp/uucico -r1 -ssystem2
|>25 3,6 * * *	root	/usr/lib/uucp/uucico -r1 -ssystem3
|>
|>These are BSD style, but the same thing is possible under SYSV. Basically
|>get crontab to do the grunt work, but by selecting root as the executor,
|>your uucico's will run with root privileges. This is what I call a
|>"Band-Aid" fix: it solves the symptoms enough to get you going, allowing
|>a total fix to be done with less sense of pressure.
+------------


+------------
|One person offered me a desperation solution, sources to a HDB clone that
|would require porting.  I didn't take him up on it, but I may in the future,
|just to have it :-)
|
|utzoo!lethe!dybbuk!yonatan (Jonathan Hanna)
+------------


+------------
|One very well known netter told me that these bugs had been fixed in
|S5 R2 V1.7 and recommended obtaining that release.  As stated above, I'm
|working on it :-)
|
|allbery at ncoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery)		(Thanks!)
+------------


+------------
|I struck gold, however with this note:
|
|rutgers!dsinc.dsi.com!syd (Syd Weinstein)
|
|>Maybe I can help you,  I did a lot of the uucp stuff for Plexus
|>as well as a lot of other comm stuff and controller stuff for them.
|>I want you to try cu to that line, there used to be a bug with the
|>status tables.  Give me a call voice some day.
|
|After a lengthy telephone conversation with Syd (thanks again for your time!),
|I discovered a couple of crucial things:
|
|	1. There is a bug in S5 R2 V1.5 uucico which sometimes fails to
|reset status bits on the I/O port, thus causing the line to drop as soon
|as a connection is made.  uucico tries to regain the line, and fails.  The
|logfiles LOOK like uucico is clobbering itself, but it really had already
|failed.  The fix for this is to run cu on the line just prior to calling
|out with uucico (or get a patch from Motorola - who has taken over support
|of the Plexus hardware).  First problem solved.
|
|	2. There is an un-related flaw in S5 R2 V1.5 uucico pertaining to
|baud rates.  It seems that the good folks at AT&T created a baud rate table
|inside of uucico that understands baud rates of 110, 300, 1200 and 9600 baud.
|9600 was provided for hard-wire connections, and the others were provided for
|modems.  Since AT&T didn't have a 2400 baud modem at the time, they didn't
|put 2400 baud support into uucico.  When I invoke uucico, the table is
|consulted, 2400 baud support is not found, and uucico terminates.  When uucico
|is invoked by root, however, this table is not consulted, and uucico will work.
|Second problem solved.
+------------

I want to thank everyone who responded.  Tracking this down was no fun, but
your assistance made it bearable.  And at least I was able to create work
arounds (since I don't have source to make _real_ fixes :-)

Cheers,
-- 
		Harry Gross				 |  reserved for
							 |  something really
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