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(Send Usenet articles via UUCP)
send-uucp [site ...]
The send-uucp program processes batch files written by innd(8) to send Usenet articles to UUCP sites. It reads a configuration file to control how it behaves with various sites. Normally, it is run periodically out of cron to put together batches and send them to remote UUCP sites.
It makes it possible to reduce bandwidth usage and to send news to remote UUCP sites which cannot receive a real-time feed (for instance if they are over dial-up connections).
Any arguments provided to the program are interpreted as a list of sites specified in send-uucp.cf for which batches should be generated. If no arguments are supplied, then batches will be generated for all sites listed in that configuration file.
The sites to which articles are to be sent must be configured in the configuration file send-uucp.cf in pathetc as set in inn.conf. Each site is specified with a line of the form:
site[:host[:funnel]] [compressor [maxsize [batchtime]]]
The news site name being configured. This must match a site name from newsfeeds(5).
The UUCP host name to which batches should be sent for this site. If omitted, the news site name will be used as the UUCP host name.
In the case of a site configured as a funnel, send-uucp needs to flush the channel (or exploder) being used as the target of the funnel instead of flushing the site. This is the way to tell send-uucp the name of the channel or exploder to flush for this site. If not specified, default to flushing the site.
The compression method to use for batches. This should be one of bzip2
,
compress
, gzip
or none
. Arguments for the compression command may be
specified by using _
instead of spaces. For example, gzip_-9
.
The default value is gzip
.
The maximum size in bytes of a single batch before compression. The default
value is 500000
bytes.
A comma separated list of hours during which batches should be generated for a given site. When send-uucp runs, a site will only be processed if the current hour matches one of the hours in batchtime. The default is no limitation on when to generate batches.
Fields are separated by spaces and only the site name needs to be specified,
with defaults being used for unspecified values. If the first character on
a line is a hash sign (#
) then the rest of the line is ignored.
Here is an example for the send-uucp.cf configuration file:
zoetermeer gzip 1048576 5,18,22 hoofddorp gzip 1048576 5,18,22 pa3ebv gzip 1048576 5,18,22 drinkel bzip2 1048576 5,6,18,20,22,0,2 manhole compress 1048576 5,18,22 owl compress 1048576 able pern::MYFUNNEL!
This defines eight UUCP sites. The first three and the last two use gzip
compression, the fourth site (drinkel
) uses bzip2
and the remaining sites
(manhole
and owl
) use compress
. The first six use a batch size of
1 MB, and the two last sites (able
and pern
) use the default of
500,000 bytes. The zoetermeer
, hoofddorp
, pa3ebv
, and manhole
sites
will only have batches generated for them during the hours of 05:00, 18:00,
and 22:00, and the drinkel
site will only have batches generated during those
hours and 06:00, 20:00, 00:00, and 02:00. There are no restrictions on when
batches will be generated for owl
, able
and pern
.
The pern
site is configured as a funnel into MYFUNNEL!
. send-uucp will
issue ctlinnd flush MYFUNNEL!
instead of ctlinnd flush pern
.
As for the newsfeeds file, the usual flags used for a UUCP feed are
Tf,Wnb
. Here is a typical entry for zoetermeer
, where the batching
is kept between 4 KB and 1 KB:
zoetermeer\ :*,!junk,!control,!control.*/!foo\ :Tf,Wnb,B4096/1024:
Here are the steps to follow to set up a UUCP feed over SSH between
two news servers, using the UUCP implementation available in Debian
as the uucp
package. The mechanisms described below should be
transposed if you use another UUCP implementation. (And if you do,
please inform the INN maintainers about how to set up a feed with another
UUCP implementation, so that it can be added to this documentation.)
First of all, make sure rnews is correctly installed setuid news
,
owned by group uucp
, and mode 4550
. This will allow the UUCP
subsystem to run rnews to process UUCP batches of news articles.
The configure
flag --enable-uucp-rnews takes care of it when
installing INN. Otherwise, you'll have to manually change the
permissions on rnews.
Install the uucp
package. It will notably provide uucico(8)
and uux(1).
Configure in /etc/uucp/Poll the remote news servers to poll, and
the hours during which they are to be polled. For instance, if you
send to news.server.to.feed
UUCP batches every 4 hours, you can use:
schedule news.server.to.feed 00 poll news.server.to.feed 00 04 08 12 16 20
If sending is hourly, just list all the hours.
Configure in /etc/uucp/call the credentials (usernames and passwords) to use when authenticating against remote news servers, one per line. For instance:
news.server.to.feed login password
Configure in /etc/uucp/config the UUCP name of the local news server. For instance:
nodename my.news.server
Check that /etc/uucp/expire fits your needs as for the number of days
batches are retained as well as the configuration of daily reports.
Default values are normally fine, though you may want to receive a
daily report only if unusual things happen (and in that case, just set
$important_only
to 1
).
Configure in /etc/uucp/passwd the credentials (usernames and passwords separated by a tabulation) remote news servers use when authenticating against the local news server, one per line. For instance:
login<TAB>password
Configure in /etc/uucp/sys how remote news servers connect to the local news server. A typical entry to set an SSH connection is the following one where pathbin should be changed to the real path to rnews:
system news.server.to.feed call-login * call-password * commands <pathbin>/rnews time any chat "" \d\d\r\c ogin: \d\L word: \P chat-timeout 120 protocol i port ssh.news.server.to.feed
Configure in /etc/uucp/port how to connect to remote news servers. A typical entry to set an SSH connection using a private key is:
port ssh.news.server.to.feed type pipe command /usr/bin/ssh -a -x -q -i <key_file> -l uucp news.server.to.feed reliable true protocol etyig
where key_file is the private key to use for the SSH connection, like for instance /var/spool/uucp/.ssh/id_private_key.
Make sure the administrators of remote news servers have added the
public key related to id_private_key for connections to the uucp
user of the remote news servers.
Supposing the home directory of the uucp
user is /var/spool/uucp,
you need to configure the SSH keys in the .ssh subdirectory. First,
add the public keys of all remote news servers in authorized_keys.
A typical entry is:
no-port-forwarding,no-X11-forwarding,no-agent-forwarding,command="/usr/sbin/uucico -l",from="news.server.to.feed" ssh-rsa xxxyyyzzz uucp@news.server.to.feed
This ensures the SSH connection will not be used for another goal than exchanging UUCP batches.
Make sure id_private_key is correctly present, as set in
/etc/uucp/port, and only readable by the uucp
user.
Manually run as the uucp
user the command set in /etc/uucp/port
so as to create the known_hosts file so as to make sure the SSH
setting is fine.
/usr/bin/ssh -a -x -q -i <key_file> -l uucp news.server.to.feed
Parameter the feed to send to the remote servers. A typical entry in newsfeeds to generate batches in pathoutgoing is:
news.server.to.feed/pathname:*:Tf,Wnb,B4096/1024:
Set up the compression method, batch sizes and when to generate them in send-uucp.cf located in pathetc, as described earlier in this documentation.
news.server.to.feed bzip2 1048576 3,7,11,15,19,23
Check that send-uucp is started hourly in crontab by the news
user.
For instance in /etc/cron.d/inn2:
52 * * * * news <pathbin>/send-uucp
It can be useful to set up a different launch time than your remote servers. For instance, if you generate batches every hour at minute 52, a remote peer may do the same at minute 22. This way, you may exchange articles more frequently, depending on when each other connects.
Check that UUCP programs are automatically started in crontab (usually, uudemon.hr is called hourly in /etc/cron.d/uucp to poll remote news servers, and uudemon.day daily in /etc/cron.daily/uucp).
Like for send-uucp, adjust the launch time to maximize the number and the freshness of batches to exchanges.
Check the logs in /var/log/uucp to ensure everything works fine, both polling and sending.
You will see that send-uucp prepares rnews batches named like D.0I8Y, that are queued by uux. When uucico is afterwards started from cron to transfer these batches, uucico takes available batches from the remote sites at the same time. These received batches are then processed by uuxqt which calls rnews to inject them.
That's all!
The Perl script itself used to create news batches from the outgoing files.
The configuration file which specifies a list of sites to be processed.
The log file used if the syslog facility is not available.
This program was originally written by Edvard Tuinder <ed@elm.net> and then maintained and extended by Miquel van Smoorenburg <miquels@cistron.nl>. Marco d'Itri <md@linux.it> cleaned up the code for inclusion in INN. This manual page was written by Mark Brown <broonie@sirena.org.uk>.
innd(8), newsfeeds(5), uucp(8).
< send-ihave | Russ Allbery > Software > INN > INN 2.6 Documentation |