Running uucp over X.25

[Joe Smith]

In article <10055 at brazos.Rice.edu> I asked about running uucp over X.25
and mentioned two problems.  I got an answer to the 2nd one, how to
originate a uucp connection over Sunlink-X.25.  Sun has a Consulting
Special that will do this, but only for SunOS-4.0.3 or earlier.  Since I
am running both 4.0.3 and 4.1, some of my systems are out of luck.

I have not gotten any good answers to my other problem.  Given an
origination system with an autodial modem on it async port, I can get it
to dial into Tymnet (or into a PAD) and from there log in to a Sun system
over its X.25 interface (via the x29 daemon).  However, the program puts
/dev/tty into raw mode, it does not pass all 256 possible characters
transparently in the tty to Sun direction.  I think it is ^P, ^S, and ^Q
that are giving me problems.

Here's a summary of the responses I got:

X-From: G.Carpenter at ee.surrey.ac.uk

Many UK sites are running UUCP over X.25 since the UK Universities have a
private switched X.25 network (JANET).  We use UKUUCP which a modified
version of UUCP which does 7 bit transfers and can cope with various PAD
oddities.  The author of UKUUCP is Lee McLoughlin at Imperial College,
London (lmjm at doc.ic.ac.uk) - he should be able to tell you how to get hold
of it.

X-From: Toerless Eckert <Toerless.Eckert at Informatik.Uni-Erlangen.de>

We do not run 4.1 here, but we changed an original System V.3.2.1 HDB to
include direct Sunlink X.25 dial in and dial out capability, and support
for g and f protocol (x proto seemed to have difficulties with direct
x.25, we didn;t test this excessively). We also included t proto and so
on.  We still use it under SunOS 4.0.3, and i don't know if we could send
you the patches (at least you require SunOS and ATT source licenses), but
if you are interested, i could ask people here.

X-From: Dave Morton <dave at ecrc.de>

I assume you are using 4.1 and HDB with Sunlink 6.0 ?  I was told that
this doesnt work yet as the hooks for f protocol are not available in HDB.
Also note that there are heaps of patches to Sunlink to get it to work
properly over X25 links. Worse uucp f protocol (i.e. uucico-f) from sun
under 4.0.3 is the biggest hack i've seen for a long time.....

Get the Sunlink 6.0 patches first, especially if you also intend to run ip
connections using say x25manager or tunnel daemon, then get the patches
for 4.0.3 uucico-f. I'm sure I heard from relaibe sources here in Europe
that HDB uucp does not work with 4.1 and Sunlink.  Good luck

Reply from me to Dave Morton:

X25manager is unusable without the "serial patches for 4.0.3".  The new
files include: keap_kmem.o, machdep.o, mcp.o, mcp_async.o, mti.o,
str_io.o, tty.o, ufs_bmap.o, uipc_mbuf.o, zs_async.o.  I was told that the
kernel was improperly allocating memory in the interrupt routines under
heavy load from the async or MCP ports.  In particular, starting up an rcp
of a large file that went through IP over X.25 would abort or panic.
After applying the patches, 4.0.3 is running clean.

Other people have told me that the version of uucp that comes with 4.1
(the HoneyDanBer version) does not work with Sunlink-X.25 version 6.0.

X-From: rar at balungan.West.Sun.COM (Rob Rosen - N/W Region Consulting)

Probably the easiest way to do this would be to buy the "X25-UUCP"
Consulting Special from Sun Consulting.  It's basically a new version of
uucico which implements the "-f" protocol.  I've used it many times on
Suns with SunLink X.25 and it works pretty well.

We're (Sun Consulting) are presently upgrading the Special to work on
SunOS 4.1.  It should be available shortly.  If you'd like more
information feel free to contact me.

X-From: rar at balungan.West.Sun.COM (Rob Rosen - N/W Region Consulting)

Sun has an X.25 Special which might serve your needs.  To order, contact
your salesman and tell him you want X copies of the "X25-UUCP Consulting
Special" for SunOS 4.0.3 on whatever platforms you require.  Please note
that Specials are unsupported software, and that assistance is available
on a time and materials basis only.

I'm investigating availability on 4.1 systems.  From what I can tell, even
though HDB uucico includes support for the F protocol, it doesn't work too
well when used in conjunction with SunLink X.25.

-- 
Joe Smith (408)922-6220 | SMTP: jms at tardis.tymnet.com or jms at gemini.tymnet.com
BT Tymnet Tech Services | UUCP: ...!{ames,pyramid}!oliveb!tymix!tardis!jms
PO Box 49019, MS-C41    | BIX: smithjoe | 12 PDP-10s still running! "POPJ P,"
San Jose, CA 95161-9019 | humorous dislaimer: "My Amiga speaks for me."