4.3BSD/usr/man/man5/L.sys.5
.\" Copyright (c) 1986 Regents of the University of California.
.\" All rights reserved. The Berkeley software License Agreement
.\" specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution.
.\"
.\" @(#)L.sys.5 6.1 (Berkeley) 4/24/86
.\"
.TH L.SYS 5 "April 24, 1986"
.UC 6
.SH NAME
L.sys \- UUCP remote host description file
.SH DESCRIPTION
The
.I L.sys
file is consulted by the UUCP daemon
.IR uucico (8C)
for information on remote systems.
.I L.sys
includes the system name, appropriate times to call, phone numbers, and a
login and password for the remote system.
.I L.sys
is thus a privileged file, owned by the UUCP Administrator;
it is accessible only to the Administrator and to the superuser.
.PP
Each line in
.I L.sys
describes one connection to one remote host, and has the form:
.PP
.nf
System Times Caller Class Device/Phone_Number [Expect Send]....
.fi
.PP
Fields can be separated by any number of blanks or tabs. Lines beginning
with a `#' character are comments; long lines can be continued by appending
a `\\' character to the end of the line.
.PP
The first five fields
.RI ( System
through
.IR Device/Phone_Number )
specify the hardware mechanism that is necessary to make a connection
to a remote host, such as a modem or network.
.I Uucico
searches from the top down through
.I L.sys
to find the desired
.IR System ;
it then opens the
.IR L-devices (5)
file and searches for the first available device with the same
.IR Caller ,
.IR Class ,
and (possibly)
.IR Device .
(``Available'' means that the device is ready and not being used
for something else.)
.I Uucico
attempts a connection using that device; if
the connection cannot be made (for example, a
dialer gets a busy signal),
.I uucico
tries the next available device. If this also fails, it returns to
.I L.sys
to look for another line for the same
.IR System .
If none is found,
.I uucico
gives up.
.PP
.I System
is the hostname of the remote system.
Every machine with which this system communicates via UUCP should be listed,
regardless of who calls whom.
Systems not listed in
.I L.sys
will not be permitted a connection.
The local hostname should
.B not
appear here for security reasons.
.PP
.I Times
is a comma-separated list of the times of the day and week that
calls are permitted to this
.IR System .
.I Times
is most commonly used
to restrict long distance telephone calls to those times when
rates are lower. List items are constructed as:
.PP
.nf
\fIkeyword\fPhhmm\fB-\fPhhmm\fB/\fP\fIgrade\fP\fB;\fP\fIretry_time\fP
.fi
.PP
.I Keyword
is required, and must be one of:
.TP 8
.B Any
Any time, any day of the week.
.TP 8
.B Wk
Any weekday. In addition,
.BR Mo ,
.BR Tu ,
.BR We ,
.BR Th ,
.BR Fr ,
.BR Sa ,
and
.B Su
can be used for Monday through Sunday, respectively.
.TP 8
.B Evening
When evening telephone rates are in effect, from 1700 to 0800 Monday
through Friday, and all day Saturday and Sunday.
.B Evening
is the same as
.BR Wk1700-0800,Sa,Su .
.TP 8
.B Night
When nighttime telephone rates are in effect, from 2300 to 0800 Monday
through Friday, all day Saturday, and from 2300 to 1700 Sunday.
.B Night
is the same as
.BR Any2300-0800,Sa,Su0800-1700 .
.TP 8
.B NonPeak
This is a slight modification of
.BR Evening .
It matches when the USA X.25 carriers have their lower rate period. This
is 1800 to 0700 Monday through Friday, and all day Saturday and Sunday.
.B NonPeak
is the same as
.BR Any1800-0700,Sa,Su .
.TP 8
.B Never
Never call; calling into this
.I System
is forbidden or impossible.
This is intended for polled connections, where the
remote system calls into the local machine periodically.
This is necessary when one of the machines is lacking
either dial-in or dial-out modems.
.PP
The optional
.I hhmm-hhmm
subfield provides a time range that modifies the keyword.
.I hhmm
refers to
.I hours
and
.I minutes
in 24-hour time (from 0000 to 2359).
The time range is permitted to "wrap" around midnight, and will behave in
the obvious way. It is invalid to follow the
.BR Evening ,
.BR NonPeak ,
and
.B Night
keywords with a time range.
.PP
The
.I grade
subfield is optional; if present, it is composed of a `/'
(slash) and single
character denoting the
.I grade
of the connection, from
.B 0
to
.BR 9 ,
.B A
to
.BR Z ,
or
.B a
to
.BR z .
This specifies that only requests of grade
.I grade
or better will be transferred during this time.
(The grade of a request or job is specified when it is queued by
.I uucp
or
.IR uux .)
By convention, mail is sent at grade
.BR C ,
news is sent at grade
.BR d ,
and uucp copies are sent at grade
.BR n .
Unfortunately, some sites do not follow these conventions, so it is
not 100% reliable.
.PP
The
.I retry_time
subfield is optional; it must be preceded by a `;' (semicolon) and
specifies the time, in minutes, before a failed connection may be
tried again.
(This restriction is in addition to any constraints imposed by the rest of the
.I Time
field.)
By default, the retry time starts at 10 minutes and gradually increases
at each failure, until after 26 tries
.I uucico
gives up completely (MAX RETRIES). If the retry time is too small,
.I uucico
may run into MAX RETRIES too soon.
.PP
.I Caller
is the type of device used:
.TP 8
.B ACU
Automatic call unit or auto-dialing modem such as the Hayes
Smartmodem 1200 or Novation ``Smart Cat''. See
.I L-devices
for a list of supported modems.
.TP 8
.B DIR
Direct connect; hardwired line (usually RS-232) to a remote system.
.TP 8
.B MICOM
Micom Terminal Switch.
.TP 8
.B PAD
X.25 PAD connection.
.TP 8
.B PCP
GTE Telenet PC Pursuit. See
.I L-devices
for configuration details.
.TP 8
.B SYTEK
Sytek high-speed dedicated modem port connection.
.TP 8
.B TCP
Berkeley TCP/IP or 3Com UNET connection. These are mutually exclusive.
TCP ports do
.B not
need entries in
.I L-devices
since all the necessary information is contained in
.IR L.sys .
If several alternate ports or network connections should be tried,
use multiple
.I L.sys
entries.
.PP
.I Class
is usually the speed (baud) of the device, typically 300, 1200, or
2400 for ACU devices and 9600 for direct lines.
Valid values are device dependent, and are specified in the
.I L\-devices
file.
.PP
On some devices, the baud may be preceded by a
non-numeric prefix. This is used in
.IR L\-devices
to distinguish among devices that have identical
.I Caller
and baud, but yet are distinctly different. For example, 1200
could refer to all Bell 212-compatible modems, V1200 to
Racal-Vadic modems, and C1200 to CCITT modems, all at 1200 baud.
.PP
On TCP connections,
.I Class
is the port number (an integer number) or a port name from
.I /etc/services
that is used to make the connection. For standard Berkeley TCP/IP,
UUCP normally uses port number 540.
.PP
.I Device/Phone_Number
varies based on the
.I Caller
field. For ACU devices, this is the phone number to dial.
The number may include: digits
.B 0
through
.BR 9 ;
.B #
and
.B *
for dialing those symbols on tone telephone lines;
.B -
(hyphen) to pause for a moment, typically two to four seconds;
.B =
(equal sign) to wait for a second dial tone (implemented as a pause on
many modems). Other characters are modem dependent; generally
standard telephone punctuation characters (such as the slash and
parentheses) are ignored, although
.I uucico
does not guarantee this.
.PP
The phone number can be preceded by an alphabetic
string; the string is indexed and converted through the
.IR "L\-dialcodes" (5)
file.
.PP
For DIR devices, the
.I Device/Phone_Number
field contains the name of the device in
.I /dev
that is used to make the connection. There must be a corresponding
line in
.I L\-devices
with identical
.IR Caller ,
.IR Class ,
and
.I Device
fields.
.PP
For TCP and other network devices,
.I Device/Phone_Number
holds the true network name of the remote system, which may be different
from its UUCP name (although one would hope not).
.PP
.I Expect
and
.I Send
refer to an arbitrarily long set of strings that
alternately specify what to
.I expect
and what to
.I send
to login to the remote system once a physical connection has
been established. A complete set of expect/send strings is referred
to as an
.IR "expect/send script" .
The same syntax is used in the
.I L\-devices
file to interact with the dialer prior to making a connection; there
it is referred to as a
.IR "chat script" .
The complete format for one
.I expect/send
pair is:
.PP
.nf
\fIexpect\fP\fB-\fP\fItimeout\fP\fB-\fP\fIsend\fP\fB-\fP\fI\
expect\fP\fB-\fP\fItimeout send\fP
.fi
.PP
.I Expect
and
.I Send
are character strings.
.I Expect
is compared against incoming text from the remote host;
.I send
is sent back when
.I expect
is matched. By default, the
.I send
is followed by a `\er' (carriage return). If the
.I expect
string is not matched within
.I timeout
seconds (default 45), then it is assumed that the match failed.
The `\fIexpect\fP\fB-\fP\fIsend\fP\fB-\fP\fIexpect\fP' notation
provides a limited loop mechanism; if the first
.I expect
string fails to match, then the
.I send
string between the hyphens is transmitted, and
.I uucico
waits for the second
.I expect
string. This can be repeated indefinitely. When the last
.I expect
string fails,
.I uucico
hangs up and logs that the connection failed.
.PP
The timeout can (optionally) be specified by appending the parameter
`\fB~\fP\fInn\fP' to the expect string, when \fInn\fR is the timeout
time in seconds.
.PP
Backslash escapes that may be imbedded in the
.I expect
or
.I send
strings include:
.PP
.ta .5in +.8in +.8in
.nf
\eb Generate a 3/10 second BREAK.
\eb\fIn\fP Where \fIn\fP is a single-digit number;
generate an \fIn\fP/10 second BREAK.
\ec Suppress the \er at the end of a \fIsend\fP string.
\ed Delay; pause for 1 second. (\fISend\fR only.)
\er Carriage Return.
\es Space.
\en Newline.
\exxx Where \fIxxx\fP is an octal constant;
denotes the corresponding ASCII character.
.fi
.PP
As a special case, an empty pair of double-quotes \fB""\fP in the
.I expect
string is interpreted as ``expect nothing''; that is, transmit
the
.I send
string regardless of what is received. Empty double-quotes
in the
.I send
string cause a lone `\er' (carriage return) to be sent.
.PP
One of the following keywords may be substituted for the
.I send
string:
.PP
.nf
BREAK Generate a 3/10 second BREAK
BREAK\fIn\fP Generate an \fIn\fP/10 second BREAK
CR Send a Carriage Return (same as "").
EOT Send an End-Of-Transmission character, ASCII \e004.
Note that this will cause most hosts to hang up.
NL Send a Newline.
PAUSE Pause for 3 seconds.
PAUSE\fIn\fP Pause for \fIn\fR seconds.
P_ODD Use odd parity on future send strings.
P_ONE Use parity one on future send strings.
P_EVEN Use even parity on future send strings. (Default)
P_ZERO Use parity zero on future send strings.
.fi
.PP
Finally, if the
.I expect
string consists of the keyword
.BR ABORT ,
then the string following is used to arm an abort trap. If that string
is subsequently received any time prior to the completion of the entire
.I expect/send
script, then
.I uucico
will abort, just as if the
script had timed out. This is useful for trapping error messages from
port selectors or front-end processors such as ``Host Unavailable'' or
``System is Down.''
.PP
For example:
.PP
.nf
"" "" ogin:--ogin: nuucp ssword: ufeedme
.fi
.PP
This is executed as, ``When the remote system answers,
.I expect
nothing.
.I Send
a carriage return.
.I Expect
the remote to transmit the string `ogin:'. If it doesn't
within 45 seconds, send another carriage return. When it finally does,
.I send
it the string `nuucp'. Then
.I expect
the string `ssword:'; when that is received,
.I send
`ufeedme'.''
.SH FILES
/usr/lib/uucp/L.sys
.br
/usr/lib/uucp/UUAIDS/L.sys L.sys example
.SH SEE ALSO
uucp(1C), uux(1C), L-devices(5), services(5), uucico(8C)
.SH BUGS
``ABORT'' in the send/expect script is expressed ``backwards,'' that is,
it should be written ``
.I expect
.BR ABORT ''
but instead it is ``
.B ABORT
.IR expect ''.
.PP
Several of the backslash escapes in the send/expect strings are confusing
and/or different from those used by AT&T and Honey-Danber UUCP.
For example, `\eb' requests
a BREAK, while practically everywhere else `\eb' means backspace.
`\et' for tab and `\ef' for formfeed are not implemented.
`\es' is a kludge; it would be more sensible to be able to delimit strings
with quotation marks.