send-uucp - 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]]]
- site
- The news site name being configured. This must match a site
name from newsfeeds(5).
- host
- 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.
- funnel
- 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.
- compressor
- 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".
- maxsize
- The maximum size in bytes of a single batch before
compression. The default value is 500000 bytes.
- batchtime
- 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.)
- 1.
- 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.
- 2.
- Install the "uucp" package. It will notably
provide uucico(8) and uux(1).
- 3.
- 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.
- 4.
- 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
- 5.
- Configure in /etc/uucp/config the UUCP name of the
local news server. For instance:
nodename my.news.server
- 6.
- 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).
- 7.
- 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
- 8.
- 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
- 9.
- 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 /bin/ssh -a -x -q -i <key> -l uucp news.server.to.feed
reliable true
protocol etyig
where key is the path to the private key to use for the SSH
connection, like for instance
/var/spool/uucp/.ssh/id_private_key.
- 10.
- 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.
- 11.
- 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 the following one,
which should be in 1 line (it is wrapped here for a proper display in man
page):
no-port-forwarding,no-X11-forwarding,no-agent-forwarding,
command="/usr/sbin/uucico -l",from="news.server.to.feed"
ssh-rsa xxxyyyzzz [email protected]
This ensures the SSH connection will not be used for another goal than
exchanging UUCP batches.
- 12.
- Make sure id_private_key is correctly present, as
set in /etc/uucp/port, and only readable by the "uucp"
user.
- 13.
- Manually run as the "uucp" user the command set
in /etc/uucp/port so as to create the known_hosts file to
make sure the SSH setting is fine.
/bin/ssh -a -x -q -i <key> -l uucp news.server.to.feed
- 14.
- Parameterize 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:
- 15.
- 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
- 16.
- 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.
- 17.
- 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.
- 18.
- 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!
-
pathbin/send-uucp
- The Perl script itself used to create news batches from the
outgoing files.
-
pathetc/send-uucp.cf
- The configuration file which specifies a list of sites to
be processed.
-
pathlog/send-uucp.log
- The log file used if the syslog facility is not
available.
This program was originally written by Edvard Tuinder <
[email protected]> and
then maintained and extended by Miquel van Smoorenburg
<
[email protected]>. Marco d'Itri <
[email protected]> cleaned up the
code for inclusion in INN. This manual page was written by Mark Brown
<
[email protected]>.
innd(8),
newsfeeds(5),
uucp(8).