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By El Observador
Copyright (C) 1995 by El Observador BBS
BEATING THE PHONE COMPANY
Modifying your UUCP login script to transfer batched news
via an intermediary provider using "rlogin."
I run a medium size BBS out of Monterey, California and as
of just a short while ago was looking for a way to provide
Internet connectivity to my users at a reasonable cost.
Currently, the only provider in my area is Netcom, but when
I called them to ask if they would provide me with a UUCP
feed, the answer was an outright NO. The only other option
I had was to find an inexpensive provider out of San Jose, a
long distance call from Monterey. The good news is I did
find a provider in San Jose called a2i Communications which
offered me both a UUCP feed and an interactive shell account
for a low monthly fee of twenty dollars. The bad news is
that in order to carry the number of USENET newsgroups I
wanted for my BBS (around 200-300) I was going to have to
pay approximately four hundred dollars in long distance
phone charges each month! There had to be a better way.
The document that follows explains in detail how to
configure a uucp script to exchange batched mail via the
unix `rlogin' command. One of the primary reasons for
exchanging mail in this manner is that it enables you to
dial a local Internet provider--who may not offer a uucp
feed--and `rlogin' to a remote provider that *does* offer a
uucp feed. In this way, you will avoid the often horrendous
long distance phone charges associated with running an
Internet/Usenet feed for your BBS.
In order to illustrate this process, let us say as an
example that the only Internet provider in your town with a
local access number is Netcom (as in my case).
Unfortunately, Netcom (as previously mentioned) no longer
offers UUCP feeds, so you are required to establish a feed
account with another provider outside of your area code or
local calling area. As you are no doubt well aware, a full
UUCP feed (over 8,000 newsgroups) brings in about 55
megabytes of new messages each and every day. Even a small
selection (100-300 conferences) will often require several
hours to download each night from the provider. This can
add up to BIG phone charges each month. But there is a way
to avoid this and pay nothing in long distance charges.
First, you will need to establish a SHELL account with
Netcom (or other local provider) and then of course a feed
account with the provider outside your local calling area.
Now, configure your BBS or network and ensure that your UUCP
feed is working via the direct dialing of your out-of-town
provider. Once you have ironed out all of the bugs and
idiosyncrasies of running a UUCP feed, you are now ready to
modify your uucp login script which is accessed by the
program you are using to dial the provider and to initiate
the transfer. Login scripts vary according to the software
you are using. The example that follows is a script I wrote
for PCBoard 15.21's UUXFER program. NOTE: It runs on one
continuous line; however, I have split it over multiple
lines so that it formats correctly to the page. In order to
distinguish clearly the login names and passwords, let's use
the following examples: for Netcom, we shall use login name
`sugar' and password `uncle'; for a2i (the uucp feed) we
shall use password `87jR2.Q'. There is no need to specify
the login for the feed, as we will do that in the rlogin
batch we will create and store in your Netcom's home
directory.
------------------------------------------------------------------
| Original uucp script for direct dialing uucp provider |
| |
| #Systems file for a2i, created 5/25/95 by EO. |
| |
| a2i f1 f2 f3 f4 g "" ATZ OK \dATDT2939010 CONNECT \c gin:--gin |
| Uamos word:--word 87jR2.Q |
| |
------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------------
| MODIFIED SCRIPT FOR LOCAL NETCOM NODE |
| #Systems file for a2i, modified 6/09/95 by EO. |
| a2i f1 f2 f3 f4 g "" ATZ OK \dATDT6447850 CONNECT \c gin:--gin |
| sugar word:-word uncle }:--} feed word:--word 87jR2.Q |
------------------------------------------------------------------
Ok, now that we have our script for direct dialing (long
distance) our provider working, let's study our modified
`rlogin' script. First, I have changed the dial-up number
from the long distance provider to the number for the local
Netcom node. Then I changed the login and password to
reflect the local Netcom account. Following those changes,
you will notice the `}' braces. After UUXFER logs into your
local Netcom account and signs on with the proper password,
it needs to be told what to look for next. The Netcom
server you logon to--which varies with each call--is always
enclosed in braces (check the prompt your local provider
uses and substitute accordingly) so I have told UUXFER that
when it sees the braces that it should execute the batch
file called `feed.' You now will need to call Netcom (or
local provider) and after logging in, type `pico feed' at
the main prompt. This will create an empty text file called
`feed.' At this point we will type out the rlogin command
along with the parameters we will use for logging into the
feed site. Substitute the following for your particular
site:
rlogin hustle.rahul.net -l Uamos
Now do a ctrl-x to exit and save the file known as `feed.'
At the Netcom prompt, type `chmod +x feed' and press enter.
This will make `feed' executable as a batch file. Please
note that you will need to find out the name of the specific
server your provider uses for UUCP feeds and substitute it
for the name I used: hustle.rahul.net. You will also have
to ask your provider if he will configure his server to
allow your incoming rlogin (Rahul of a2i Communications was
very happy to assist me in my efforts and made all of this
possible). He will need your Netcom login name to do this.
Also notice the rlogin -l switch followed by the UUCP login
you use with the feed site. Unfortunately, UUXFER treats
any switches or other commands as separate commands or
programs. Because of this, we have to tell our script to
execute the batch file known as `feed."
So, getting back to our script, we see that after UUXFER
sees the braces, it will run the feed batch file which will
in turn `rlogin' to the appropriate server with your UUCP
username. The next thing that will happen is that you will
be prompted for a password. When UUXFER sees `word' it will
enter your UUCP password. (Please note that in the modified
script I have removed the `CONNECT \c' when using rlogin to
log into the UUCP server. I have done this because we are
already logged in thanks to our feed batch file and the use
of the `-l' parameter with rlogin. All we need do now is
have our script enter the UUCP password).
Once our UUXFER script enters the appropriate UUCP password
(in this case, 87jR2.Q), you should see the following
message "Shere=sitename." The transfer should begin just as
it would had you dialed in directly. Please note that the
throughput will be nearly the same, as the feed server is
processing the job at the same speed as before. The good
news is that you're connected to a local number and
transferring all of your batched news through Netcom!
Congratulations if everything works. With enough
persistence and perspicacity, you should be able to adapt
this script to work with nearly any program or environment.
Addendum:
In certain instances, the rlogin command may be unreliable.
The rlogin command traps certain sequences of characters, when it
sees a dot at the beginning of a line. If this is the case, you
may want to experiment with BINARY telnet. If your provider does
not support BINARY telnet, you will need to obtain the source code
and recompile it on your local provider's system. With any luck your
UUCP transactions will never include the character sequences trapped
by rlogin, making this precaution unnecessary.
You can increase the throughput of your UUCP transfers by
modifying the 'g' parameter in PCBoard's uucp chat script. The g
parameter controls the window and packet size used during the transfer.
Try changing it to read g65, a setting which works well on my system
(my transfer rate increased from 600cps to 1600+ cps). Consult your
PCBoard manual for more detailed information.
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