UUCPSEND.CTL(5)

✨ UUCPSEND.CTL(5) ✨

okay bestie, welcome to the uucpsend.ctl page — it lives in section 5 (that's file formats for the admin girlies 💅). Buckle up, this one's short but it's lowkey doing a lot.

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💖 NAME 💖

uucpsend.ctl — the list of sites you're feeding via uucpsend, no cap.

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

So the file /etc/news/uucpsend.ctl is where you tell the world (okay, tell uucpsend(8)) the default list of sites to be fed. That's its whole job. But heads up — the program can also read site info from other related configuration files too, so it's not the only source of truth, periodt.

Comments start with a hash mark (`#`) and just run all the way to the end of the line. Blank lines and comments? Ignored, we don't see them. Every other line should have six fields separated by a colon, like this:

site:max_size:queue_size:header:compressor:args

Let's break down each field because this is giving "anatomy lesson" and we're obsessed 🫶

Field one — site. This is the name of the site as specified in the newsfeeds(5) file. It's also the name of the UUCP system connected to this site. Two jobs, one name, main character energy fr fr.

Field two — max_size. The maximum size of all batches, in kbytes, that may be sent to this site. If you hit that amount, this site just won't get batched with this run — and a reason gets logged into the logfile (so at least it's accountable 💀). Important detail: this test includes all UUCP jobs, not only the ones sent to rnews. It does this by performing `du -s`. So yeah, it's counting everything, not just the cute stuff.

Field three — queue_size. The maximum size in kbytes of one batch. This argument gets passed directly to batcher(8). Simple. Clean. Iconic.

Field four — header. This defines the text that shall appear in the command header of every batch file. `#! ` is prefixed to each batch (so don't panic, that part's automatic). Normally you'll need cunbatch for compress, or gunbatch or zunbatch for gzip. This header matters because there is no standard way to handle gzip'ed batches — so you gotta say it yourself. Using this field and the next argument, you're also able to use any compressor you like. So basically uucpsend hands you a certain amount of flexibility. If you don't want any compression at all? Just leave the field empty. Slay.

Field five — compressor. This names a program that reads from stdin and writes to stdout. Normally it modifies the input stream by compressing it — think compress(1) or gzip(1). Chef's kiss.

Field six — args. Additional arguments that are passed directly to uux when sending the batch. Whatever you put here, uux is getting it.

🚨 One entry in the main configuration file is mandatory. There must exist a line containing the default values for all these variables. To achieve this, the pseudo site /default/ is used. Don't skip it, bestie, it's not optional.

One default entry could look like this:

/default/:2000:200:cunbatch:compress:-r -n

This reflects a minimal setup. Let's vibe check it:

• The maximal size that may be used by the UUCP spool directory is 2MB.
• Each batch will be max. 200 kBytes big.
• The header of each batch will contain the string `cunbatch`.
• compress(1) is used to compress the batches.
• `-r -n` is passed to uux(1), which means no notification will be sent if uux was successful, and uux won't start the uucico(8) program when spooling the file.

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🦋 HISTORY 🦋

Written by Martin Schulze <joey@infodrom.org> for InterNetNews. Most of the work is derived from nncpsend.ctl(5) by Landon Curt Noll <chongo@toad.com> for InterNetNews. Credit where credit is due, we love a citation moment 👑

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🎀 SEE ALSO 🎀

• batcher(8)
• newsfeeds(5)
• uucpsend(8)
• uux(1)

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and that's the whole page, bestie!! 💜 this one came from Infodrom, dated 21 November 2001 — a certified vintage classic, still eating after all these years. go configure your sites, you've got this 🫶✨