uux(1C) (Basic Networking Utilities) uux(1C)
NAME
uux - UNIX-to-UNIX system command execution
SYNOPSIS
uux [ options ] command-string
DESCRIPTION
uux will gather zero or more files from various systems, execute a
command on a specified system and then send standard output to a file
on a specified system.
NOTE: For security reasons, most installations limit the list of
commands executable on behalf of an incoming request from uux,
permitting only the receipt of mail (see mail(1)). (Remote execution
permissions are defined in /etc/uucp/Permissions.)
The command-string is made up of one or more arguments that look like
a shell command line, except that the command and file names may be
prefixed by system-name!. A null system-name is interpreted as the
local system.
File names may be one of:
(1) a full path name;
(2) a path name preceded by ~xxx, where xxx is a login name on
the specified system and is replaced by that user's login
directory;
(3) anything else is prefixed by the current directory.
As an example, the command
uux "!diff sys1!/home/dan/file1 sys2!/a4/dan/file2 >
!~/dan/file.diff"
will get the file1 and file2 files from the ``sys1'' and ``sys2''
machines, execute a diff(1) command and put the results in file.diff
in the local PUBDIR/dan/ directory. PUBDIR is a public directory
defined in the uucp source. By default, this directory is
/var/spool/uucppublic
Any special shell characters such as <, >, ;, | should be quoted
either by quoting the entire command-string, or quoting the special
characters as individual arguments.
uux will attempt to get all appropriate files to the specified system
where they will be processed. For files that are output files, the
file name must be escaped using parentheses. For example, the
command:
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uux "a!cut -f1 b!/usr/file > c!/usr/file"
gets "/usr/file" from system "b" and sends it to system "a", performs
a cut command on that file and sends the result of the cut command to
system "c".
uux will notify you if the requested command on the remote system was
disallowed. This notification can be turned off by the -n option.
The response comes by remote mail from the remote machine.
The following options are interpreted by uux:
- The standard input to uux is made the standard input to the
command-string.
-aname Use name as the user job identification replacing the
initiator user-id. (Notification will be returned to
user-id name.)
-b Return whatever standard input was provided to the uux
command if the exit status is non-zero.
-c Do not copy local file to the spool directory for transfer
to the remote machine (default).
-C Force the copy of local files to the spool directory for
transfer.
-ggrade grade can be either a single letter, number, or a string of
alphanumeric characters defining a service grade. The
uuglist(1C) command determines whether it is appropriate to
use the single letter, number, or a string of alphanumeric
characters as a service grade. The output from the uuglist
command will be a list of service grades that are available
or a message that says to use a single letter or number as
a grade of service.
-j Output the jobid string on the standard output which is the
job identification. This job identification can be used by
uustat(1C) to obtain the status or terminate a job.
-n Do not notify the user if the command fails.
-p Same as -: The standard input to uux is made the standard
input to the command-string.
-r Do not start the file transfer, just queue the job.
-sfile Report status of the transfer in file.
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-xdebug_level
Produce debugging output on the standard output.
debug_level is a number between 0 and 9; as it increases to
9, more detailed debugging information is given.
-z Send success notification to the user.
FILES
/var/spool/uucp spool directories
/etc/uucp/Permissions remote execution permissions
/usr/lib/uucp/* other programs
/etc/uucp/* other data and programs
SEE ALSO
cut(1), mail(1), uuglist(1C), uucp(1C), uustat(1C).
WARNINGS
Only the first command of a shell pipeline may have a system-name!.
All other commands are executed on the system of the first command.
The use of the shell metacharacter * will probably not do what you
want it to do. The shell tokens << and >> are not implemented.
The execution of commands on remote systems takes place in an
execution directory known to the uucp system. All files required for
the execution will be put into this directory unless they already
reside on that machine. Therefore, the simple file name (without
path or machine reference) must be unique within the uux request.
The following command will NOT work:
uux "a!diff b!/home/dan/xyz c!/home/dan/xyz > !xyz.diff"
but the command
uux "a!diff a!/home/dan/xyz c!/home/dan/xyz > !xyz.diff"
will work. (If diff is a permitted command.)
BUGS
Protected files and files that are in protected directories that are
owned by the requester can be sent in commands using uux. However,
if the requester is root, and the directory is not searchable by
"other", the request will fail.
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