UUCP is an abbreviation for Unix-to-Unix Copy. The term generally refers to a suite of computer programs and protocols allowing remote execution of commands and transfer of files, email and netnews between computers. Specifically, a command named uucp is one of the programs in the suite; it provides a user interface for requesting file copy operations. The UUCP suite also includes uux (user interface for remote command execution), uucico (the communication program that performs the file transfers), uustat (reports statistics on recent activity), uuxqt (execute commands sent from remote machines), and uuname (reports the UUCP name of the local system).

Although UUCP was originally developed on Unix and is most closely associated with Unix-like systems, UUCP implementations exist for several non-Unix-like operating systems, including Microsoft's MS-DOS, Digital's VAX/VMS, Commodore's AmigaOS, and classic Mac OS.

Technology

UUCP can use several different types of physical connections and link layer protocols, but was most commonly used over dial-up connections. Before the widespread availability of Internet connectivity, computers were only connected by smaller private networks within a company or organization. They were also often equipped with modems so they could be used remotely from character-mode terminals via dial-up lines. UUCP uses the computers' modems to dial out to other computers, establishing temporary, point-to-point links between them. Each system in a UUCP network has a list of neighbor systems, with phone numbers, login names and passwords, etc. When ''work'' (file transfer or command execution requests) is queued for a neighbor system, the uucico program typically calls that system to process the work. The uucico program can also poll its neighbors periodically to check for work queued on their side; this permits neighbors without dial-out capability to participate.

Today, UUCP is rarely used over dial-up links, but is occasionally used over TCP/IP.

One example of the current use of UUCP is in the retail industry by Epicor CRS Retail Systems for transferring batch files between corporate and store systems via TCP and dial-up on SCO OpenServer, Red Hat Linux, and Microsoft Windows (with Cygwin). The number of systems involved, as of early 2006, ran between 1500 and 2000 sites across 60 enterprises. UUCP's longevity can be attributed to its low/zero cost, extensive logging, native failover to dialup, and persistent queue management.

History

UUCP was originally written at AT&T; Bell Laboratories by Mike Lesk. By 1978 it was in use on 82 UNIX machines inside the Bell system, primarily for software distribution. It was released in 1979 as part of Version 7 Unix. The original UUCP was rewritten by AT&T; researchers Peter Honeyman, David A. Nowitz, and Brian E. Redman. The rewrite is referred to as ''HDB'' or ''HoneyDanBer'' uucp, which was later enhanced, bug fixed, and repackaged as ''BNU UUCP'' ("Basic Network Utilities").

Each of these versions was distributed as proprietary software, which inspired Ian Lance Taylor to write a new free software version from scratch in 1991. ''Taylor UUCP'' was released under the GNU General Public License and became the most stable and bug free version. In particular, Taylor UUCP addressed security holes which allowed some of the original internet worms to remotely execute unexpected shell commands. Taylor UUCP also incorporates features of all previous versions of UUCP, allowing it to communicate with any other version with the greatest level of compatibility and even use similar config file formats from other versions.

UUCP was also implemented for non-UNIX operating systems, most-notably MS-DOS systems. Packages such as UUSLAVE/GNUUCP (John Gilmore, Garry Paxinos, Tim Pozar), UUPC (Drew Derbyshire) and FSUUCP (Christopher Ambler of IODesign), brought early Internet connectivity to personal computers, expanding the network beyond the interconnected university systems. FSUUCP formed the basis for many BBS packages such as Galacticomm's Major BBS and Mustang Software's Wildcat! BBS to connect to the UUCP network and exchange email and Usenet traffic. As an example, UFGATE (John Galvin, Garry Paxinos, Tim Pozar) was a package that provided a gateway between networks running Fidonet and UUCP protocols.

FSUUCP was notable for being the only other implementation of Taylor's enhanced 'i' protocol, a significant improvement over the standard 'g' protocol used by most UUCP implementations.

UUCP for mail routing

The uucp and uuxqt capabilities could be used to send email between machines, with suitable mail user interface and delivery agent programs. A simple UUCP mail address was formed from the adjacent machine name, an exclamation mark or ''bang'', followed by the user name on the adjacent machine. For example, the address ''barbox!user'' would refer to user ''user'' on adjacent machine ''barbox''.

Mail could furthermore be routed through the network, traversing any number of intermediate nodes before arriving at its destination. Initially, this had to be done by specifying the complete path, with a list of intermediate host names separated by bangs. For example, if machine ''barbox'' is not connected to the local machine, but it is known that ''barbox'' is connected to machine ''foovax'' which does communicate with the local machine, the appropriate address to send mail to would be ''foovax!barbox!user''.

User ''barbox!user'' might publish their UUCP email address in a form such as ''…!bigsite!foovax!barbox!user''. This directs people to route their mail to machine ''bigsite'' (presumably a well-known and well-connected machine accessible to everybody) and from there through the machine ''foovax'' to the account of user ''user'' on ''barbox''. Many users would suggest multiple routes from various large well-known sites, providing even better and perhaps faster connection service from the mail sender.

Bang path

An email address of this form was known as a bang path. Bang paths of eight to ten machines (or ''hops'') were not uncommon in 1981, and late-night dial-up UUCP links would cause week-long transmission times. Bang paths were often selected by both transmission time and reliability, as messages would often get lost. Some hosts went so far as to try to "rewrite" the path, sending mail via "faster" routes—this practice tended to be frowned upon.

The "pseudo-domain" ending .uucp was sometimes used to designate a hostname as being reachable by UUCP networking, although this was never formally in the Internet root as a top-level domain. This would not have made sense anyway, because the DNS system is only appropriate for hosts reachable directly by TCP/IP. Additionally, uucp as a community administers itself and does not mesh well with the administration methods and regulations governing the DNS; .uucp works where it needs to; some hosts punt mail out of SMTP queue into uucp queues on gateway machines if a .uucp address is recognized on an incoming SMTP connection

Usenet traffic was originally transmitted over the UUCP protocol using bang paths. These are still in use within Usenet message format ''Path'' header lines. They now have only an informational purpose, and are not used for routing, although they can be used to ensure that loops do not occur.

In general, this form of e-mail address has now been superseded by the "@ notation", even by sites still using UUCP.

UUCPNET and mapping

UUCPNET was the name for the totality of the network of computers connected through UUCP. This network was very informal, maintained in a spirit of mutual cooperation between systems owned by thousands of private companies, universities, and so on. Often, particularly in the private sector, UUCP links were established without official approval from the companies' upper management. The UUCP network was constantly changing as new systems and dial-up links were added, others were removed, etc.

The ''UUCP Mapping Project'' was a volunteer, largely successful effort to build a map of the connections between machines that were open mail relays and establish a managed namespace. Each system administrator would submit, by e-mail, a list of the systems to which theirs would connect, along with a ranking for each such connection. These submitted map entries were processed by an automatic program that combined them into a single set of files describing all connections in the network. These files were then published monthly in a newsgroup dedicated to this purpose. The UUCP map files could then be used by software such as "pathalias" to compute the best route path from one machine to another for mail, and to supply this route automatically. The UUCP maps also listed contact information for the sites, and so gave sites seeking to join UUCPNET an easy way to find prospective neighbors.

Connections with the Internet

Many UUCP hosts, particularly those at universities, were also connected to the Internet in its early years, and e-mail gateways between Internet SMTP-based mail and UUCP mail were developed. A user at a system with UUCP connections could thereby exchange mail with Internet users, and the Internet links could be used to bypass large portions of the slow UUCP network. A "UUCP zone" was defined within the Internet domain namespace to facilitate these interfaces.

With this infrastructure in place, UUCP's strength was that it permitted a site to gain Internet e-mail and Usenet connectivity with only a dial-up modem link to another cooperating computer. This was at a time when true Internet access required a leased data line providing a connection to an Internet ''Point of Presence'', both of which were expensive and difficult to arrange. By contrast, a link to the UUCP network could usually be established with a few phone calls to the administrators of prospective neighbor systems. Neighbor systems were often close enough to avoid all but the most basic charges for telephone calls.

Decline

UUCP usage began to die out with the rise of ISPs offering inexpensive SLIP and PPP services. The UUCP Mapping Project was formally shut down late in 2000.

The UUCP protocol has now mostly been replaced by the Internet TCP/IP based protocols SMTP for mail and NNTP Usenet news.

Last uses and legacy

One surviving feature of UUCP is the chat file format, largely inherited by the expect software package.

UUCP was in use over special-purposes high cost links (e.g., marine satellite links) long after its disappearance elsewhere, and still remains in legacy use.

In the mid 2000s, UUCP over TCP/IP (often encrypted, using the SSH protocol) was proposed for use when a computer doesn't have any fixed IP addresses but is still willing to run a standard mail transfer agent (MTA) like Sendmail or Postfix.

Bang paths are still in use within the Usenet network, though not for routing; they are used to record the nodes through which a message has passed, rather than to direct where it will go next.

"Bang path" is also used as an expression for any explicitly specified routing path between network hosts. That usage is not necessarly limited to uucp, IP routing, email messaging, or Usenet.

See also

Routing

Sitename

Wizzy Digital Courier—low-cost internet delivery system using UUCP

FidoNet

References

External links

''Using & Managing UUCP''. Ed Ravin, Tim O'Reilly, Dale Doughtery, and Grace Todino. 1996, O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. ISBN 1-56592-153-4

Mark Horton (1986). ''RFC 976: UUCP Mail Interchange Format Standard''. Internet Engineering Task Force Requests for Comment.

UUCP Internals Frequently Asked Questions

Setting up Taylor UUCP + qmail on FreeBSD 5.1

Taylor UUCP is a GPL licensed UUCP package.

Taylor UUCP Documentation – useful information about UUCP in general and various uucp protocols.

The UUCP Project: History

The UUCP Mapping Project

UUHECNET - Hobbyist UUCP network that offers free feeds

Category:Network file transfer protocols Category:Network protocols Category:Usenet Category:Unix SUS2008 utilities

ca:UUCP cs:UUCP de:Unix to Unix Copy et:UUCP es:Copiador de Unix a Unix fr:Unix to Unix Copy Protocol ko:UUCP it:UUCP lv:UUCP nl:Unix to Unix Copy ja:Unix to Unix Copy Protocol pl:UUCP pt:UUCP ru:Uucp sv:UUCP tr:UUCP zh:UUCP

name	Kyle Snyder
number	--
position	Relief pitcher
birth date	September 09, 1977
birth place	Houston, Texas
bats	Switch
throws	Right
debutdate	May 1
debutyear	2003
debutteam	Kansas City Royals
statyear	2008 season
stat1label	Win-Loss
stat1value	8-17
stat2label	Earned run average
stat2value	5.57
stat3label	Strikeouts
stat3value	157
teams	Kansas City Royals (, -) Boston Red Sox (-)
awards	World Series champion (2007) }}

Kyle Ehren Snyder (born September 9, 1977) is an American baseball player, who is a former relief pitcher.Snyder played with the Kansas City Royals (, -) and the Boston Red Sox (-). He is listed at 6-8 and 220 pounds, is a switch hitter, and throws right-handed.

Background

Kyle Snyder was born in Houston, Texas. He graduated from Riverview High School in Sarasota, Florida in 1996. While in high school he lettered in baseball, basketball, swimming and golf. He was drafted by the Tampa Bay Devil Rays in the amateur draft but chose to attend UNC-Chapel Hill instead.

Snyder played three years for UNC-Chapel Hill, and also played for the Chatham Athletics of the Cape Cod Summer league where he was named the top prospect. In the summer of 1997, Snyder played in the Valley League (wooden-bat league in Virginia for pro prospects) for the Winchester Royals.

Professional career

In 1999, he was a first round MLB draft pick (7th pick overall) of the Kansas City Royals. He played for Spokane Indians in and was named top prospect in the Northwest League by Baseball America.

His career with the Royals was hampered by several injuries. He only pitched 2 games in and missed the entire minor league season recovering from Tommy John surgery. Between and he was on the disabled list four times including two stays on the 60 day disabled list, missing the entire season after having surgery to repair a torn labrum in his right shoulder. Despite his history with injuries, he was named the 7th-best prospect in the organization by Baseball America in 2003.

Snyder started the season with the Royal's minor league affiliate, Omaha Royals, and was promoted to the majors on June 8, 2006 to face the Texas Rangers. After giving up nine runs (five earned) and ten hits in a two inning start, he was designated for assignment.

In June 2006, he was claimed off waivers by the Boston Red Sox. He split the remainder of the season between Boston and the Pawtucket Red Sox.

Snyder is perhaps best known in Boston for his 4 1/3 inning relief effort for the Red Sox in a July 31, 2006 game against the Cleveland Indians. Entering the game with Boston trailing 8-6 in the 5th, he held the Indians scoreless before David Ortiz hit a walk-off 3-run homer in the bottom of the 9th, giving the Red Sox a stunning 9-8 victory. He allowed only 1 hit while walking none and striking out 6.

Snyder's first full season in the majors was in , when he appeared in 46 games, one more than his previous three professional years combined. In January 2007 he signed a one-year contract with the Red Sox avoiding the arbitration process.

In April , Snyder was designated for assignment to make room for Josh Beckett, who was returning from the 15-day disabled list. Later in the month, he accepted an assignment to remain in the Red Sox organization with Triple-A Pawtucket. He was granted free agency after the 2008 season and signed a minor league contract with the New York Mets in January .

References

External links

Category:1977 births Category:Living people Category:Kansas City Royals players Category:Boston Red Sox players Category:Baseball players from Texas Category:Major League Baseball pitchers Category:Spokane Indians players Category:Gulf Coast Royals players Category:Wilmington Blue Rocks players Category:Wichita Wranglers players Category:Arizona League Royals players Category:Omaha Royals players Category:Pawtucket Red Sox players Category:Gulf Coast Red Sox players Category:Lowell Spinners players Category:Buffalo Bisons (minor league) players

ja:カイル・スナイダー pt:Kyle Snyder