TZ/rmail problems again

[Jeff Mann]

In article <1991Apr4.093613.24871 at panix.uucp> alexis at panix.uucp (Alexis Rosen) writes:
>In article <1991Apr1.230647.14919 at intacc.uucp> mann at intacc.uucp (Jeff Mann) writes:
>>In article <1991Mar27.033217.452 at deadzone.uucp> marcelo at deadzone.uucp (Marcelo Gallardo) writes:
>>>	I've checked everything that uucp uses to call or accept logins,
>>>	and they all have the TZ set prior to executing anything, yet I
>>>	still get the following message somtimes...
>>>
>>>		"TZ=/bin/cat rmail marcelo" 
>>
>>I have also experienced this mysterious problem, under the same
>>circumstances. I have no Idea what causes it or what the solution
>>is. The message you describe appears in a mail message going back
>>to the sender, and MAIL FAIL appears in the LOGFILE. Let me know
>>if you figure it out!!
>
>The cause of this is a *uuxqt* without TZ set properly. Now most of the time,
>uuxqt is only invoked by uucico, so if you set TZ correctly for uucico you'll
>automatically get it right for uuxqt as well. If you run uuxqt by hand, it
>will also work OK, because TZ is always defined in user environments.
>
>The big "but" is that if you invoke uuxqt from cron, which is in some cases
>a good strategy, you MUST provide TZ in its environment. The easiest way to
>do that is to say something like:
>TZ=`/bin/cat /etc/TIMEZONE` ; export TZ ; /usr/lib/uucp/uuxqt
>in your crontab instead of just /usr/lib/uucp/uuxqt.
>
>If you use my wrapper (and you must, if you're using A/UX 2.0.0, or else
>something similar), this will also do the job.

Sorry... that's not it. :-( I do use your wrapper, and I don't run uuxqt from
cron. It's only ever run by uucico. Take a look at the error message:

>From uucp  Sat Apr 13 10:59:55 1991 remote from intacc
Received: by intacc (5.61/SMI-3.2)
	id AA16690; Sat, 13 Apr 91 10:59:55 PDT
Date: Sat, 13 Apr 91 10:59:55 PDT
From: intacc!uucp (0000-UUCP Admin(0000))
Message-Id: <9104131759.AA16690 at intacc>
To: yunexus!root

Mail failed (PATH=/bin:/usr/bin LOGNAME=uucp TZ=`/bin/cat rmail uucp ).  Letter returned to sender.


...it looks like some kind of string/memory overrun in uuxqt. What should be
TZ=`/bin/cat /etc/timezone` rmail uucp 
is truncated to:
TZ=`/bin/cat rmail uucp

Obviously, `/bin/cat rmail` is a Bad Thing! This only happens
to me with mail from one particular system (yunexus). One thing I noticed was
that they log in with a nine-character name: uuyunexus. I can't really think
how that would cause this, but it's the only thing I can think of that's different
from the other uucp callers. I have just changed their login to an eight-character
name, so we'll soon see...

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|  Jeff Mann  Inter/Access Artists' Computer Centre, Toronto  [416] 535-8601 |
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