help! uucp losing files

[David Sherman]

Back on January 26 I posted a plea for help. Our uucp was
regularly failing on connections to many sites; following
the BAD READ failure, I'd get "file xxx can't access" mail on
the next connection.

The problem applies to v7-vintage uucico's, when talking to
4.3BSD uucp sites, as it turns out.

After working through all the replies and suggestions, and getting
particularly useful help from kwlalonde at watmath and rick at uunet,
I have the answer.  It's a two-part answer.

If you are running a v7-vintage uucp, you want fix (1), and
your neighbours running 4.3 want fix (2).  If you are running
4.3BSD uucp, you want fix (2).

(1) in v7 uucp sources, cntrl.c,

	if (msg[1] == Y) {
		...
		unlink(W_DFILE);
		RMESG(RQSTCMPT, msg);
		goto process;
	}

    Reverse the unlink and RMESG lines.  Reason:
    If the RMESG fails, the remote end may not have received W_DFILE,
    but it's too late.  Change it to call RMESG first, then do the unlink.

(2) From rick:
    Yes, there is a bug in the virgin 4.3bsd uucp in the 'g' protocol
    driver. It will produce the symptoms you describe.

*** pk1.c	Fri Nov  7 17:51:10 1986
--- ../nuucp/pk1.c	Sun Nov  2 21:12:49 1986
***************
*** 196,202 ****
  		return;
  	}
  	if (k && pksizes[k] == pk->p_rsize) {
! 		pk->p_rpr = (h->cntl >> 3) & MOD8;
  		pksack(pk);
  		bp = pk->p_ipool;
  		if (bp == NULL) {
--- 196,203 ----
  		return;
  	}
  	if (k && pksizes[k] == pk->p_rsize) {
! 		pk->p_rpr = h->cntl & MOD8;
! 		DEBUG(7, "end pksack 0%o\n", pk->p_rpr);
  		pksack(pk);
  		bp = pk->p_ipool;
  		if (bp == NULL) {


When I posted the query, I thought the problem "had" to be us
because it appeared when talking to all kinds of other sites.
I've now prevailed upon all of those sites (maccs, mnetor, utflis,
sickkids and some others) to patch their uucico's, and the problem has
entirely disappeared.

If you're running 4.3BSD, I strongly recommend you implement Rick's fix.
(Just feed this article through patch -d /usr/src/cmd/uucp and recompile.)

David Sherman
The Law Society of Upper Canada
Toronto
-- 
{ uunet!mnetor  pyramid!utai  decvax!utcsri  ihnp4!utzoo } !lsuc!dave