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From: cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: how to connect UUCP nodes in the 21st century?
Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2025 23:00:30 -0000 (UTC)
Organization: PANIX Public Access Internet and UNIX, NYC
Message-ID: <vogkqe$oa4$1@reader2.panix.com>
References: <slrnvqggf0.pi.eternal@esware.naleco.com> <lues7l-9lc.ln1@intheattic.eternal-september.org> <vogan9$d4k$1@reader2.panix.com> <3urs7l-88i.ln1@intheattic.eternal-september.org>
Injection-Date: Tue, 11 Feb 2025 23:00:30 -0000 (UTC)
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Originator: cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net (Dan Cross)
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In article <3urs7l-88i.ln1@intheattic.eternal-september.org>,
Juancho  <eternal@notreally.com> wrote:
>On 2025-02-11, Dan Cross <cross@spitfire.i.gajendra.net> wrote:
>> Juancho  <eternal@notreally.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>I was thinking about the "ct" and "cu" commands of the uucp suite.
>>
>> `cu` is just a serial communications program; it lets you use a
>> serial port and whatever that serial port is connected to;
>> historically it also had some syntactic sugar to connect to
>> systems that the administrator had put in the local UUCP
>> configuration.  Fundamentally it only lets you execute remote
>> commands in so far as the thing on the other end of the serial
>> port you use it with lets you do that, and `cu` itself is just
>> the communications agent.  I still occasionally use `cu` to talk
>> to little embedded devices and things like that.  Critically,
>> I doubt you could do `cu thathost!thishost` and expect it to
>> work (what if all outgoing lines from `thishost` were busy at
>> the time?).
>>
>> Similarly, `ct` does more or less the same thing, but assumes
>> that a line is connected to a modem, and knows how to dial a
>> phone number (back in the bad old days this was a lot more
>> complex than having a Hayes compatible modem that understood the
>> "AT" command set); in that sense, it's a little less flexible
>> than `cu`.  But again, it's just a communications agent, not a
>> remote execution/login program itself.
>>
>> `uux`, on the other hand, was actually designed to run commands
>> on some remote system: `uux seismo!me /bin/ls` or something
>> more involved like, `uux ucbvax!seismo!me /bin/ls` or whatever.
>> Still, this isn't exactly "remote login."
>
>In other words, it was common practice, before the Internet was 
>mainstream, to use cu/ct to login into other UNIX systems through serial
>lines and modems. Or my Xenix memories may be failing me.

I don't think that's what I said, but it's probably a true
statement.  This was not, however, using UUCP for remote login
in any recognizable sense.

        - Dan C.