From: gdm@shrdlu.kwnet.on.ca (Giles D Malet) Subject: Re: UUGETTY & Lock files... Date: Thu, 7 Jan 1993 16:45:53 GMT
In article <C0EFGJ.706@jti.com> richb@jti.com (Richard Braun) writes:
>
>My version of kermit uses binary PIDs so I had to change
>and recompile uugetty to do likewise.
A word of warning - the binary version of kermit doing the rounds is
`wrong' in using binary PID's. I say `wrong' because all software has
to agree on a format, and since the dark ages kermit has used straight
ascii. uucp, uugetty, and various other programs all use ascii as well.
You should be fixing kermit, and now your uugetty, else the following can
happen : uucp starts using the line and writes an ascii lock. You fire
up kermit, it reads the lock as binary, gets a PID about 15digits long,
can't find that process, assumes it is dead, removes the lock and also
tries to grab the line.... Next cron fires off a uucico which reads the
binary file as ascii, ..... and grabs the line. Next uugetty wakes up,
looks around... and grabs the line.
I'll stop now - I'm breaking out in a cold sweat.
Also, ascii lock numbers are easliy readable by scripts and humans.
This is going to cause problems and more volume in the newsgroup if that
kermit is not fixed !
-- Giles D Malet gdm@shrdlu.kwnet.on.ca Waterloo, Ont, Canada +1 519 725 5726 gdmalet@descartes.uwaterloo.ca