L.SYS(5)	    UNIX Programmer's Manual		 L.SYS(5)


NAME
     L.sys - UUCP remote host description file

DESCRIPTION
     The L.sys file is consulted by the UUCP daemon uucico(8) for
     information on remote systems.  L.sys includes the system
     name, appropriate times to call, phone numbers, and a login
     and password for the remote system.  L.sys is thus a
     privileged file, owned by the UUCP Administrator; it is
     accessible only to the Administrator and to the superuser.

     Each line in L.sys describes one connection to one remote
     host, and has the form:

     System  Times  Caller  Class  Device/Phone_Number	[Expect  Send]....

     Fields can be separated by any number of blanks or tabs.
     Lines beginning with a `#' character are comments; long
     lines can be continued by appending a `\' character to the
     end of the line.

     The first five fields (System through Device/Phone_Number)
     specify the hardware mechanism that is necessary to make a
     connection to a remote host, such as a modem or network.
     Uucico searches from the top down through L.sys to find the
     desired System; it then opens the L-devices(5) file and
     searches for the first available device with the same
     Caller, Class, and (possibly) Device.  (``Available'' means
     that the device is ready and not being used for something
     else.) Uucico attempts a connection using that device; if
     the connection cannot be made (for example, a dialer gets a
     busy signal), uucico tries the next available device. If
     this also fails, it returns to L.sys to look for another
     line for the same System.	If none is found, uucico gives
     up.

     System is the hostname of the remote system.  Every machine
     with which this system communicates via UUCP should be
     listed, regardless of who calls whom.  Systems not listed in
     L.sys will not be permitted a connection.	The local host-
     name should not appear here for security reasons.

     Times is a comma-separated list of the times of the day and
     week that calls are permitted to this System.  Times is most
     commonly used to restrict long distance telephone calls to
     those times when rates are lower.	List items are con-
     structed as:

	  keywordhhmm-hhmm/grade;retry_time

     Keyword is required, and must be one of:


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     Any     Any time, any day of the week.

     Wk      Any weekday. In addition, Mo, Tu, We, Th, Fr, Sa,
	     and Su can be used for Monday through Sunday,
	     respectively.

     Evening When evening telephone rates are in effect, from
	     1700 to 0800 Monday through Friday, and all day
	     Saturday and Sunday.  Evening is the same as
	     Wk1700-0800,Sa,Su.

     Night   When nighttime telephone rates are in effect, from
	     2300 to 0800 Monday through Friday, all day Satur-
	     day, and from 2300 to 1700 Sunday.  Night is the
	     same as Any2300-0800,Sa,Su0800-1700.

     NonPeak This is a slight modification of Evening.	It
	     matches when the USA X.25 carriers have their lower
	     rate period. This is 1800 to 0700 Monday through
	     Friday, and all day Saturday and Sunday.  NonPeak is
	     the same as Any1800-0700,Sa,Su.

     Never   Never call; calling into this System is forbidden or
	     impossible.  This is intended for polled connec-
	     tions, where the remote system calls into the local
	     machine periodically.  This is necessary when one of
	     the machines is lacking either dial-in or dial-out
	     modems.

     The optional hhmm-hhmm subfield provides a time range that
     modifies the keyword.  hhmm refers to hours and minutes in
     24-hour time (from 0000 to 2359).	The time range is permit-
     ted to "wrap" around midnight, and will behave in the obvi-
     ous way. It is invalid to follow the Evening, NonPeak, and
     Night keywords with a time range.

     The grade subfield is optional; if present, it is composed
     of a `/' (slash) and single character denoting the grade of
     the connection, from 0 to 9, A to Z, or a to z.  This speci-
     fies that only requests of grade grade or better will be
     transferred during this time.  (The grade of a request or
     job is specified when it is queued by uucp or uux.) By con-
     vention, mail is sent at grade C, news is sent at grade d,
     and uucp copies are sent at grade n.  Unfortunately, some
     sites do not follow these conventions, so it is not 100%
     reliable.

     The retry_time subfield is optional; it must be preceded by
     a `;' (semicolon) and specifies the time, in minutes, before
     a failed connection may be tried again.  (This restriction
     is in addition to any constraints imposed by the rest of the
     Time field.) By default, the retry time starts at 10 minutes


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     and gradually increases at each failure, until after 26
     tries uucico gives up completely (MAX RETRIES). If the retry
     time is too small, uucico may run into MAX RETRIES too soon.

     Caller is the type of device used:

     ACU     Automatic call unit or auto-dialing modem such as
	     the Hayes Smartmodem 1200 or Novation ``Smart Cat''.
	     See L-devices for a list of supported modems.

     DIR     Direct connect; hardwired line (usually RS-232) to a
	     remote system.

     MICOM   Micom Terminal Switch.

     PAD     X.25 PAD connection.

     PCP     GTE Telenet PC Pursuit. See L-devices for configura-
	     tion  details.

     SYTEK   Sytek high-speed dedicated modem port connection.

     TCP     Berkeley TCP/IP or 3Com UNET connection. These are
	     mutually exclusive.  TCP ports do not need entries
	     in L-devices since all the necessary information is
	     contained in L.sys.  If several alternate ports or
	     network connections should be tried, use multiple
	     L.sys entries.

     Class is usually the speed (baud) of the device, typically
     300, 1200, or 2400 for ACU devices and 9600 for direct
     lines.  Valid values are device dependent, and are specified
     in the L-devices file.

     On some devices, the baud may be preceded by a non-numeric
     prefix.  This is used in L-devices to distinguish among dev-
     ices that have identical Caller and baud, but yet are dis-
     tinctly different. For example, 1200 could refer to all Bell
     212-compatible modems, V1200 to Racal-Vadic modems, and
     C1200 to CCITT modems, all at 1200 baud.

     On TCP connections, Class is the port number (an integer
     number) or a port name from /etc/services that is used to
     make the connection. For standard Berkeley TCP/IP, UUCP nor-
     mally uses port number 540.

     Device/Phone_Number varies based on the Caller field.  For
     ACU devices, this is the phone number to dial.  The number
     may include: digits 0 through 9; # and * for dialing those
     symbols on tone telephone lines; - (hyphen) to pause for a
     moment, typically two to four seconds; = (equal sign) to
     wait for a second dial tone (implemented as a pause on many


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     modems). Other characters are modem dependent; generally
     standard telephone punctuation characters (such as the slash
     and parentheses) are ignored, although uucico does not
     guarantee this.

     The phone number can be preceded by an alphabetic string;
     the string is indexed and converted through the
     L-dialcodes(5) file.

     For DIR devices, the Device/Phone_Number field contains the
     name of the device in /dev that is used to make the connec-
     tion. There must be a corresponding line in L-devices with
     identical Caller, Class, and Device fields.

     For TCP and other network devices, Device/Phone_Number holds
     the true network name of the remote system, which may be
     different from its UUCP name (although one would hope not).

     Expect and Send refer to an arbitrarily long set of strings
     that alternately specify what to expect and what to send to
     login to the remote system once a physical connection has
     been established.	A complete set of expect/send strings is
     referred to as an expect/send script.  The same syntax is
     used in the L-devices file to interact with the dialer prior
     to making a connection; there it is referred to as a chat
     script.  The complete format for one expect/send pair is:

	  expect-timeout-send-expect-timeout   send

     Expect and Send are character strings.  Expect is compared
     against incoming text from the remote host; send is sent
     back when expect is matched.  By default, the send is fol-
     lowed by a `\r' (carriage return). If the expect string is
     not matched within timeout seconds (default 45), then it is
     assumed that the match failed.  The `expect-send-expect'
     notation provides a limited loop mechanism; if the first
     expect string fails to match, then the send string between
     the hyphens is transmitted, and uucico waits for the second
     expect string. This can be repeated indefinitely. When the
     last expect string fails, uucico hangs up and logs that the
     connection failed.

     The timeout can (optionally) be specified by appending the
     parameter `~nn' to the expect string, when nn is the timeout
     time in seconds.

     Backslash escapes that may be imbedded in the expect or send
     strings include:

	  \b	  Generate a 3/10 second BREAK.
	  \bn	  Where n is a single-digit number;
		  generate an n/10 second BREAK.


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	  \c	  Suppress the \r at the end of a send string.
	  \d	  Delay; pause for 1 second. (Send only.)
	  \r	  Carriage Return.
	  \s	  Space.
	  \n	  Newline.
	  \xxx	  Where xxx is an octal constant;
		  denotes the corresponding ASCII character.

     As a special case, an empty pair of double-quotes "" in the
     expect string is interpreted as ``expect nothing''; that is,
     transmit the send string regardless of what is received.
     Empty double-quotes in the send string cause a lone `\r'
     (carriage return) to be sent.

     One of the following keywords may be substituted for the
     send string:

	  BREAK   Generate a 3/10 second BREAK
	  BREAKn  Generate an n/10 second BREAK
	  CR	  Send a Carriage Return (same as "").
	  EOT	  Send an End-Of-Transmission character, ASCII \004.
		  Note that this will cause most hosts to hang up.
	  NL	  Send a Newline.
	  PAUSE   Pause for 3 seconds.
	  PAUSEn  Pause for n seconds.
	  P_ODD   Use odd parity on future send strings.
	  P_ONE   Use parity one on future send strings.
	  P_EVEN  Use even parity on future send strings. (Default)
	  P_ZERO  Use parity zero on future send strings.

     Finally, if the expect string consists of the keyword ABORT,
     then the string following is used to arm an abort trap. If
     that string is subsequently received any time prior to the
     completion of the entire expect/send script, then uucico
     will abort, just as if the script had timed out. This is
     useful for trapping error messages from port selectors or
     front-end processors such as ``Host Unavailable'' or ``Sys-
     tem is Down.''

     For example:

	  ""  ""  ogin:--ogin:	nuucp  ssword:	ufeedme

     This is executed as, ``When the remote system answers,
     expect nothing.  Send a carriage return.  Expect the remote
     to transmit the string `ogin:'. If it doesn't within 45
     seconds, send another carriage return.  When it finally
     does, send it the string `nuucp'.	Then expect the string
     `ssword:'; when that is received, send `ufeedme'.''

FILES
     /etc/uucp/L.sys


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L.SYS(5)	    UNIX Programmer's Manual		 L.SYS(5)


     /etc/uucp/UUAIDS/L.sysL.sys example

SEE ALSO
     uucp(1), uux(1), L-devices(5), services(5), uucico(8)

BUGS
     ``ABORT'' in the send/expect script is expressed ``back-
     wards,'' that is, it should be written `` expect ABORT'' but
     instead it is `` ABORT expect''.

     Several of the backslash escapes in the send/expect strings
     are confusing and/or different from those used by AT&T and
     Honey-Danber UUCP.  For example, `\b' requests a BREAK,
     while practically everywhere else `\b' means backspace.
     `\t' for tab and `\f' for formfeed are not implemented.
     `\s' is a kludge; it would be more sensible to be able to
     delimit strings with quotation marks.


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