Re: cu take not working?

[Michael Parson <mparson%bl.org@localhost>]

On Tue, 9 Jun 2009, Nino on NetBSD 4.0 wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> Thanks to your support, I now have a working dial-in connection from
> one machine to another.  Both are running NetBSD 5.0 - generic kernel.
> For dialing in, I am using cu; tip somehow does not work for me. I can
> log in, everything is normal (if somewhat slow).
>
> But I am experiencing problems when I try to transfer files. When I
> try to "put" a file, it works perfectly. When I try to "take" a file,
> cu just appears to hang; on my local machine, where I try to get the
> file, a file with the right name is created - but it always stays at
> zero length. I have to pkill cu at the end, and the file is never
> filled.

Back when I was doing terminal based dialup, I never used tip/cu/etc
for doing modem dialing, I used minicom (which can be found in
$PKGSRC/comms/minicom) for handling the dialup side of the connection.
I then used one of the protocols designed for file transfers, depending
on what was available.  In the earlier days, we used stuff like
x/ymodem, then later, as the modem speeds increased and the coders got
smarter, we got the zmodem file transfer protocol.  The 'zmodem' method
has a number of advantages.  First, it transfered the files in streams
rather than packets.  Second, most terminal programs could be configured
to automatically accept a zmodem inbound connection once it was started
on the remote side.

To transfer a file from the remote host to local, from the shell prompt,
run:

$ sz filename.txt

Once minicom has been properly configured, it will automatically begin
the file transfer.

To transfer a file from the local host to the remote, use the 'rz'
command on the remote end and then tell minicom to use the 'sz' command
to initiate an upload.

You can find the zmodem bits in $PKGSRC/comms/lrzsz

Maybe not exactly what you were looking for, but it made doing what
you've described much simpler.

--
Michael Parson
mparson%bl.org@localhost