Subject: Re: symlinks in distribution sets: absolute or relative?
To: Jonathan Stone <jonathan@DSG.Stanford.EDU>
From: Greg A. Woods <woods@kuma.web.net>
List: tech-userlevel
Date: 03/15/1997 20:53:22
[ On Sat, March 15, 1997 at 01:44:48 (-0800), Jonathan Stone wrote: ]
> Subject: symlinks in distribution sets: absolute or relative?
>
> rmail is a problem child: it's used for UUCP, and UUCP systems stil
> embed the pathname "/bin/rmail" in uux/uuxqt scripts as part of the
> UUCP e-mail transport mechanism.  To avoid breaking e-mail from UUCP
> peers that hardcode /bin/rmail, Perry introduced a symlnk 
> 
> /bin/rmail -> /usr/libexec/rmail

That's just not true, at least not for traditional UUCP -- I must admit
I've not examine the details of Taylor UUCP interactions, but I'm
hoping they are still compatible....  No UUCP-based mail system that I
ever encountered used a fully qualified path for rmail.  I'm not even
sure it would be permitted.

In HDB-UUCP it's possible specify the explicit location of binaries for
given job commands with the Permissions file COMMANDS entry.  Other
versions of UUCP have a compiled in path indicating where job commands
are searched for.

Regardless, since the source for the UUCP shipped with NetBSD is part of
the tree, it should be a simple matter of "fixing" uuxqt to search in
/usr/libexec and the /bin/rmail symlink will not be required in the
first place.

-- 
							Greg A. Woods

+1 416 443-1734			VE3TCP			robohack!woods
Planix, Inc. <woods@planix.com>; Secrets Of The Weird <woods@weird.com>