uux and rmail

[kevin shell]

Hallo.

UUCP command and file arguments with ! prefix confused.

What's the difference between
uux - nodeA!nodeB!nodeC!rmail user
uux - nodeA!rmail nodeB!nodeC!user

--
kevin

[Grant Taylor]

On 8/19/20 2:07 AM, kevin shell wrote:
> Hallo.

Hi,

> UUCP command and file arguments with ! prefix confused.

What is your confusion?

The "!" (bang) is a path, as in path between host(s) and the final user.

> What's the difference between
> uux - nodeA!nodeB!nodeC!rmail user

This runs rmail on nodeC (after traversing nodeA and nodeB) with the
parameter of "user" (which indicates the recipient for the rmail command).

> uux - nodeA!rmail nodeB!nodeC!user

This runs rmail on nodeA with the parameter of "nodeB!nodeC!user".

I'm not entirely sure what rmail (or Sendmail or other MTA) will do with
"nodeB!nodeC!user" as a parameter.

/If/ rmail & co. do handle things properly, chances are quite good that
UUCP will be used between nodeA, nodeB, and nodeC and ultimately run
rmail user as in your first example.

So, it may be said that the ultimate outcome is quite similar, or
effectively the same. But the method of how it is done is different.



--
Grant. . . .
unix || die

[kevin shell]

Grant Taylor <gta...@tnetconsulting.net> wrote:
>
> I'm not entirely sure what rmail (or Sendmail or other MTA) will do with
> "nodeB!nodeC!user" as a parameter.
>

Yes, I'm a bit confused by this parameter.
Maybe MTA will do onward forwarding.