Forwarding

UUCP provides a mechanism to have other systems execute file transfers on your behalf. For instance, this allows you to make seci retrieve a file from uchile for you, and send it to your system. The following command would achieve this:

This technique of passing a job through several systems is called forwarding. In the above example, the reason to use forwarding may be that seci has UUCP access to uchile, but your host doesn't. However, if you run a UUCP system, you would want to limit the forwarding service to a few hosts you trust not to run up a horrendous phone bill by making you download the latest X11R6 source release for them.

By default, Taylor UUCP disallows forwarding altogether. To enable forwarding for a particular system, you can use the forward command. This command specifies a list of sites the system may request you to forward jobs to and from. For instance, the UUCP administrator of seci would have to add the following lines to the sys file to allow pablo to request files from uchile:

The forward-to entry for uchile is necessary so that any files returned by it are actually passed on to pablo. Otherwise UUCP would drop them. This entry uses a variation of the forward command that permits uchile only to send files to pablo through seci; not the other way round.

To permit forwarding to any system, use the special keyword ANY (capital letters required).