UUCP book versions
I’ve written about UUCP a few times and may have mentioned UUCP books but I don’t think I’ve actually explained the differences in what’s out there from O’Reilly and Associates. Dated technology calls for dated books! Most of the “modern” UUCP how-to guides found online are short, expect to be using UUCP over TCP/SSH, and just don’t give a lot of background on the hows and whys some things were set up the way they were. For instance, why add users to uucppublic? why prefix some usernames with a U like Utuxedocat? what’s the advantage and downside to uucico as a login shell? Of particular note is walking through the security implications. UUCP was used during a time when we were lucky to have working systems to begin with and there was an element of trust amongst users. It’s far from a secure file transfer mechanism, but the books help secure it the best it can be. These ORA books are straightforward and live up to their reputation for walking you through things. These not only cover UUCP but also go into detail on things like how to set up mgetty, serial ports, and modems.
There’s a few different titles from ORA on the topic with some important differences to be aware of if you’re looking for reference for a particular vintage of software. I wanted an edition that covered Taylor UUCP that comes with Linux, so I wanted one of the later editions. I learned many sellers use the wrong title, wrong cover photo, wrong edition information when they list these books for sale as they have similar titles and use bears on the cover, so I’ve included the ISBN information to help tell them apart. Fortunately these are all up on Internet Archive so you can borrow them online, but some people like me still like dead tree editions.
Managing uucp and Usenet
The original book “Managing uucp and Usenet” by Tim O’Reilly and Grace Todino was first printed in 1986 and covered both UUCP and Usenet. It had at least 10 editions spanning 1986-1992. There was even an earlier “nutshell handbook” version, which is available on the Internet Archive. The ISBN for my copy is 0-937175-93-5.
Managing UUCP and Usenet, Tenth edition, 1992
This covered HoneyDanBer UUCP (a/k/a BNU), Version 2 UUCP, Telebit modems, and Netnews. The ninth edition from 1990 is available on Internet Archive as well as the tenth edition from 1992.
Using UUCP and Usenet
Grace Todino and Dale Dougherty, first published in 1986. I don’t have this book, I didn’t even know it existed until I was writing this post. The back cover claims it’s the companion to Managing uucp and Usenet, directed at end-users performing day-today tasks instead of system administrators actually setting up UUCP, and predecessor to the dedicated Using & Managing uucp. The 1991 version is up on Internet Archive.
Using & Managing uucp
Using & Managing uucp, Second Edition,1996
Ed Ravin, Tim O’Reilly, Dale Dougherty, Grace Todino. ISBN 1-56592-153-4. This book notes it is based on the previous two books I just mentioned above. This one focuses solely on UUCP, all of the Usenet/netnews content has been removed. For me this is my favorite reference as it covers Taylor UUCP, which is the implementation still included in some modern Linux distributions like CentOS and Ubuntu. The second edition is up on the Internet Archive too.
UUCP versions covered in Managing UUCP
Managing Usenet
Henry Spencer and David Lawrence. ISBN 1-56592-198-4. Because the Usenet/netnews content was removed from the UUCP books, a new title was released just for Usenet. I’ve included it here because inevitably when you think UUCP you start thinking Usenet thoughts. It doesn’t appear to have direct heritage from the previous UUCP books as it has different authors. Published in 1998 it’s a bit later but it covers C News and INN, the latter of which is still bundled with Linux today.
