UUCP on macOS / *BSD

[Chris Hanson]

On Jun 28, 2020, at 6:07 PM, Grant Taylor via cctalk <cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
>  - uuto / uucp copy files from my non-root / non-(_)uucp user to the UUCP spool.  But the (demand based) ""call (pipe over SSH) is failing.

macOS switched to launchd from inetd a very long time ago. If you're going to use macOS as a UUCP node you'll want to enable the com.apple.uucp service, which will ensure uucico is run for you by the system.

> I noticed that the following files weren't set UID or GID like they are on Linux.  But I don't know if that's a macOS and / or *BSD difference when compared to Linux.
> 
> /usr/bin/uucp
> /usr/bin/uuname
> /usr/bin/uustat
> /usr/bin/uux
> /usr/sbin/uucico
> /usr/sbin/uuxqt
> 
> Adding the set UID & GID bits allowed things to mostly work.

That's a macOS difference, not a BSD one. I don't *think* you need to re-add any setuid or setgid bits, but I could be mistaken. It's been a very long time since I've actually used UUCP. If they do need to be made setuid or setgid, that sounds like a bug.

> Aside:  Getting the contemporary macOS so that I could edit the (/usr/share/uucp/) sys & port files was a treat.

In macOS 10.14-10.15 these files are indeed covered by system integrity protection, I think that's probably a bug since they need to be edited by a sysadmin to use UUCP.

  -- Chris

PS - Here's the UUCP source for recent macOS: https://opensource.apple.com/source/uucp/uucp-12/ <https://opensource.apple.com/source/uucp/uucp-12/>