TIP(1) BSD General Commands Manual TIP(1)NAME
tip, cu — connect to a remote system
SYNOPSIS
tip [-v] -speed system-name
tip [-v] -speed phone-number
cu [telno] [-t] [-s speed] [-a acu] [-l line] [-#]
DESCRIPTION
The tip and cu commands establish a full-duplex connection to another
machine, giving the appearance of being logged in directly on the remote
cpu. It goes without saying that you must have a login on the machine
(or equivalent) to which you wish to connect. The preferred interface is
tip. The cu interface is included for those people attached to the “call
UNIX” command of Version 7 AT&T UNIX. This manual page describes only
tip.
The options are as follows:
-s speed
For cu, set the speed of the connection. Defaults to 9600.
-a acu Set the acu.
-l line
For cu, specify the line to use. Either of the forms like tty00
or /dev/tty00 are permitted.
-v Set verbose mode.
Typed characters are normally transmitted directly to the remote machine
(which does the echoing as well). A tilde (`~') appearing as the first
character of a line is an escape signal; the following are recognized:
~^D or ~.
Drop the connection and exit (you may still be logged in on the
remote machine).
~c [name]
Change directory to name (no argument implies change to your home
directory).
~! Escape to a shell (exiting the shell will return you to tip).
~> Copy file from local to remote. The tip utility prompts for the
name of a local file to transmit.
~< Copy file from remote to local. The tip utility prompts first for
the name of the file to be sent, then for a command to be executed
on the remote machine.
~p from [to]
Send a file to a remote UNIX host. The put command causes the
remote UNIX system to run the command string ``cat > 'to''', while
tip sends it the ``from'' file. If the ``to'' file isn't specified
the ``from'' file name is used. This command is actually a UNIX
specific version of the ``~>'' command.
~t from [to]
Take a file from a remote UNIX host. As in the put command the
``to'' file defaults to the ``from'' file name if it isn't speci‐
fied. The remote host executes the command string ``cat
'from';echo ^A'' to send the file to tip.
~| Pipe the output from a remote command to a local UNIX process. The
command string sent to the local UNIX system is processed by the
shell.
~$ Pipe the output from a local UNIX process to the remote host. The
command string sent to the local UNIX system is processed by the
shell.
~C Fork a child process on the local system to perform special proto‐
cols such as XMODEM. The child program will be run with the fol‐
lowing somewhat unusual arrangement of file descriptors:
0 <-> local tty in
1 <-> local tty out
2 <-> local tty out
3 <-> remote tty in
4 <-> remote tty out
~# Send a BREAK to the remote system. For systems which don't support
the necessary ioctl call the break is simulated by a sequence of
line speed changes and DEL characters.
~s Set a variable (see the discussion below).
~^Z Stop tip (only available with job control).
~^Y Stop only the ``local side'' of tip (only available with job con‐
trol); the ``remote side'' of tip, the side that displays output
from the remote host, is left running.
~? Get a summary of the tilde escapes
The tip utility uses the file /etc/remote to find how to reach a particu‐
lar system and to find out how it should operate while talking to the
system; refer to remote(5) for a full description. Each system has a
default baud rate with which to establish a connection. If this value is
not suitable, the baud rate to be used may be specified on the command
line, e.g. ‘tip -300 mds’.
When tip establishes a connection it sends out a connection message to
the remote system; the default value, if any, is defined in /etc/remote
(see remote(5)).
When tip prompts for an argument (e.g. during setup of a file transfer)
the line typed may be edited with the standard erase and kill characters.
A null line in response to a prompt, or an interrupt, will abort the dia‐
logue and return you to the remote machine.
The tip utility guards against multiple users connecting to a remote sys‐
tem by opening modems and terminal lines with exclusive access, and by
honoring the locking protocol used by uucico(8).
During file transfers tip provides a running count of the number of lines
transferred. When using the ~> and ~< commands, the ``eofread'' and
``eofwrite'' variables are used to recognize end-of-file when reading,
and specify end-of-file when writing (see below). File transfers nor‐
mally depend on tandem mode for flow control. If the remote system does
not support tandem mode, ``echocheck'' may be set to indicate tip should
synchronize with the remote system on the echo of each transmitted char‐
acter.
When tip must dial a phone number to connect to a system it will print
various messages indicating its actions. The tip utility supports modems
that use the AT command set. The tip utility uses the file /etc/modems
to find out how to operate with a particular modem; refer to modems(5)
for a full description.
VARIABLES
The tip utility maintains a set of variables which control its operation.
Some of these variables are read-only to normal users (root is allowed to
change anything of interest). Variables may be displayed and set through
the ``s'' escape. The syntax for variables is patterned after vi(1) and
Mail(1). Supplying ``all'' as an argument to the set command displays
all variables readable by the user. Alternatively, the user may request
display of a particular variable by attaching a `?' to the end. For
example ``escape?'' displays the current escape character.
Variables are numeric, string, character, or boolean values. Boolean
variables are set merely by specifying their name; they may be reset by
prepending a `!' to the name. Other variable types are set by concate‐
nating an `=' and the value. The entire assignment must not have any
blanks in it. A single set command may be used to interrogate as well as
set a number of variables. Variables may be initialized at run time by
placing set commands (without the ``~s'' prefix in a file .tiprc in one's
home directory). The -v option causes tip to display the sets as they
are made. Certain common variables have abbreviations. The following is
a list of common variables, their abbreviations, and their default val‐
ues.
beautify (bool) Discard unprintable characters when a session is
being scripted; abbreviated be.
baudrate (num) The baud rate at which the connection was estab‐
lished; abbreviated ba.
chardelay (num) Number of milliseconds to delay after the transmis‐
sion of each character; abbreviated cdelay.
dialtimeout (num) When dialing a phone number, the time (in seconds) to
wait for a connection to be established; abbreviated dial.
echocheck (bool) Synchronize with the remote host during file trans‐
fer by waiting for the echo of the last character transmit‐
ted; default is off.
eofread (str) The set of characters which signify an end-of-trans‐
mission during a ~< file transfer command; abbreviated
eofr.
eofwrite (str) The string sent to indicate end-of-transmission dur‐
ing a ~> file transfer command; abbreviated eofw.
eol (str) The set of characters which indicate an end-of-line.
The tip utility will recognize escape characters only after
an end-of-line.
escape (char) The command prefix (escape) character; abbreviated
es; default value is `~'.
exceptions (str) The set of characters which should not be discarded
due to the beautification switch; abbreviated ex; default
value is ``\t\n\f\b''.
force (char) The character used to force literal data transmis‐
sion; abbreviated fo; default value is `^P'.
framesize (num) The amount of data (in bytes) to buffer between file
system writes when receiving files; abbreviated fr.
host (str) The name of the host to which you are connected;
abbreviated ho.
linedelay (num) Number of milliseconds to delay after the transmis‐
sion of each line; abbreviated ldelay.
login (str) Pathname of a login shell script to run once con‐
nected; standard input and output are redirected to the
remote host. Leading tildes in the pathname are expanded
expansion; abbreviated li.
logout (str) Pathname of a shell script to run before disconnect‐
ing; standard input and output are redirected to the remote
host. Leading tildes in the pathname are expanded expan‐
sion; abbreviated lo.
prompt (char) The character which indicates an end-of-line on the
remote host; abbreviated pr; default value is `\n'. This
value is used to synchronize during data transfers. The
count of lines transferred during a file transfer command
is based on receipt of this character.
raise (bool) Upper case mapping mode; abbreviated ra; default
value is off. When this mode is enabled, all lower case
letters will be mapped to upper case by tip for transmis‐
sion to the remote machine.
raisechar (char) The input character used to toggle upper case map‐
ping mode; abbreviated rc; default value is `^A'.
record (str) The name of the file in which a session script is
recorded; abbreviated rec; default value is ``tip.record''.
script (bool) Session scripting mode; abbreviated sc; default is
off. When script is true, tip will record everything
transmitted by the remote machine in the script record file
specified in record. If the beautify switch is on, only
printable ASCII characters will be included in the script
file (those characters between 040 and 0177). The variable
exceptions is used to indicate characters which are an
exception to the normal beautification rules.
tabexpand (bool) Expand tabs to spaces during file transfers; abbre‐
viated tab; default value is false. Each tab is expanded
to 8 spaces.
verbose (bool) Verbose mode; abbreviated verb; default is true.
When verbose mode is enabled, tip prints messages while
dialing, shows the current number of lines transferred dur‐
ing a file transfer operations, and more.
ENVIRONMENT
The tip utility uses the following environment variables:
SHELL (str) The name of the shell to use for the ~! command;
default value is ``/bin/sh'', or taken from the environment.
HOME (str) The home directory to use for the ~c command; default
value is taken from the environment.
HOST Check for a default host if none specified.
The variables ${REMOTE} and ${PHONES} are also exported.
FILES
/etc/modems Global modem configuration data base.
/etc/remote Global system descriptions.
/etc/phones Global phone number data base.
${REMOTE} Private system descriptions.
${PHONES} Private phone numbers.
~/.tiprc Initialization file.
tip.record Record file.
/var/log/aculog Line access log.
/var/spool/lock/LCK..* Lock file to avoid conflicts with uucp(1).
DIAGNOSTICS
Diagnostics are, hopefully, self explanatory.
SEE ALSOphones(5), remote(5)HISTORY
The tip command appeared in 4.2BSD.
BUGS
The full set of variables is undocumented and should, probably, be pared
down.
BSD April 18, 1994 BSD
