TIP(1) BSD Reference Manual TIP(1)NAME
tip, cu - connect to a remote system
SYNOPSIStip [-nv] [-speed] [system-name]
cu [-ehot] [-a acu] [-l line] [-s speed] [-#] [phone-number]
DESCRIPTIONtip and cu 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 in-
terface is included for those people attached to the ``call UNIX'' com-
mand of Version 7 AT&T UNIX. This manual page describes only tip.
The options are as follows:
-a acu
Set the acu.
-e For cu, use even parity.
-h For cu, echo characters locally (half-duplex mode).
-l line
For cu, specify the line to use. Either of the forms like tty00 or
/dev/tty00 are permitted.
-n No escape (disable tilde).
-o For cu, use odd parity.
-s speed
For cu, set the speed of the connection. Defaults to 9600.
-t For cu, connect via a hard-wired connection to a host on a dial-up
line.
-v Set verbose mode.
For cu, if both -e and -o are given, then no parity is used. This is the
default behaviour.
If speed is specified it will override any baudrate specified in the sys-
tem description being used.
If neither speed nor system-name are specified, system-name will be set
to the value of the HOST environment variable.
If speed is specified but system-name is not, system-name will be set to
a value of 'tip' with speed appended. e.g. tip-1200 will set system-name
to 'tip1200'.
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. tip prompts for the
name of a local file to transmit.
~< Copy file from remote to local. tip 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 com-
mand the "to" file defaults to the "from" file name if
it isn't specified. The remote host executes the com-
mand string cat 'from';echo ''|tr '\012' '\01' 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 sys-
tem 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 protocols such as XMODEM. The child program
will be run with the following arrangement of file
descriptors:
0 <-> remote tty in
1 <-> remote tty out
2 <-> local tty stderr
~# 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).
~v List all variables and their values (if set).
~^Z Stop tip (only available with job control).
~^Y Stop only the "local side" of tip (only available with
job control); the "remote side" of tip, the side that
displays output from the remote host, is left running.
~? Get a summary of the tilde escapes.
To find the system description and thus the operating characteristics of
system-name, tip searches for a system description with a name identical
to system-name. The search order is
1. If the environment variable REMOTE does not start with a '/'
it is assumed to be a system description, and is considered
first.
2. If the environment variable REMOTE begins with a '/' it is as-
sumed to be a path to a remote(5) database, and the specified
database is searched.
3. The default remote(5) database, /etc/remote, is searched.
See remote(5) for full documentation on system descriptions.
The br capability is used in system descriptions to specify the baud rate
with which to establish a connection. If the value specified is not suit-
able, the baud rate to be used may be given on the command line, e.g.,
'tip -300 mds'.
When tip establishes a connection it sends out the connection message
specified in the cm capability of the system description being used.
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 di-
alogue and return you to the remote machine.
tip guards against multiple users connecting to a remote system by open-
ing modems and terminal lines with exclusive access, and by honoring the
locking protocol used by uucico.
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 normally
depend on hardwareflow or tandem mode for flow control. If the remote
system does not support hardwareflow or tandem mode, "echocheck" may be
set to indicate tip should synchronize with the remote system on the echo
of each transmitted character.
When tip must dial a phone number to connect to a system it will print
various messages indicating its actions. tip supports a variety of auto-
call units and modems with the at capability in system descriptions.
Support for Ventel 212+ (ventel), Hayes AT-style (hayes), USRobotics
Courier (courier), Telebit T3000 (t3000) and Racal-Vadic 831 (vadic) un-
its is enabled by default.
Support for Bizcomp 1031[fw] (biz31[fw]), Bizcomp 1022[fw] (biz22[fw]),
DEC DF0[23]-AC (df0[23]), DEC DN-11 (dn11) and Racal-Vadic 3451 (v3451)
units can be added by recompiling tip with the appropriate defines.
Note that if support for both the Racal-Vadic 831 and 3451 is enabled
they are referred to as the v831 and v3451 respectively. If only one of
the two is supported, it is referred to as vadic.
VARIABLES
tip 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 concatenat-
ing 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 values:
beautify (bool) Discard unprintable characters when a session is be-
ing scripted; abbreviated be.
baudrate (num) The baud rate at which the connection was esta-
blished; abbreviated ba.
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
transfer by waiting for the echo of the last character
transmitted; default is off.
eofread (str) The set of characters which signify an end-of-
transmission 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.
tip 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
filesystem writes when receiving files; abbreviated fr.
hardwareflow (bool) Whether hardware flow control (CRTSCTS) is enabled
for the connection; abbreviated hf; default value is 'off'.
host (str) The name of the host to which you are connected; ab-
breviated ho.
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 lowercase
letters will be mapped to uppercase by tip for transmission
to the remote machine.
raisechar (char) The input character used to toggle uppercase mapping
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 ex-
ception 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.
tandem (bool) Use XON/XOFF flow control to throttle data from the
remote host; abbreviated ta. The default value is true un-
less the nt capability has been specified in /etc/remote,
in which case the default value is false.
verbose (bool) Verbose mode; abbreviated verb; default is true.
When verbose mode is enabled, tip prints messages while di-
aling, shows the current number of lines transferred during
a file transfer operations, and more.
ENVIRONMENT
SHELL The name of the shell to use for the ~! command; default
value is "/bin/sh".
HOME The home directory to use for the ~c command.
HOST The default value for system-name if none is specified via
the command line.
REMOTE A system description, or an absolute path to a remote(5) sys-
tem description database.
PHONES A path to a phones(5) database.
FILES
/etc/remote global remote(5) database
/etc/phones default phones(5) file
~/.tiprc initialization file
tip.record record file
/var/log/aculog line access log
/var/spool/lock/LCK..* lock file to avoid conflicts with uucp
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.
MirOS BSD #10-current September 9, 2001 4
