tip(1)

NAME

tip, cu - connect to a remote system

SYNOPSIS

tip [-nv] [-speed] [system-name]
cu [-ehot] [-a acu] [-l line] [-s speed] [-#] [phone-number]

DESCRIPTION

The tip and cu utilities 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:

-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.

-n No escape (disable tilde).

-s speed For cu, set the speed of the connection.

Defaults to

9600.

-v Set verbose mode.

If speed is specified it will override any baudrate speci

fied in the system 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. 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 com

mand 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 is not

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 is not

specified.
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 re

mote 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 pro

tocols 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 out

~# Send a BREAK to the remote system. For systems

which do not sup

port the necessary ioctl() call the break is simu

lated 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 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.

To find the system description and thus the operating char

acteristics of
system-name, tip searches for a system description with a

name identical
to system-name. The search order is as follows:

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
assumed 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 speci

fied is not
suitable, the baud rate to be used may be given on the com

mand line,
e.g., ``tip -300 mds''.

When tip establishes a connection, it sends out the connec

tion message
specified in the cm capability of the system description be

ing 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 dialogue and return you to the remote machine.

The tip utility guards against multiple users connecting to

a remote system by opening modems and terminal lines with exclusive ac

cess, and by
honoring the locking protocol used by uucico(8)

(ports/net/freebsd-uucp).

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 trans

fers normally
depend on tandem mode for flow control. If the remote sys

tem does not
support tandem mode, echocheck may be set to indicate that

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. The tip utility

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)
units 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
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 com

mand 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 concatenating an `=' and the value. The entire assignment must not

have any
blanks in it. A single set command may be used to interro

gate 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 being
scripted; abbreviated be.

baudrate
(num) The baud rate at which the connection was es

tablished;
abbreviated ba.

dialtimeout
(num) When dialing a phone number, the time (in sec

onds) 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 transmit

ted; 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-transmis

sion during 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 endof-line.

escape (char) The command prefix (escape) character; abbre

viated es;
default value is `~'.

exceptions
(str) The set of characters which should not be dis

carded due to
the beautification switch; abbreviated ex; default

value is
``0f.

force (char) The character used to force literal data

transmission;
abbreviated fo; default value is `^P'.

framesize
(num) The amount of data (in bytes) to buffer be

tween file system
writes when receiving files; abbreviated fr.

host (str) The name of the host to which you are connect

ed; abbrevi
ated ho.

prompt (char) The character which indicates an end-of-line

on the remote
host; abbreviated pr; default value is `0. 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; de

fault value is
off. When this mode is enabled, all lowercase let

ters 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; de

fault is off.
When script is true, tip will record everything

transmitted by
the remote machine in the script record file speci

fied in record.
If the beautify switch is on, only printable ASCII

characters
will be included in the script file (those charac

ters between 040
and 0177). The variable exceptions is used to indi

cate characters which are an exception to the normal beautifi

cation rules.

tabexpand
(bool) Expand tabs to spaces during file transfers;

abbreviated
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 during a

file transfer
operations, and more.

ENVIRONMENT

SHELL The name of the shell to use for the ~! command; de

fault value is
/bin/sh.

HOME The home directory to use for the ~c command.

HOST The default value for system-name if none is speci

fied via the
command line.

REMOTE A system description, or an absolute path to a re

mote(5) system
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(1)
(ports/net/freebsd-uucp)

SEE ALSO

phones(5), remote(5)

HISTORY

The tip command appeared in 4.2BSD.

BUGS

The full set of variables is undocumented and should, proba

bly, be pared
down.

BSD September 9, 2001

BSD