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The systems known
by and their attributes are stored in an file which is structured somewhat
like the file. Each line in the file provides a description for a single
Fields are separated by a colon (‘‘:’’). Lines ending in a \ character with
an immediately following newline are continued on the next line. The first
entry is the name(s) of the host system. If there is more than one name
for a system, the names are separated by vertical bars. After the name of
the system comes the fields of the description. A field name followed by
an ‘=’ sign indicates a string value follows. A field name followed by a
‘#’ sign indicates a following numeric value. Entries named ‘‘tip*’’ and ‘‘cu*’’
are used as default entries by and the interface to as follows. When
is invoked with only a phone number, it looks for an entry of the form
‘‘tip300’’, where 300 is the baud rate with which the connection is to be made.
When the interface is used, entries of the form ‘‘cu300’’ are used.
Capabilities
are either strings (str), numbers (num), or boolean flags (bool). A string
capability is specified by for example, ‘‘dv=/dev/harris’’. A numeric capability
is specified by for example, ‘‘xa#99’’. A boolean capability is specified
by simply listing the capability. (str) Auto call unit type. (num) The
baud rate used in establishing a connection to the remote host. This is
a decimal number. The default baud rate is 300 baud. (str) An initial connection
message to be sent to the remote host. For example, if a host is reached
through port selector, this might be set to the appropriate sequence required
to switch to the host. (str) Call unit if making a phone call. Default is
the same as the ‘dv’ field. (str) Disconnect message sent to the host when
a disconnect is requested by the user. (bool) This host is on a dial-up
line. (str) device(s) to open to establish a connection. If this file
refers to a terminal line, attempts to perform an exclusive open on the
device to insure only one user at a time has access to the port. (str)
Characters marking an end-of-line. The default is ‘~’ escapes are only recognized
by after one of the characters in ‘el’, or after a carriage-return. (str)
Frame size for transfers. The default frame size is equal to (bool) The
host uses half-duplex communication, local echo should be performed. (str)
Input end-of-file marks. The default is (str) Output end-of-file string. The
default is When is transferring a file, this string is sent at end-of-file.
(str) The type of parity to use when sending data to the host. This may
be one of ‘‘even’’, ‘‘odd’’, ‘‘none’’, ‘‘zero’’ (always set bit 8 to zero), ‘‘one’’ (always
set bit 8 to 1). The default is even parity. (str) Telephone number(s)
for this host. If the telephone number field contains an @ sign, searches
the file file for a list of telephone numbers; (See (str) Indicates
that the list of capabilities is continued in the named description. This
is used primarily to share common capability information. Here is a short
example showing the use of the capability continuation feature: UNIX-1200:\
:dv=/dev/cau0:el=^D^U^C^S^Q^O@:du:at=ventel:ie=#$%:oe=^D:br#1200: arpavax|ax:\ :pn=7654321%:tc=UNIX-1200
The host description file resides in
The file
format appeared in
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