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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS);faqs.542 If you have not already read the overall Usenet introductory material posted to "news.announce.newusers", please do. Much of this article overlaps with the common sense guidelines posted there. Should I Post My Unix Question to the Net? Often the answer is "No, you can get an answer a lot faster without posting a question." Before you post, you should try - o Reading the manual for your system. Some day you may encounter the phrase "RTFM", which stands for "Read the Fine Manual" (except 'F' doesn't really stand for "Fine"). If you ask someone a question and they tell you to RTFM, it's an indication that you haven't done your homework. For instance, if you are having trouble removing a file whose name begins with a "-", check the man page for "rm". It might tell you what you need to know. When people use terminology like "read(2)", they are referring to the "read" man page in section 2 of the manual (which you would see by using "man 2 read"). o Finding a knowledgeable user at your site. Many sites have at least a few Unix experts who will be happy to help you figure out how to remove a file whose name begins with "-". Many larger sites, particularly universities, may even have paid consultants whose job is to help you with Unix problems. Check with them first. o Find a good introductory book on Unix. There are plenty of such books available, and you will save yourself a lot of trouble by having one handy and consulting it frequently. (Question 1.5 in the companion articles will let you know where you can find a list of good Unix and C books.) Please remember that the comp.unix.* newsgroups are read by over 80,000 people around the world, and that posting a question to this group will cost a lot of time and money by the time your article is distributed to Asia, Australia, Europe (west and east), Africa, the middle east, and all corners of North, South and Central America. Also, some people receive these newsgroups as part of a mailing list rather than a newsgroup. If you're one of these people, please don't send a "Remove me from this list" or "UNSUBSCRIBE" message to the wrong place. Take the time to figure out where you're getting this stuff from, and send your request to the mailing list maintainer, *not* to the list or newsgroup itself! Ask your local postmaster for help. (One of the answers in the companion articles deals with the details of the mailing list.) To Which Newsgroup Should I Post My Question? The choice of newsgroup is harder than it used to be. In the old days, you just had to choose between "comp.unix.questions" and "comp.unix.wizards". Now there are a variety of more specific groups. Choose one of the following groups carefully. If you aren't sure where your question belongs or if your question is not specific to some particular version of Unix, try "comp.unix.questions". Many knowledgeable Unix wizards read that group and will be able to help you. Here are the capsule descriptions of various groups you might consider (extracted from a monthly posting to "news.announce.newusers") comp.unix.questions General questions from UNIX users and sys admins. If your question isn't a really good match for one of the groups below, post it here. news.answers Repository for periodic USENET articles. (Moderated) This article is crossposted there. Do not try to post here unless you're posting a list of FAQ's and their answers. comp.unix.shell Using and programming any UNIX shell. comp.lang.c Discussion about C. comp.sources.unix Postings of complete, UNIX-oriented sources. (Moderated) comp.std.unix Discussion for the P1003 committee on UNIX. (Moderated) comp.unix Discussion of UNIX* features and bugs. (Moderated) comp.unix.admin Administering a Unix-based system. comp.unix.aix IBM's version of UNIX. comp.unix.amiga Unix on the Commodore Amiga comp.unix.aux The version of UNIX for Apple Macintosh II computers. comp.unix.bsd Discussions relating to BSD UNIX. comp.unix.internals Discussions on hacking UNIX internals. comp.unix.large UNIX on mainframes and in large networks. comp.unix.misc Various topics that don't fit other groups. comp.unix.msdos MS-DOS running under UNIX by whatever means. comp.unix.programmer Q&A for people programming under Unix. comp.unix.sysv286 UNIX System V (not XENIX) on the '286. comp.unix.sysv386 Versions of Unix (not Xenix) on Intel 80386-based boxes. comp.unix.ultrix Discussions about DEC's Ultrix. comp.unix.xenix.misc General discussions regarding XENIX (except SCO). comp.unix.xenix.sco XENIX versions from the Santa Cruz Operation. comp.unix.wizards In-depth discussions of advanced unix topics. People should not post to this group unless they have used unix as a user, sysadmin and know details of the kernel, and how different unix kernels differ. In other words, don't post to comp.unix.wizards. What Information Should I Include? It's hard to include too much information. There are hundreds of different Unix systems out there, and they all have less in common than you might think. If you have a problem and are posting an article, please be sure to mention: o A descriptive subject line. Many people will decide whether to read your article solely on the basis of the subject line, so it should be a good statement of your problem. NOT GOOD GOOD "Help" "How do I sort a file by line length?" "Csh question" "csh dumps core when I use '$<'" o What computer you are using, and what specific version of the operating system it uses. For instance, SunOS 4.0.1, Sun 3/50 4.3BSD-tahoe, Vax 11/780 SVR3.2, 3b2 o If possible, the *exact* text of any error message you may have encountered. WRONG RIGHT "I can't print this file" "When I type 'lpr Filename', I get lpr: Filename: File too ugly to print What does this mean? It isn't in the man page. This is using Mueslix 9.3 on a Fax 68086502" It's a good idea to post unrelated questions in separate articles, so that people can keep different discussions separate. It's also a *very* good idea to include a line or two like this: "Please mail your answers to me and I'll summarize what I get and post the results to comp.unix.questions." This prevents many identical responses from different users to the same question from clogging up the newsgroup. And make sure you really summarize what you get - don't just concatenate all the mail you've received. It's also a good idea to read comp.unix.questions for at least a couple of weeks after you post your article to see what followup articles are posted. Should I Post an Answer to a Question? It's very tempting to post an answer to a question you read on the net, especially when you think "Aha, finally - a question I can answer!" Consider though that when a simple question is asked, such as the sort about to be answered below, many other people around the world already know the answer and may be posting their own reply. In order to avoid dozens of replies to simple questions, please wait a day or so and see if anyone else has already answered the question. If you have something special to contribute, please do so, but make sure you're not duplicating something someone else has already done. You should feel free to reply to any question >by email<. Even if the user gets 200 responses to his question, at least the load on the rest of the net is minimized. What About Posting Source Code? Posting small amounts of example code is fine (use comp.sources.unix to distribute complete programs) - but please make sure that your code runs (or at least compiles) properly. Don't just type it in while editing your posting and hope it will work, no matter how sure you are that it will. We all make mistakes. What About Those People Who Continue to Ask Stupid or Frequently Asked Questions In Spite of The Frequently Asked Questions Document? Just send them a polite mail message, possibly referring them to this document. There is no need to flame them on the net - it's busy enough as it is. -- Ted Timar - tmatimar@empress.com Empress Software, 3100 Steeles Ave E, Markham, Ont., Canada L3R 8T3 Xref: bloom-picayune.mit.edu news.misc:9009 news.answers:3575 Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!think.com!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!darwin.sura.net!gatech!purdue!spaf From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) Newsgroups: news.misc,news.answers Subject: Changes to Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Usenet Message-ID: <spaf-c_questions_719471757@cs.purdue.edu> Date: 19 Oct 92 05:15:58 GMT Expires: 18 Dec 92 17:15:57 GMT Followup-To: news.misc Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ. Lines: 75 Approved: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU Supersedes: <spaf-c_questions_711614976@cs.purdue.edu> Archive-name: usenet-faq/diff1 Last-change: 18 Oct 1992 by mvac23!thomas@udel.edu (Thomas Lapp) *** old/questions.n Sat Sep 19 23:17:57 1992 --- ./src/questions.n Sun Oct 18 23:39:13 1992 *************** *** 5,7 **** Original-author: jerry@eagle.UUCP (Jerry Schwarz) ! Last-change: 19 Jul 1992 by mvac23!thomas@udel.edu (Thomas Lapp) --- 5,7 ---- Original-author: jerry@eagle.UUCP (Jerry Schwarz) ! Last-change: 18 Oct 1992 by mvac23!thomas@udel.edu (Thomas Lapp) *************** *** 604,610 **** and the agencies involved have been appealing for people to stop. ! So many postcards were sent (33 million as of May 1991) that the ! agencies involved in the effort don't know what to do with them. ! The Guinness people have recorded the boy, Craig Shergold, as the ! record holder in the category (cf. page 207 of the 1992 US ! edition). However, they will not accept claims for a new try at the record. For confirmation, you can see page 24 of the 29 July --- 604,609 ---- and the agencies involved have been appealing for people to stop. ! So many postcards were sent that the agencies involved in the ! effort don't know what to do with them. The Guinness people have ! recorded the boy, Craig Shergold, as the record holder in the ! category. However, they will not accept claims for a new try at the record. For confirmation, you can see page 24 of the 29 July *************** *** 613,614 **** --- 612,622 ---- + According to the 1993 edition of the GBWR, on page 213: + Craig Shergold (born 1979) of Carshalton, Surrey when + undergoing cancer chemo-therapy was sent a record 33 + million get-well cards until May 1991 when his mother + pleaded for no more. A successful 5 hour operation on + a brain tumour by neurosurgeon Neal Kassel at Virginia + University, Charlottesville, USA in March 1991 greatly + improved his condition. + If you want to do something noble, donate the cost of a stamp and *************** *** 716,727 **** ! The most well-known gateway of this sort is ucbvax.berkeley.edu. ! To post a message to the Usenet through that gateway, you take ! the name of the newsgroup to which you want to post and convert ! all of the periods to dashes, and use that as the address to ! which to send your message. For example, to post a message to ! news.newusers.questions, you would mail it to ! news-newusers-questions@ucbvax.berkeley.edu. ! Please do not use this service if you have other posting access ! to the Usenet. --- 724,733 ---- ! One of them is decwrl.dec.com. To use its gateway, you mail the ! message you wish to post to newsgroup.name.usenet@decwrl.dec.com. ! For example, to post to news.newusers.questions, you would send ! your message to news.newusers.questions.usenet@decwrl.dec.com. ! Mail-to-news gateways of this sort tend to be overloaded. ! Therefore, please do not use this gateway or any other similar ! gateway if you have other posting access to the Usenet. -- Gene Spafford Software Engineering Research Center & Dept. of Computer Sciences Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-1398 Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu phone: (317) 494-7825 Xref: bloom-picayune.mit.edu news.announce.newusers:917 news.answers:3561 Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!spool.mu.edu!darwin.sura.net!gatech!purdue!spaf From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford) Newsgroups: news.announce.newusers,news.answers Subject: Answers to Frequently Asked Questions about Usenet Message-ID: <spaf-questions_719471674@cs.purdue.edu> Date: 19 Oct 92 05:14:35 GMT Expires: 18 Dec 92 17:14:34 GMT Followup-To: news.newusers.questions Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ. Lines: 792 Approved: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU Supersedes: <spaf-questions_716962650@cs.purdue.edu> Archive-name: usenet-faq/part1 Original-author: jerry@eagle.UUCP (Jerry Schwarz) Last-change: 18 Oct 1992 by mvac23!thomas@udel.edu (Thomas Lapp) Frequently Submitted Items This document discusses some questions and topics that occur repeatedly on USENET. They frequently are submitted by new users, and result in many followups, sometimes swamping groups for weeks. The purpose of this note is to head off these annoying events by answering some questions and warning about the inevitable consequence of asking others. If you don't like these answers, let spaf@cs.purdue.edu know. Note that some newsgroups have their own special "Frequent Questions & Answers" posting. You should read a group for a while before posting any questions, because the answers may already be present. Comp.unix.questions and comp.unix.internals are examples -- Steve Hayman regularly posts an article that answers common questions, including some of the ones asked here. This list is often referred to as FAQ -- the Frequently Asked Questions. If you are a new user of the Usenet and don't find an answer to your questions here, you can try asking in the news.newusers.questions group. You might also read through other FAQ lists, cross-posted to the news.answers group. Contents ======== 1. What does UNIX stand for? 2. What is the derivation of "foo" as a filler word? 3. Is a machine at "foo" on the net? 4. What does "rc" at the end of files like .newsrc mean? 5. What does :-) mean? 6. How do I decrypt jokes in rec.humor? 7. misc.misc or misc.wanted: Is John Doe out there anywhere? 8. sci.math: Proofs that 1=0. 9. rec.games.*: Where can I get the source for empire or rogue? 10. comp.unix.questions: How do I remove files with non-ascii characters in their names? 11. comp.unix.internals: There is a bug in the way UNIX handles protection for programs that run suid, or any other report of bugs with standard software. 12. Volatile topics, e.g., soc.women: What do you think about abortion? 13. soc.singles: What do MOTOS, MOTSS, and MOTAS stand for? What does LJBF mean? 14. soc.singles and elsewhere: What does HASA stand for? 15. sci.space.shuttle: Shouldn't this group be merged with sci.space? 16. How do I use the "Distribution" feature? 17. Why do some people put funny lines ("bug killers") at the beginning of their articles? 18. What is the address or phone number of the "foo" company? 19. What is the origin of the name "grep"? 20. How do I get from BITNET to UUCP, Internet to BITNET, JANET etc. etc.? 21. Didn't some state once pass a law setting pi equal to 3 ? 22. Where can I get the necessary software to get a "smart" mail system running on my machine that will take advantage of the postings in comp.mail.maps? (E.g., pathalias, smail, etc.) 23. What is "food for the NSA line-eater"? 24. Does anyone know the {pinouts, schematics, switch settings, what does jumper J3 do} for widget X? 25. What is "anonymous ftp"? 26. What is UUNET? 27. Isn't the posting mechanism broken? When I post an article to both a moderated group and unmoderated groups, it gets mailed to the moderator and not posted to the unmoderated groups. 28. comp.arch and elsewhere: What do FYI and IMHO mean? 29. Would someone repost {large software distribution}? 30. How do I contact the moderator of an Internet mailing list rather than post to the entire list? 31. I see BTW (or "btw"), wrt and RTFM in postings. What do they mean? 32. Are there any restrictions on posting e-mail someone sends to me? 33. What's an FQDN? 34. How do you pronounce "char" in C, "ioctl" in UNIX, the character "#", etc., etc.? 35. How do you pronounce "TeX"? 36. What is the last year of the 20th century A.D.? 37. I heard these stories about a dying child wanting postcards/get-well cards/business cards to get in the Guinness Book of World Records. Where can I post the address for people to help? 38. I just heard about a scheme the FCC has to implement a tax on modems! Where can I post a message so everyone will hear about this and do something to prevent it? 39. Is there a public access Unix system near me? How can I get access to system for news and mail? 40. In rec.pets: My pet has suddenly developed the following symptoms .... Is it serious? In sci.med: I have these symptoms .... Is it serious? 41. I have this great idea to make money. Alternatively, wouldn't an electronic chain letter be a nifty idea? 42. Where can I get archives of Usenet postings? 43. Is it possible to post messages to the Usenet via electronic mail? 44. Is it possible to read Usenet newsgroups via electronic mail? 45. How do I get the news software to include a signature with my postings? 46. I'm on Bitnet -- can I connect to the net? Questions and Answers ===================== 1. What does UNIX stand for? It is not an acronym, but is a pun on "Multics". Multics is a large operating system that was being developed shortly before UNIX was created. Brian Kernighan is credited with the name. 2. What is the derivation of "foo" as a filler word? The favorite story is that it comes from "fubar" which is an acronym for "fouled up beyond all recognition", which is supposed to be a military term. (Various forms of this exist, "fouled" usually being replaced by a stronger word.) "Foo" and "Bar" have the same derivation. 3. Is a machine at "foo" on the net? These questions belong in news.config (if anywhere), but in fact your best bet is usually to phone somebody at "foo" to find out. If you don't know anybody at "foo" you can always try calling and asking for the "comp center." Also, see the newsgroup comp.mail.maps where maps of USENET and the uucp network are posted regularly. If you have access to telnet, connect to nic.ddn.mil and try the "whois" command. (See also the answer to question #7, below.) 4. What does "rc" at the end of files like .newsrc mean? It is related to the phrase "run commands." It is used for any file that contains startup information for a command. The use of "rc" in startup files derives from the /etc/rc command file used to start multi-user UNIX. 5. What does :-) mean? This is the net convention for a "smiley face". It means that something is being said in jest. If it doesn't look like a smiley face to you, flop your head over to the left and look again. Variants exist and mean related things; for instance, :-( is sad. Collections of smileys are posted to various newsgroups from time to time. One was posted to comp.sources.misc in v23i102. 6. How do I decrypt jokes in rec.humor? The standard cypher used in rec.humor is called "rot13." Each letter is replaced by the letter 13 farther along in the alphabet (cycling around at the end). Most systems have a built-in command to decrypt such articles; readnews and nn have the "D" command, emacs/gnus has the "^C^R" combination, rn has the "X" or "^X" commands, notes has "%" or "R", and VMS news has the read/rot13 command. If your system doesn't have a program to encrypt and decrypt these, you can quickly create a shell script using "tr": tr A-Za-z N-ZA-Mn-za-m On some versions of UNIX, the "tr" command should be written as: tr "[a-m][n-z][A-M][N-Z]" "[n-z][a-m][N-Z][A-M]" 7. misc.misc or misc.wanted: Is John Doe out there anywhere? I suspect that these items are people looking for Freshman room- mates that they haven't seen in ten years. If you have some idea where the person is, you are usually better off calling the organization. For example, if you call any Bell Labs location and request John Doe's number they can give it to you even if he works at a different location. If you must try the net, use newsgroup soc.net-people *NOT* misc.misc or misc.wanted. Also, you can try the "whois" command (see item #3). There is a periodic posting in the news.newusers.questions and news.answers newsgroups that gives information on other ways to locate people. 8. sci.math: Proofs that 1=0. Almost everyone has seen one or more of these in high school. They are almost always based on either division by 0, confusing the positive and negative square roots of a number, or performing some ill-defined operation. 9. rec.games.*: Where can I get the source for empire or rogue? You can't get the source of rogue. The authors of the game, as is their right, have chosen not to make the sources available. However, several rogue-like games have been posted to the comp.sources.games group and they are available in the archives. You can obtain the source to a version of empire if you provide a tape and SASE *plus* a photocopy of your UNIX source license. To obtain further info, contact mcnc!rti-sel!polyof!john. You can also call John at +1 516 454-5191 (9am-9pm EST only). Sites with Internet access can ftp several versions of empire from site g.ms.uky.edu Also, please note that the wizards' passwords in games like these are usually system-dependent and it does no good to ask the net-at-large what they are. 10. comp.unix.questions: How do I remove files with non-ascii characters in their names? You can try to find a pattern that uniquely identifies the file. This sometimes fails because a peculiarity of some shells is that they strip off the highorder bit of characters in command lines. Next, you can try an rm -i, or rm -r. Finally, you can mess around with i-node numbers and "find". Some Emacs editors allow you to directly edit a directory, and this provides yet another way to remove a file with a funny name (assuming you have Emacs and figure out how to use it!). To remove a file named "-" from your directory, simply do: rm ./- 11. comp.unix.internals: There is a bug in the way UNIX handles protection for programs that run suid, or any other report of bugs with standard software. There are indeed problems with the treatment of protection in setuid programs. When this is brought up, suggestions for changes range from implementing a full capability list arrangement to new kernel calls for allowing more control over when the effective id is used and when the real id is used to control accesses. Sooner or later you can expect this to be improved. For now you just have to live with it. Always discuss suspected bugs or problems with your site software experts before you post to the net. It is likely that the bugs have already been reported. They might also be local changes and not something you need to describe to the whole Usenet. 12. Volatile topics, e.g., soc.women: What do you think about abortion? Although abortion might appear to be an appropriate topic for soc.women, more heat than light is generated when it is brought up. All abortion-related discussion should take place in the newsgroup talk.abortion. If your site administrators have chosen not to receive this group, you should respect this and not post articles about abortion at all. This principle applies to other topics: religious upbringing of children should be restricted to talk.religion.misc and kept out of misc.kids. Similarly, rape discussions should be kept to talk.rape and not in soc.singles, alt.sex and/or soc.women, Zionism discussions should be kept to talk.politics.mideast and not in soc.culture.jewish; likewise, discussions of Jesus or of religions other than Judaism should go to newsgroups for the appropriate religion or to talk.religion.misc or alt.messianic. Any attempts to proselytize any religious view belongs in talk.religion.misc, if it belongs on the net at all. Discussions on the merits of Affirmative Action and racial quotas belong in talk.politics or alt.discrimination, not in soc.culture.african.american. Discussions about evolution vs. creationism should be confined to the talk.origins group. USENET newsgroups are named for mostly historical reasons, and are not intended to be fully general discussion groups for everything about the named topic. Please accept this and post articles in their appropriate forums. 13. soc.singles: What do MOTOS, MOTSS, MOTAS, and SO stand for? What does LJBF mean? Member of the opposite sex, member of the same sex, and member of the appropriate sex, respectively. SO stands for "significant other." LJBF means "Let's just be friends." This phrase is often heard when you least want it. 14. soc.singles and elsewhere: What does HASA stand for? The acronym HASA originated with the Heathen and Atheistic SCUM Alliance; the Hedonistic Asti-Spumante Alliance, Heroes Against Spaghetti Altering, the Society for Creative Atheism (SCATHE), SASA, SALSA, PASTA, and many others too numerous to mention all followed. HASA started in (what is now) talk.religion.misc and also turns up in soc.singles, talk.bizarre, et al. because members post there too. 15. sci.space.shuttle: Shouldn't this group be merged with sci.space? No. sci.space.shuttle is for timely news bulletins. sci.space is for discussions. 16. How do I use the "Distribution" feature? When your posting software (e.g., Pnews or postnews) prompts you for a distribution, it's asking how widely distributed you want your article. The set of possible replies is different, depending on where you are, but at Bell Labs in Murray Hill, New Jersey, possibilities include (for example): local local to this machine mh Bell Labs, Murray Hill Branch nj all sites in New Jersey btl All Bell Labs machines att All AT&T machines usa Everywhere in the USA na Everywhere in North America world Everywhere on USENET in the world Many of the posting programs will provide a list of distributions, if your site admin has kept the files up-to-date. If you hit return, you'll get the default, which is usually "world.". This default is often not appropriate -- PLEASE take a moment to think about how far away people are likely to be interested in what you have to say. Used car ads, housing wanted ads, and things for sale other than specialized equipment like computers certainly shouldn't be distributed to Europe and Korea, or even to the next state. It is generally not possible to post an article to a distribution that your own machine does not receive. For instance, if you live in Indiana, you can't post an article for distribution only in New Jersey or Germany unless your site happens to exchange those particular distributions with another site. Try mailing the article to someone in the appropriate area and asking them to post it for you.