TIP(1) | General Commands Manual | TIP(1) |
tip
— serial
terminal emulator
tip |
[-nv ]
[- speed]
[system-name] |
tip
is used to connect to another system
over a serial link. In the era before modern networks, it was typically used
to connect to a modem in order to dial in to a remote host. It is now
frequently used for tasks such as attaching to the serial console of another
machine for administrative or debugging purposes.
The options are as follows:
If speed is specified, it will override any baudrate specified 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.
For example, tip -1200
will set
system-name to 'tip1200'.
Line access is logged to /var/log/aculog. This file does not exist by default and has to be created to enable logging.
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 ~.
~c
[name]~!
tip
).~>
tip
prompts for
the name of a local file to transmit.~<
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]stty -echo; cat > 'to'; stty echo
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]~p
command, the ‘to’ file defaults
to the ‘from’ file name if it isn't specified. The remote
host executes the following command string to send the file to
tip
:
cat 'from'; echo '' | tr '\012' '\01'
~|
~$
~C
0 <-> remote tty in 1 <-> remote tty out 2 <-> local tty stderr
~#
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
~v
~^Z
tip
(only available with job control).~^Y
tip
(only available with job control); the “remote side” of
tip
, the side that displays output from the remote
host, is left running.~?
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
REMOTE
does not start
with a ‘/
’ it is assumed to be a
system description, and is considered first.REMOTE
begins with a
‘/
’ it is assumed to be a path to a
remote(5) database, and the
specified database 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 suitable, the baud rate to be used may be
given on the command line, e.g. ‘tip -300
mds
’.
The dv capability is used to specify the device with which to establish a connection. For reasons outlined in tty(4), cua(4) devices should be used on architectures which have them. For those which do not, tty(4) devices can be used. Users in group “dialer” are permitted to use cua(4) devices by default; permissions on /dev/tty00 or /dev/ttya can be changed, but they will revert to their defaults after an upgrade or (re)install.
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, for
example 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 the user to the remote
machine.
tip
guards against multiple users
connecting to a remote system by opening 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.
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 concatenating 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 the initialization
file ~/.tiprc; the -v
option
additionally 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:
~<
file transfer command; abbreviated
eofr.~>
file transfer command; abbreviated
eofw.tip
will recognize escape characters only after an
end-of-line.~
’.^P
’.off
’.\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.tip
for transmission to the remote machine.^A
’.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.tip
prints messages while dialing, shows the
current number of lines transferred during a file transfer operations, and
more.HOME
~c
command.HOST
REMOTE
SHELL
~!
command;
default value is “/bin/sh”.The tip
command appeared in
4.2BSD.
The full set of variables is undocumented and should, probably, be pared down.
July 22, 2010 | OpenBSD-5.1 |