As with TCP/IP-based networking, your host has to have a name for UUCP
networking. As long as you simply want to use UUCP for file transfers to
or from sites you dial up directly, or on a local network, this name
does not have to meet any standards.
However, if you use UUCP for a mail or news link, you should think about
having the name registered with the UUCP Mapping project. The UUCP
Mapping Project is described in chapter-
. Even if you
participate in a domain, you might consider having an official UUCP name
for your site.
Frequently, people choose their UUCP name to match the first component of their fully qualified domain name. Suppose your site's domain address is swim.twobirds.com, then your UUCP host name would be swim. Think of UUCP sites as knowing each other on a first-name basis. Of course, you can also use a UUCP name completely unrelated to your fully qualified domain name.
However, make sure not to use the unqualified site name in mail
addresses unless you have registered it as your official UUCP
name. At the very best, mail to an unregistered UUCP host will vanish in
some big black bit bucket. If you use a name already held by some other
site, this mail will be routed to that site, and cause its postmaster
no end of headaches.
By default, the UUCP suite uses the name set by hostname as the site's UUCP name. This name is commonly set in the /etc/rc.local script. If your UUCP name is different from what you set your host name to, you have to use the hostname option in the config file to tell uucico about your UUCP name. This is described below.