Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cis.ohio-state.edu!karl_kleinpaste From: karl_kleinpaste@cis.ohio-state.edu Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: Imminent death of UUCP Zone predicted Message-ID: Date: 29 Jun 90 19:10:43 GMT References: <3008.268b1e9a@mccall.com> Sender: news@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Organization: Ohio State Computer Science Lines: 98 tp@mccall.com writes: What do you say to those who can get free uucp connections, but would have to pay to reach a generous internet site such as yourself? Actually, I am perfectly happy to be MX for a domain which is not a direct UUCP connection to me. Sorry for the imprecision in the previous article -- what I meant to say is, "I can't call you, but if you can get your mail yourself _via_some_means_, I'll MX for you." That is, I'll be MX for Foo-Bletch.ORG via pathalias support through hop1!hop2!hop3!hop4!foo-bletch!%s if you wish. It works fine. One of my MX connections does this, though it's only one intermediate hop. I tend to think that just about any site can get an approximately-free connection via such a means. If not, I have to wonder at the viability of the site. Many internet sites will refuse to provide MX forwarding, and some are incapable. Yes, many will refuse. MX forwarding imposes load, and many places aren't willing to spend cycles in such a way. I do it because I've got 4 Pyramids with cycles to spare while still being able to get useful work done on the machines. I have to admit that I would find it hard to believe that any are truly incapable. The software is available, the configurations are not that difficult. The primary problem in being an MX host for a UUCP-connected domain is that there are several pieces to the puzzle, and getting them all just _so_ is a small bit of pain. I wrote a "cookbook" article on how to do it about a year ago; I'll see if I can dig it back out and re-post it. > I also routinely help people get domain registrations accomplished > without being either NS or MX for them... Now this is an offer many would appreciate! It took me 3 months (and of course $35) to get registered through uunet. Even being on usenet, I had no idea that it could be done free. I thought the NIC had designated uunet as handling all requests from uucp sites. If I read your message right, I was ripped off, in that I could have sent my form to the NIC instead of uunet and saved my money (and 3 month lead time, probably). The NIC has not designated UUNET in any special place in this regard. I registered wciu.edu myself a few weeks ago (I'm primary NS, hydra.convex.com is secondary NS [thanx, Lee], elroy.jpl.nasa.gov is MX), and the NIC was happy enough to let it go through for me. No, you weren't ripped off. The catch is that, while I am willing to do these things, I don't _have_ to, and if I don't get around to doing something for you next week, well, tough, sort of. I don't tend to dally over such requests, but considering my current mail/news condition (see my .signature), if I got a new request for such help today, it would sit a couple of weeks before I even looked at it. UUNET, on the other hand, is in the business position of providing the service. If you ask, they will do it. They will do all the legwork for you, much as I would, but they have to recover the cost of doing so differently than my employer (a state-supported university) would. $35 is probably too low a cost, if you consider the amount of time and effort required to do this sort of work. You got a good deal, even if it still took a couple of months, as long as I include a guestimate that a non-zero (non-trivial?) fraction of that time was you trying to figure out what you had to do in order for UUNET to finish the job. But for some people, it is not a workable solution, so they will continue running with unregistered hosts. Sooner or later, a lot of us who really and truly believe in the viability of domains are going to get sick of dealing with all those unregistered hosts, and we're going to stop attempting to deal with !-paths and .bitnet, and it's going to be quite a shock to all the unregistered admins. Consider the MILNET's position WRT nameservers -- some days, it seems to me that half the MILNET is still running off HOSTS.TXT. I hear about it due to CompuServe.COM, easily the most bizarre mailer connection I've ever built, though not really difficult in and of itself. But I _routinely_ hear from Bozo@Stuff.MIL asking why they get "host unknown" when writing to CompuServe. Precisely why do all internet sites that act as MX forwarders insist on direct connections? (-: "You proceed from a false assumption." --Spock, ST2:TWoK :-) They don't, and they don't have to. I don't, so I'm an existence proof of the fact. I imagine, however, that an argument could be made that life will be less traumatic if such connections are direct -- I know that I _prefer_ direct connections, but I just don't _require_ them. --karl -- Depression \di-'presh-un\ n. A condition observed on return from 3 weeks' vacation to find ~2000 mail messages waiting for oneself. (And people marvel that I employ GNUS as a mail-reading interface.) (In other words, personal.general still has 200 messages; hang on.)