Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!uflorida!mephisto!prism!gs26
From: gs26@prism.gatech.EDU (Glenn R. Stone)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.sendmail
Subject: Re: BITNET hosts also internet?
Message-ID: <11197@hydra.gatech.EDU>
Date: 11 Jul 90 03:43:57 GMT
References: <1990Jul10.212525.21017@mthvax.cs.miami.edu>
Distribution: na
Organization: The Group W Bench
Lines: 25

In <1990Jul10.212525.21017@mthvax.cs.miami.edu> aem@mthvax.cs.miami.edu (a.e.mossberg) writes:
>Would having a table of these for sendmail be a good idea, and if so,
>how would one set up a rule to map a $1.bitnet to the corresponding
>internet host name from the file?

Nope, bzzzt, wrong.  The whole point of having .bitnet is to force it
to route thru the bitnet links...  so that when things screw up,
mail will still go thru.  

>The reason I ask is that using the ip address when available would be
>a whole lot quicker than sending it to cunyvm and letting it make
>its way down the bitnet links.

Bitnet sites that are on the internet also have a domain-ized name that
is used for sending mail to it thru the internet.  e.g.
  GITVM1 (bitnet) is vm1.gatech.edu (internet);
  DRYCAS (bitnet) is DRYCAS.CLUB.CC.CMU.EDU (internet),
etc....  Admittedly, when everything is peachy-keen, 
ip point-to-point is an order of magnitude faster, but 
when the chips are down, a slow RSCS link is better than
no link at all....  forcing a reroute thru IP regardless 
of the address form introduces a single point of failure.

-- Glenn R. Stone
gs26@prism.gatech.edu