Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!rutgers!usc!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!ira.uka.de!smurf!urlichs
From: urlichs@smurf.sub.org (Matthias Urlichs)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: Paths and Precedence (Re: Question about From: lines)
Message-ID: <z]fle2.ia2@smurf.sub.org>
Date: 16 Jul 90 22:17:24 GMT
References: <S2M4Q11@xds13.ferranti.com> <[$6je2.vl6@smurf.sub.org> <KBP4=A9@ggpc2.ferranti.com>
Organization: University of Karlsruhe, FRG
Lines: 51

In comp.mail.uucp, article <KBP4=A9@ggpc2.ferranti.com>,
  peter@ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva) writes:
< In article <[$6je2.vl6@smurf.sub.org> urlichs@smurf.sub.org (Matthias Urlichs) writes:
<> I'm currently running my mailer (MMDF, with the UUCP stuff somewhat modified)
<> based on the reasonable assumption that anyone hanging off me has either
<> Pathalias, is on the Internet, or is a node with one single connection (to
<> me).
< 
<In Germany that might be a reasonable assumption. I know that telecommunication
<costs are simply outrageous, and there's this all the weird EUNET rules on
<top of that. In the U.S., where people typically get Usenet access by finding
<someone and hooking up... without necessarily telling *any* sort of central
<authority... it's not.
< 
Right about the telecommunication costs, but wrong on EUNET rules.
(We are doing what we're doing precisely because we want to avoid any and all
 of these rules, but I'd better not talk politics now. ;-)

Maybe I phrased this wrong. I _know_ that the people hanging off me are such
hosts. If any of them has just dumb UUCP-bang-without-even-smail software,
doesn't understand what @s are for, and needs routes generated for them,
that's their problem, and it's their job to generate the addresses appropriate
for forwarding the mail.

The only remaining problem with this strategy is, of course, whether a site
XYZZY is _the_ site XYZZY, or some other XYZZY which doesn't appear in the
maps but is connected to a site which either has a domain name or is in the
maps. That's the only condition which a reasonably-smart rerouting algorithm
can't cope with.

But, to be honest, I don't think that this is my problem; it's the "other"
XYZZY who is having a bad time.
So mail to them may go to the wrong host. Tough. Sooner or later, people will
realize what's going on, and XYZZY will either change its name or register
in a "real" domain, and the problems will be over.

If you want to eliminate all those problems with routing and mixed-mode
addressing, and want to exclusively use real RFC822-addresses in the
near/far/any future (user@host.UUCP is considered to be a real RFC address for
the purposes of this discussion), you gotta start somewhere. I choose to start
right here. After all, (a) it's my host, (b) it works.

The only problem was writing a Perl script which distills domainized host
names from the maps, and then aliases all UUCP names to domain names before
trying to get any intelligent routing done. After all, if anyone wants to send
his/her mail through a ten-hop path instead of directly beaming it across the
Internet, then that's their decision, but definitely not mine.

-- 
Matthias Urlichs -- urlichs@smurf.sub.org -- urlichs@smurf.ira.uka.de
Humboldtstrasse 7 - 7500 Karlsruhe 1 - FRG -- +49+721+621127(Voice)/621227(PEP)