Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!wuarchive!usc!rutgers!mcdchg!chinet!les From: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: UUCP path cost reduction Message-ID: <1990Aug14.205253.7606@chinet.chi.il.us> Date: 14 Aug 90 20:52:53 GMT References: <2r-/e2.s9@smurf.sub.org> <1990Aug10.221547.13301@chinet.chi.il.us> Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX Lines: 25 In article urlichs@smurf.sub.org (Matthias Urlichs) writes: >< Mail passing through should already have a next-hop of one of your >< direct neighbors unless someone else made a mistake. >I don't quite think so. The view that my site can and should find out for >itself where passing-through mail should be going next is, to me, equally >valid. (Perhaps even more so, since, according to Pathalias, I'm closer.) The original article was in the context of one site using another as a "smart-host". The idea of a "smart-host" is that you hand off mail to all hosts that you can't identify over to another machine that hopefully has more complete information for address resolution. It would obviously not be wise to use a site that did not perform complete route expansion as a "smart-host" if there is any chance that any route chosen will be back through your site. Still, it doesn't make any sense to me to let each hop recompute the route based on information that might be inconsistant between sites. The original calculation is based on the paths cost of the total route which only the first site will consider. If you feel that your site's path data is not up to date, then you might consider arranging for some other site to route everything for you, but you better hope it has a complete route specified if it comes back at you. Les Mikesell les@chinet.chi.il.us