Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!wuarchive!usc!samsung!munnari.oz.au!mel.dit.csiro.au!smart
From: smart@mel.dit.csiro.au (Robert Smart)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: What countries support MX records fully.
Message-ID: <1990Aug30.014824.20322@mel.dit.csiro.au>
Date: 30 Aug 90 01:48:24 GMT
References: <1990Aug24.033234.19648@mel.dit.csiro.au> <25886@cs.yale.edu>
Organization: CSIRO DIT (Melb.)
Lines: 26

The consensus of opinion was that the top level domains known to
the NIC should all support MXes. That isn't to say that the
owner of that top level domain is responsible for everything that
happens below, but that he should impress on the delegated 
subdomains the importance of setting up MX records for all
reachable destinations (and not depend on pre-existing %-hack
routes and such). That is certainly what happened in Australia.

So I have changed to using a file generated from a whois command.
Here is an extract from a makefile:

        whois %root-dom | awk '/\       / {print $$1}' >/usr/lib/mail/new-top
        test -s /usr/lib/mail/new-top
        mv /usr/lib/mail/new-top /usr/lib/mail/toplevel

The character after the /\ in the whois line is a tab. This then defines
a sendmail class using an F line. The $$ is to stop make interpreting
the $1 (only use one $ in a shell script).

The point of the exercise is that if new fake domains appear then I
don't have to know about it. And in fact I am sure our major relay
machine (munnari.oz.au) often knows how to get to get to domains
that are on their way but haven't quite made it to the NIC. It also
handles a lot of domains which only make sense in ACSnet.

Bob Smart <smart@mel.dit.csiro.au>