Path: utzoo!attcan!telly!problem!compus!lethe!torsqnt!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!usc!ucsd!ames!ncar!midway!gargoyle!chinet!les From: les@chinet.chi.il.us (Leslie Mikesell) Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc Subject: Re: Another Novice Needs sendmail Help Message-ID: <1990Dec14.231424.11133@chinet.chi.il.us> Date: 14 Dec 90 23:14:24 GMT References: <1990Dec13.203054.17265@chinet.chi.il.us> Organization: Chinet - Public Access UNIX Lines: 38 In article karl_kleinpaste@cis.ohio-state.edu writes: >I think you misunderstand the administrative intent of MX RRs. By >providing service to something.org, I am explicitly stating that I >provide a service to someone other than my own organization. >MorningStar.COM is not part of Ohio State, but I MX for them. There >is no reason why Morning Star Technologies should be considered to be >affiliated with OSU. Hence, a separate domain. I guess so. I thought they were mail addresses. >Even more so, for private, single machines, I really don't want them >to be considered part of my organization. I do MX service for >galaxia.newport.ri.us and a few related systems; they are by no means >part of OSU and I don't intend to have them identified as such. OK, then it still makes sense for an internet-uucp (or anything else) gateway to establish a domain name just for the purpose of controlling the namespace at the same point as the physical links. With a wild-card MX pointing to the forwarder, it should be possible to add any number of addressable off-net machines without changing anything but the forwarder's tables. The value of this is obvious within organizations, but not everyone "has" an organization. This arrangement would also make invertable address re-writing possible at the gateway assuming the off-net names forwarded by a particular host are all unique in their native syntax. >Just for grins, imagine one of the sites that have seriously >embarrassed themselves on the networks having been identified as a >subdomain of the Internet entity which feeds them. I rather suspect >that the feed site would not take too kindly to such a suggestion. I don't understand this any more than I would understand my state, city, or post office being embarrassed by their mention in the return address on a postal letter, but I'll take your word for it. Les Mikesell les@chinet.chi.il.us