Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!usc!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!ames!sgi!vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com From: vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver) Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: local site in a domain Message-ID: <87542@sgi.sgi.com> Date: 26 Feb 91 17:20:00 GMT References: <_L=-F2#@b-tech.uucp> <1991Feb26.014736.6765@ico.isc.com> Sender: guest@sgi.sgi.com Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc., Mountain View, CA Lines: 26 In article <1991Feb26.014736.6765@ico.isc.com>, rcd@ico.isc.com (Dick Dunn) writes: > .... > One way that people get into trouble is with the assumption that host!user > is the same as user@host. user@host is a valid way to abbreviate > user@host.local.domain. host!user, in a substantial part of the universe, > means "`user' on the registered uucp machine `host'". > ... The universe so large in these later days that even a small fraction of the universe is "substantial". However, much of the universe does not use smail, and much of the part that does use smail does not do agressive rerouting. In other words, in an another substantial part of the universe, "user@host" and "host!user" are identical. Many sendmail.cf's immediately convert one to the other. It's hard to have a rational idea of how "most" of the universe treats host!user. My unsupportable intuition is that at most sites "host!user" means what others have said: (1) if "host" = "me", deliver to local "user" or bounce (2) if "host" is a locally know machine, whether on ether, FDDI, UUCP, or jungle drums, send it there. (3) if "host" is in my copy of the maps, and I think I'm a smart host, and it looks like a genuine UUCP path, send it there (the last bit is significant) Vernon Schryver, vjs@sgi.com