Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!gsm001!mailgsm
From: root@mailgsm.mendelson.com (Geoffrey S. Mendelson)
Newsgroups: comp.os.coherent
Subject: Re: Re: Pathalias, makedb enquiry
Message-ID: <844118@mailgsm.mendelson.com>
Date: 29 Apr 91 04:01:35 GMT
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<1991Apr24.202931.20651@jrix.radig.de> 

rmk@rmkhome.UUCP (Rick Kelly) comments on my comments to 
dtinker@gpu.utcs.utoronto.ca (David Tinker) posting:

>>> >2) Is pathalias available on piggy?  (It wasn't on mwcbbs last time I
>>> >   looked).  If not, would someone, more familiar with ftp than me, like
>>> >   to upload it?  Looks like a lot of people might need it soon.
>>> >
>>> 

>>> You don't need pathalias at all. Pathalias is for people who act as a network
>>> backbone. Since your coherent system is not on the Internet, you dont need it
>>
>>Everybody should try to port every source that seems to be able to work
>>with Coherent
>>Don't think about what you need today, think what may be needed in the future.
>
>The main problem with using pathalias to make a paths file is that the paths
>files is now up to 1.7 megabytes and growing.  Pathalias _might_ run out of
>memory on a 2 megabyte system, unless you are using a swapping kernel. Also,
>it will take a LONG time on a 286 system.
>
Another problem is that the paths file takes a long time to download. Not 
all of us have 9600 baud modems. It needs about 3 meg of free disk space to 
uncompress. Then once we have it we have to run pathalias to produce the 
paths file. When we are done we get a huge file of paths that 99 percent of will
never be used.

It just seems to me that while everything we can get we should get, let's
use some sense here. After reading the uucp maps, (which I find very 
interesting, but I don't do it often), I find they are horibly out of date.
Some places have been dropped because no one will volunteer to maintain them.
It's a lot of hard work, and most people don't bother to send in updates. Ok, 
I promise I'll send in the update about my domain registration coming through
real soon now.

In the "real" world pathalias is almost obsolete. (flames here I come) If you
are directly connected to the Interent (something I think we will never see on a
coherent system) you can ask one of the name servers for the current routing.
They are maintained far better than the mail maps. 

For coherent systems, most of us will have a small uucp network and one 
network backbone. So what most of us want is a small paths file which we 
rarely change. Having it updated automaticaly is actualy a disadvantage, as we
would need to edit it anyway.

What do you place in a paths file?


1.	Your domains. Remember that ".UUCP" does not count. 

	You have to be a registed domain to use it. There are some (.com, .edu) that
	are avilable if you have an internet forwarder (such as uunet) and some 
	(.us) that will take almost anyone that can eventualy receive mail. 
	
	But you do have to be registered.
	
	You may become a subdomain by arrangment with a person who has a domain.
	Generaly you don't register. You are encouraged to send in a mail
	map. 

	You register your domain with the u.s. government. I think it is free,
	but the paperwork is a hassle. UUNET will register its customers free,
	and non customers for $35.00. I don't know what other domains, 
	(such as .us) charge. 

2. All the systems with whom you uucp.

3. All the systems you can reach via a system with whom you uucp, AND they are
   willing to forward mail. 
   
   Pathalias does not know the difference between can and may. 	

   For example, the Mark Williams' system can talk to uunet and to your 
   system. But don't go trying to send mail across the INTERNET via Mark 
   Williams' system.  With both systems in your mail map, that is exactly what
   would happen. Pathalias would see that you can reach uunet with only one 
   hop. Except that you can't and if you could they would probably turn off 
   your uucp id real fast.  

	NB I did not make this up, the MWCBBS docs mention this. AND NOT TO DO IT.
	
4.  A "smart-host" who is willing to forward ALL of your mail.
------
Geoffrey S. Mendelson           I've written and debugged almost eight thousand 
geoffrey@mendelson.com          LINES of C code under Coherent in the last two
mwcbbs!mailgsm!geoffrey         months.  :-)                     
(215) 242-8712                  And my wife still speaks to me!