Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!swrinde!mips!spool.mu.edu!agate!ziploc!eps From: eps@toaster.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) Newsgroups: comp.sys.next Subject: Re: incoming mail not working with SLIP Message-ID: <1783@toaster.SFSU.EDU> Date: 22 Jun 91 05:09:14 GMT References: <1991Jun21.182242.835@arizona.edu> Reply-To: eps@cs.SFSU.EDU (Eric P. Scott) Organization: San Francisco State University Lines: 22 A dedicated SLIP connection is no different from any other IP technology. Dialup SLIP is another matter, since Internet mail delivery really wants continuous availability. For *outgoing* mail, the link will be set up on demand, so there's no problem here. For *incoming* mail, normally the sender-SMTP will attempt to connect to your IP address (which will work if your link is up, and fail if it's down), and reschedule failed deliveries for a later time. If the link is down every time a delivery's attempted, the mail will be bounced as undeliverable. The problem is simply that Dialup SLIP is generally unsuitable for server use; there's no way for incoming traffic to trigger a link up. This pretty much means that any system with a Dialup SLIP connection should have an MX record to some site that *will* be available to accept mail. The easiest thing to do at that point is probably to shove it into a UUCP queue, and have your machine poll for mail. (This doesn't necessarily mean UUCP-g; a port 540 approach would work too.) Note that if you have multiple MX records in order to receive mail "directly" if possible, incoming mail will arrive out-of-sequence. -=EPS=-