Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2A (XREF PATCH) 05/16/85; site neuro1.UUCP
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!neuro1!sob
From: sob@neuro1.UUCP (Stan Barber)
Newsgroups: net.works,net.mail
Subject: Re: Re: loopback testing
Message-ID: <524@neuro1.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 2-Aug-85 19:35:51 EDT
Article-I.D.: neuro1.524
Posted: Fri Aug  2 19:35:51 1985
Date-Received: Sun, 4-Aug-85 09:43:03 EDT
References: <433@olivee.UUCP> <3040@nsc.UUCP> <184@kitty.UUCP>
Reply-To: sob@neuro1.UUCP (Stan Barber)
Distribution: net
Organization: Neurophysiology, Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Tx
Lines: 45
Xref: watmath net.works:1101 net.mail:987

In article <184@kitty.UUCP> peter@kitty.UUCP (Peter DaSilva) writes:
>One of the main feeds for both of the sites I'm the contact for
>frequently screws up the routing. In addition, the routes it chooses are
>occasionally non-reflexive, especially with the old V7 mailer I'm reduced
>to using...
>

"One of the main feeds" he refers to is neuro1, the site I administrate. 
I would note the we were getting a large number of rejection to messages
Peter sent though this site because his routes were 10-15 site long and
were frequently truncated and then rejected. As to "screw"ing up the routing,
I am using the material provided by the UUCP project for any routing 
information. If you want to insure that routing information is correct, 
send your map information to uucpmap@cbosgd.ATT.UUCP.

>Luckily I can get around the routing by giving it an explicit route. It only
>calculates the route for the first hop, you see. If it optimised everything
>I'd be completely lost.

Nothing lucky about it. It was planned that way so that people who like to
use explicit route can. The whole point (in my opinion) behind an
intelligent mail system is to allow unsophisticated users to be able to
send mail with minimal information (username and host and as time goes by,
domain), while allowing sophisticated users to use explicit paths if they
so desire.

>Like it or not, the net is a dynamic structure. Like it or not, there are sites
>that have old software. Unless you're going to distribute a PD mailer that will
>run on a vanilla PDP-11, I'd strongly discourage the widespread use of route
>optimisations.

I disagree with this. I think as all networks become more complex, route
optmization will be the ONLY way for a casual user to be able to use
the networks. Since there will be more and more casual users, we ( the
people that worry about mail, routing and so on) must be able to
accomodate them to make it as easy as possible to them to use mail,
news and the like.

Peter, if you don't like mailing through neuro1, I can bounce all
your mail back...:-)

-- 
Stan		uucp:{ihnp4!shell,rice}!neuro1!sob     Opinions expressed
Olan		ARPA:sob@rice.arpa		       here are ONLY mine &
Barber		CIS:71565,623   BBS:(713)660-9262      noone else's.