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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!ucbvax!jordan
From: jordan@ucbvax.ARPA (Jordan Hayes)
Newsgroups: net.mail
Subject: Re: automatic address rewriting by smart gateways
Message-ID: <9543@ucbvax.ARPA>
Date: Thu, 1-Aug-85 14:24:07 EDT
Article-I.D.: ucbvax.9543
Posted: Thu Aug  1 14:24:07 1985
Date-Received: Sat, 3-Aug-85 04:14:15 EDT
References: <545@down.FUN>
Reply-To: jordan@ucbvax.UUCP (Jordan Hayes)
Distribution: net
Organization: University of California at Berkeley
Lines: 61


In article <545@down.FUN> honey@down.FUN (Peter Honeyman) writes:
>also, if you really believe that mark@cbosgd.att.uucp is the same as
>uucp!att!cbosgd!mark, then we're in the same camp, aren't we?  i have
>insisted all along that a "domain" is a pseudonym for a host that can
>gateway to a specific set of hosts.  so let's call a spade a "spade"
>and write attunix!cbosgd!mark (with the possible addition of a uucp
>gateway).

You just don't get it, do you Peter? A domain is NOT A PSEUDONYM FOR
A HOST THAT CAN GATEWAY TO A SPECIFIC SET OF HOSTS. I am not a member
of .att.uucp (or, if you like, WOULD NOT BE...), but my machine does
have a connection to cbosgd.att.uucp (or whatever Mark is calling it
these days...), and so I can use that address. Hmmm... come to think
of it, if we didn't get called by cbosgd, I would still have a way to
resolve that address to ihnp4 (my other entry point to .att.uucp),
but the address stays the same. Not true if I send to attunix!cbosgd!mark,
and I have no connection to attunix, nor would pathalias tell me
how to get there reasonably from one of my other addresses,
oh, say, jordan@klaatu.wny.atl.uucp, since this machine is not on the
map (and yet I have been able to get mail to it for almost a year
now...), not to mention jordan@orion.ames.nasa.gov but I could use
the above address for Mark from any of those accounts...

Open your mouth and make way for the size 12 Nike Basketball sneeker...

>a cogent point made (in passing) by pike and weinberger at the last
>usenix ("the hideous name") is that what uucp routes are more than
>routes, they're addresses.

Right. This is bad, unreliable, and subjective.

>i take that view and run with it:

Good thing to do with something braindamaged.

>given the proper data,

Where? When was the last time we saw a "correct" map?

>a uucp route maps into a graph traversal, specifying a
>given host at least as precisely as any domainist's incantation.

Wrong. Decisions in routing can be made down the line that are much smarter
than your bloody map...

>my major departure from rfc819 is the extension of
>their graph model (undirected trees) to arbitrary directed graphs.
>obviously any connected undirected graph can be viewed as a tree, but
>the world is neither connected or undirected.  this fact can not be
>wished away.

Yes, but you can work within it, being a little flexible for the sake
of simplicity and elegance. Sure, I can throw a 900K map, a 300K
resultant database and lots of flashy software at the problem and get
the right answer *most* of the time, but there *IS* a better way...

------------
Jordan Hayes        jordan@UCB-VAX.BERKELEY.EDU
UC Berkeley                       ucbvax!jordan
+1 (415) 835-8767    37' 52.29" N 122' 15.41" W