Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site peora.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxn!ihnp4!houxm!vax135!petsd!peora!jer From: jer@peora.UUCP (J. Eric Roskos) Newsgroups: net.mail Subject: Re: Mail routing -- problems showing up Message-ID: <1632@peora.UUCP> Date: Fri, 13-Sep-85 09:39:46 EDT Article-I.D.: peora.1632 Posted: Fri Sep 13 09:39:46 1985 Date-Received: Sat, 14-Sep-85 07:18:28 EDT References: <1383@peora.UUCP> <9546@ucbvax.ARPA> <1423@peora.UUCP> Organization: Perkin-Elmer SDC, Orlando, Fl. Lines: 98 > I do not mean to sound like a flamer, but postulating how much better things > would be given a nicer world is at best an academic exercise. But what I've postulated works. Right now. I can send to every mail network I know of (well, except PE's, because they don't have a gateway :-) ). I have software right here that does it. To do it, all I have to do is specify the RFC822-form address handled by their mailer. In fact, yesterday I eliminated the last hardcoded string (other than filenames) from the router, so I guess I can post it (but not the mailer, yet, and anyway, Mark Horton is coming out with smail soon, which will be better I guess) to net.sources, no? The only place I have a problem is when I go through certain sendmail sites. Apparently even that works, since Seismo seems to have it working. Sendmail sites that see a route like: ...!ucbvax!john_doe%abc.CSNET@csnet-relay.ARPA and decide that since it has the string .ARPA on the end, it should send it to the CSnet relay immediately (since that's how you get to the ARPAnet from a CSnet site). Which they wouldn't do if they knew it came in via UUCP and thus should be treated with !-precedence. > It is a shame the Mailnet Gateway of which you speak is unable or unwilling > to be a "proper" gateway. However, it is very difficult to teach all the > folks in UUCP how to use the syntax needed by a gateway. Besides, it is > less work for everybody if the gateway simply gets its act together. If > the gateway is unable, then the job could be done by one of the gateway's > neighbors. You don't have to, though. Here if I want to write to a mailnet site, I write To: sam_smith@tops10site.mailnet The router looks in its domain table, where it sees .MAILNET,>ucbvax,,%P!%U%%%D@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA It translates the %P to the path to ucbvax (which is what >ucbvax stands for); it inserts sam_smith where the %U is, it generates a % where %% is (I guess I should have used a $), it puts tops10site.mailnet where the %D is, and that gives pesnta!hplabs!ucbvax!sam_smith%tops10site.mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA And that gets the message there right now, using plain old UUCP mailers. How? Well, each plain UUCP mailer takes off one sitename before the "!" and ships the rest of the routing string to that named site. When it gets to hplabs, hplabs takes off ucbvax!sam... and gives sam_smith%tops10site.mailnet@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA to UCBVAX's mailer. UCBVAX finds no "!", so it treats it as an RFC822 address, and connects up to MIT-MULTICS.ARPA (directly, since this is the ARPAnet) and delivers the message. The message arrives at MIT-MULTICS.ARPA with only sam_smith%tops10site.mailnet left in the address, which is a fine mailnet address, so it delivers it to tops10site.mailnet. Tops10site.mailnet see sam_smith, and that is a local user, so it delivers it to him. Now why is that so hard? All that it requires is that you DON'T give mail to sendmail if you don't have to. That is what my rmail does. If mail comes in via rmail, it knows it came in from UUCP, because uuxqt invokes rmail as its particular way of getting mail delivered. So, if it finds a "!" left on the address, it assumes that is a !-precedence address, and invokes UUX, the way the ancient "mail" did, back when rmail==mail. However, if it finds no "!", it invokes another program instead. This program ("deliver," due to certain inertial problems here) treats "@" as having precedence -- in fact, it is the program the user interface uses to initiate delivery, so users get to have "@" precedence also. It looks at the "@" address and decides what to do from there. [Actually the above was a simplification. The domain router in my rmail is capable of rewriting addresses with only an "@" into UUCP paths. It tries to do this first. If there is no matching domain, the address remains untransformed, and rmail goes on and passes it to deliver. This allows people at PCs to write sam@samsvax.UUCP, and have the PC simply prepend peora! to that string and route it here.] > Your ideas work well until mail hits a gateway. And the gateway need not be > to a different network, either. A set of at least 2 sendmail sites will do > it. I just described what happens in that case. I will agree that there exist certain gateways that require special processing -- though it's hard for me at the moment to think of any in reality other than gateways that alternate left and right precedence -- but I think *THOSE* gateways should handle the problem. It's like that military saying, "if device is not nonfunctional, do not attempt to effect maintenance procedures". Well, actually something is broken right now -- it's because sendmail just got stuck in everywhere in a fairly ad hoc fashion, rather than an orderly one. However, I think that is fixable, much more easily than by revising the routing language to require complete rewriting. -- Shyy-Anzr: J. Eric Roskos UUCP: Ofc: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jer Home: ..!{decvax,ucbvax,ihnp4}!vax135!petsd!peora!jerpc!jer US Mail: MS 795; Perkin-Elmer SDC; 2486 Sand Lake Road, Orlando, FL 32809-7642