Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site brl-tgr.ARPA
Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!whuxl!whuxlm!akgua!gatech!seismo!brl-tgr!tgr!JSOL%BUCS20%bostonu.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA
From: JSOL%BUCS20%bostonu.csnet@CSNET-RELAY.ARPA (Jon Solomon)
Newsgroups: net.mail.headers
Subject: EDU problems in Bitnet.
Message-ID: <3371@brl-tgr.ARPA>
Date: Tue, 19-Nov-85 06:15:12 EST
Article-I.D.: brl-tgr.3371
Posted: Tue Nov 19 06:15:12 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 20-Nov-85 20:59:03 EST
Sender: news@brl-tgr.ARPA
Lines: 29


No matter what direction is taken, significant rewriting of some parts
of BITNET software will be required. That's life. Maybe we can set you
on a direction that has proven useful for us.

Conceptually the gateway responsibility issue is not new. Most of us
have lived with the use of a % hack for years. My header is officially
sepearated into "jsol%bucs20%bostonu.csnet"@"csnet-relay.arpa",
abstractly: local-part@network-part. What is in the "network-part"
must conform to the network standards, and what is in the "local-part"
is open to negotiation (on a host by host basis). It is within the
scope of the gateway to modify the headers to conform to each
networks' protocols. The gateway adds or removes its name from the
address and changes the last % to an @ (or removes the first @ leaving
only one). This is considered messy, because it requires the gateway to
parse the headers, nonetheless it is practical for the present.

This will require changing the mail software not to use % as an indicator
that the address should go to WISCVM. The software will have to parse the
line and send the mail to the host indicated. Strictly speaking, this
is probably the best you can do until someone comes along with a brilliant
idea for a centralized name protocol (i.e. domains or something).

Note: If using % is too complicated, you can use some other character(?)
as the indicator for CCNET.

Didn't mean to scorch you. Sorry.

--JSol