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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!bellcore!decvax!decuac!avolio
From: avolio@decuac.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.mail
Subject: Re: Neighbor optimized away
Message-ID: <908@decuac.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 1-May-86 19:32:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: decuac.908
Posted: Thu May  1 19:32:14 1986
Date-Received: Sat, 3-May-86 18:52:36 EDT
References: <4509@dartvax.UUCP> <1268@umcp-cs.UUCP>
Organization: ULTRIX Applications Center, MD
Lines: 23
Keywords: uucp pathalias

We use smail instead of uumail.  Smail allows you to set (in an
include file) whether you try to short-cut paths.  As Chris pointed
out, this is pretty dangerous to do since hostnames are not unique.
Having said that, let me tell you that on this host, paths containing
hostnames of direct neighbors are shortened before going to smail.
This means I only shorten paths containing hosts immediately next to
us (in our L.sys file).  This is done by sendmail.cf.  While this is
bad, as Chris pointed out, I am only messing with some things -- not
all.  And then the address is passed to smail which looks it up in the
pathalias database.

So...

host1!host2!host3!seismo!fuzzball!cbosgd!other!user becomes
cbosgd!other!user (even though we talk to seismo also) which gets
passed as is through smail (best path is direct to cbosgd from here).
While, host!otherhost!cvl!user goes as cvl!user to smail which makes
it umd5!cvl!user.  We talk to cvl directly but only in the evening,
while we call umd5 any old time.  Remember -- we are only being
`smart' about hosts in L.sys.  It is a compromise.
-- 
Fred @ DEC Ultrix Applications Center
INET: avolio@decuac.DEC.COM          UUCP: {decvax,seismo,cbosgd}!decuac!avolio