Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!decvax!bellcore!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!panda!husc6!harvard!caip!lll-crg!lll-lcc!qantel!hplabs!sdcrdcf!usc-oberon!smeagol!earle
From: earle@smeagol.UUCP (Greg Earle)
Newsgroups: net.news,net.news.adm
Subject: Re: The most expensive bug in the history of Usenet?
Message-ID: <722@smeagol.UUCP>
Date: Fri, 16-May-86 23:12:56 EDT
Article-I.D.: smeagol.722
Posted: Fri May 16 23:12:56 1986
Date-Received: Mon, 19-May-86 20:05:19 EDT
References: <221@epimass.UUCP> <1447@milano.UUCP>
Distribution: na
Organization: JPL, Pasadena CA
Lines: 36
Summary: "From: user@site.UUCP" is not "useless"
Xref: mit-eddie net.news:4010 net.news.adm:743

In article <1447@milano.UUCP>, wex@milano.UUCP writes:
> > Normally, Path headers have no @'s in them, and "site" can be
> > any site on the net.
> This is not strictly true, expecially for sites like ours that talk to both
> UUCP and ARPA.  All Usenet originated mail (and much news) appears here as
> 	Path: ...!site!user@im4u.uucp

That's not a very good addressing scheme for replying to mail addressed like
that!

> In addition, when vnews shows news articles here, it often shows
> 	From: user@site.uucp
> (thus making the `r' function useless).

Uh, sorry, that's the fault of your Netnews installer.  Vnews has an
option to use either the From: line or the Path: line as the address
to send to for return mail.  `uumail' V 3.0 was just posted to mod.sources.
I suggest you have it installed.  If you do, and can use pathalias generated
paths, then the From: field is not "useless" at all; your smart mailer
can handle the translation for you.  That is what my machine does right now.
I saw your article as "From: wex@milano.UUCP", and if I had replied to
you directly via `r', the mail would have been sent via uucp mailer to
wex@milano.UUCP.  Since `uumail' is my uucp mailer *it* gets the wex@milano
line and has to do something with it - which it does; it looks up milano
in the pathalias database and substitutes the optimal path to your machine
instead of the random-walk path that is probably present in the Path: header.
It then calls uux to do the queuing.  Since most sites that post are in the
UUCP maps, this scheme works flawlessly 90% of the time - and it saves $$$$.

Now, if only everyone else would get on the stick and implement the
pathalias - uumail - uuhosts combo, we'd be getting somewhere ...
-- 
	Greg Earle	UUCP: sdcrdcf!smeagol!earle; (new!!) attmail!earle
	JPL		ARPA: elroy!smeagol!earle@csvax.caltech.edu

Were these parsnips CORRECTLY MARINATED in TACO SAUCE?