Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!lll-crg!nike!sri-spam!gds From: gds@sri-spam.ARPA (The lost Bostonian) Newsgroups: net.news,net.news.adm,net.mail Subject: Re: ihnp4 problems Message-ID: <6571@sri-spam.ARPA> Date: Tue, 26-Aug-86 21:45:47 EDT Article-I.D.: sri-spam.6571 Posted: Tue Aug 26 21:45:47 1986 Date-Received: Wed, 27-Aug-86 10:55:38 EDT References: <782@laidbak.UUCP> <41334@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV> <1727@ihlpa.UUCP> <3880@ut-ngp.UUCP> Organization: the Bay Area, for now Lines: 84 Summary: down with uucp mail autorouting Xref: mnetor net.news:1996 net.news.adm:663 net.mail:1061 I would like to thank Mr. Uhrig for his concern over the situation. This problem has come up before, but no one seemed to be concerned. Now that it is revealed to be serious, perhaps a new policy for uucp mail should be set. In article <3880@ut-ngp.UUCP>, werner@ut-ngp.UUCP (Werner Uhrig) writes: > 1) given that we have "smart mailers" these days, that do auto-routing > where the user does NOT determine the path of the message, the > question begs: > > HOW CAN THE AVERAGE USER AVOID IHNP4? > > IS ANYONE DOING ANYTHING TO UPGRADE THE TABLES TO AVOID IHNP4? I have held, ever since I found out that certain sites were munging my headers to make my messages go elsewhere, that uucp mail autorouting is a no-no, because no site should be using static tables to determine routing. I don't want to get into an argument about "real networks" here (hi, henry!) but as a person who has had some experience with routing protocols, routing based on static, and possibly out-of-date information is bound to get you into trouble. If I specify a full-path source to destination address (I use address here as meaning the To: line, please lets not start an argument about addresses vs. routes), which has a high confidence of success, there is no need for an intermediate to provide a different, perhaps less reliable route for me. I feel the only acceptable rerouting of such paths would be if the next hop was not a neighbor, then the routing tables should be consulted for the most likely hop which will get you to your destination. If one particular link is lossy, the mail should be queued until the link is good, if the time for the link being good is exceeded, the mail should be returned, or dropped. If uucp routing could be done more dynamically, perhaps autorouting would be acceptable, because the finding of reliable routes would be much more timely. In answer to the first question, because of the presence of smart mailers, there's not much you can do if their tables are configured to route through ihnp4 even if the path is complete. Best thing to do is find a complete path to your destination that you know works (if your destination can only be reached through ihnp4 you are out of luck), and hope that your mail won't be rerouted. In answer to the second question, perhaps an ihnp4 map update would be in order. In the meantime, sites which poll, or are polled by ihnp4 can set their value for ihnp4 to something greater than DEMAND. * begin philosophical mode * Two things might be done to alleviate this problem in the future. One would be to add a header to each message saying something like Routing: level where level 0 indicates the path should be interpreted as a strict source route. Failure to deliver the mail over a uucp link should result in dropping or returning the mail. Higher levels could accomodate various types of rerouting, the highest being "do whatever you think is necessary to get the mail to its destination". Of course, sendmail will have to be modified to interpret the header and do the appropriate modification (or non-modification) of the To: line. The other thing would be to take pathalias-generated routes out of sendmail, unless the next hop in the To: line is not a uucp neighbor. I consider it somewhat presumptuous for sites to reroute mail based upon what they think an appropriate route to a destination is, if a full path has been specified. I can understand the needs of certain sites to cut costs and so forth, but if they do not wish to communicate with certain neighbors, they should not advertise map entries for them, or they should return or drop mail addressed to certain places. * end philosophical mode * This should not be considered as a knock on ihnp4's or anyone else's uucp service -- the fact that they dedicate their machines to the passing of other companies' mail is laudable. However I don't feel it is in certain sites' best interests to reroute mail, and it is certainly not in the sender of mail's best interests for it to be rerouted. Autorouting has possibly caused more problems for sites like ihnp4 in that they take on a lot of mail which was not intended for them. They have enough problems handling the mail that is. --gregbo