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Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!ut-sally!ut-ngp!werner
From: werner@ut-ngp.UUCP (Werner Uhrig)
Newsgroups: net.news,net.news.adm
Subject: Re: ihnp4 problems
Message-ID: <3880@ut-ngp.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 26-Aug-86 13:58:52 EDT
Article-I.D.: ut-ngp.3880
Posted: Tue Aug 26 13:58:52 1986
Date-Received: Wed, 27-Aug-86 10:07:55 EDT
References: <782@laidbak.UUCP> <41334@beno.seismo.CSS.GOV> <1727@ihlpa.UUCP>
Organization: UTexas Computation Center, Austin, Texas
Lines: 48
Summary: and how, pray tell, does J.J. User avoid ihnp4?
Xref: mnetor net.news:1993 net.news.adm:660

In article <1727@ihlpa.UUCP>, dhp@ihlpa.UUCP (Douglas H. Price) writes:
> 
> All too true.  Currently, ihnp4 as NO funding support, and is limping along
> day-to-day on the largesse of the department that 'owns' it.  Some of
> us attempt from time to time to unwedge it from whatever new fiasco has 
> overtaken it, but lack of offical attention, old hardware and a flakey
> semi-experimental kernel have all taken their toll.  I would NOT recommend
> depending on ihnp4 for mail delivery these days, since np4 has an annoying
> habit of tossing its cookies quite regularly on its spool file system.

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?

2) maybe avoiding ihnp4 may alleviate the problem anyway as the load will
	become manageable and problems will nearly all go away.

3) while the largesse of the department that 'owns' it is, basically,
	appreciated, I do not consider that any favour is being done to
	the net by allowing a machine with "old hardware and a flakey
	semi-experimental kernel" to become the de-facto net-hub for Email.
	A job, badly done, can be worse than a job not done at all.

	There is nothing worse in communications than UNRELIABLE COMMUNICATIONS.

Maybe someone should simply pull the plug on ihnp4, or rename it, or whatever.

Maybe someone should post some names and addresses of people at AT&T to which
the net can appeal with convincing arguments why it is in AT&T's advantage
to support net-mail.  Remember that every message going through ihnp4 FREE
also, usually, goes through several other sites creating revenue for AT&T
(or someone else ...well, I didn't say I had any good arguments ready  (-:)

I depend on Email a lot, and would rather know that it *DEFINITELY* doesn't
work and finding alternatives for communications, rather than wasting my
time generating messages to be gobbled up by "black holes" and not knowing
that my communication channels are broken.

BTW, 99% reliability may not be good enough until the mailer-software includes
some kind of automatic mail-progress and 'lack-of-reply' alarm features.

To put it in words:  I AM APPALLED OF WHAT I'M BEING TOLD HERE EXPLICITLY
about the ihnp4 situation, which so far I only had reason to suspect but had
not been able to confirm to be broken.