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From: bob@osu-eddie.UUCP
Newsgroups: news.newsites
Subject: Re: Bogus new site entry, potomac
Message-ID: <3422@osu-eddie.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 9-Apr-87 11:02:28 EST
Article-I.D.: osu-eddi.3422
Posted: Thu Apr  9 11:02:28 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 11-Apr-87 11:42:39 EST
References: <473@potomac.ads.arpa> <16008@amdcad.AMD.COM> <1690@kitty.UUCP>
Reply-To: bob@osu-eddie.UUCP (Bob Sutterfield)
Organization: The Ohio State University Dept of Computer & Information Science
Lines: 41
Keywords: mod.map, potomac, name collisions

In article <1690@kitty.UUCP> larry@kitty.UUCP (Larry Lippman) writes:
>In article <16008@amdcad.AMD.COM>, bandy@amdcad.AMD.COM (Andy Beals) writes:
>> (...)
>> MORAL:
>> People who give other folks uucp connections and news feeds should
>> look in the maps *first* and tell new sites that they may not have
>> names that people already have.
> (...)
>	I realize that there isn't much that I can do about a site
>that simply insists upon duplicating an existing sitename - but
>perhaps larger sites that handle uucp connections CAN exert some
>responsibility in this type of situation.

	Every time I set up a new UUCP connection for somebody in
Columbus or elsewhere in Ohio, I am very careful to check the maps,
and have disappointed several new sites because they couldn't have
their first-choice name.

	Our Department had (and will have again someday) a Sun called
`zaphod'.  I entered its name in our map entry as a local host on our
Department's Ethernet.  It turns out that the other machine called
`zaphod', which already had the name, started experiencing mail
routing problems soon after the map entry was broadcast.

	I didn't know, until Mark Horton told me, that information in
that local-hosts line gets broadcast and used by Pathalias in the
outside world.  He suggested that our local hosts (behind our UUCP
gateway) are our own business and nobody else really needs to know how
to get to them.  Until the world is fully domain-ified (including
ourselves) we will simply include our local Ether host list as a
comment in our map entry, thus (hopefully) avoiding the problem.

	So, it's not just new leaf nodes and irresponsible, uncaring
feed SAs that get into problems.  It's also people like me, somewhat
under-informed but not maliciously so, exploring new areas and trying
to get something useful done.  Hardly fodder for a flame-fest!
-- 
 Bob Sutterfield, Department of Computer and Information Science
 The Ohio State University; 2036 Neil Ave. Columbus OH USA 43210-1277
 bob@ohio-state.{arpa,csnet} or ...!cb{osgd,att}!osu-eddie!bob
 (614)292-7348 (office) or -0915 (operators) or -7325 (answering machine)