Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!ukma!david
From: david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- Resident E-mail Hack)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: routing in the user agent
Message-ID: <7501@e.ms.uky.edu>
Date: Thu, 15-Oct-87 19:52:49 EDT
Article-I.D.: e.7501
Posted: Thu Oct 15 19:52:49 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 17-Oct-87 09:56:43 EDT
References: <279@minya.UUCP> <7461@g.ms.uky.edu> <287@minya.UUCP>
Reply-To: david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- Resident E-mail Hack)
Organization: U of Kentucky, Mathematical Sciences
Lines: 30
Keywords: bounced mail, rerouting

In article <287@minya.UUCP> jc@minya.UUCP (John Chambers) writes:
>In article <7461@g.ms.uky.edu>, david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- Resident E-mail Hack) writes:
>> hmmm ... how are you intending to test the path?
>Easy send it; if it bounces, that's a failure to resolve that path.

ok, I understood that to begin with ... but the point I wanted to make
and apparently didn't, was that this bounce-try-another-path approach
is expensive.

>> You don't have the needed information on your machine.  NOBODY does.
>> The only information you have is the UUCP Project database, and that's
>> gauranteed to be at least 1 to 2 months out of date.
>Nonsense.  I have much better info than that.  My mailer extracts the
>paths from all incoming mail and puts it (with a timestamp) into the
>database.  I thus have good info on good paths to those people who
>have sent me mail lately.  This is at worst the same data as is used
>by the mailers; it is usually better.

You must be on a well connected site.  hmmm ... that's an interesting
approach, just don't use Path: information from news headers.  Too bad
I don't have the time to try implementing such a thing.

Have you thought about packaging up an rmail (or description of how to
muck up an rmail) which records this information into a database,
and distributing via a sources group?
-- 
<---- David Herron,  Local E-Mail Hack,  david@ms.uky.edu, david@ms.uky.csnet
<----                    {rutgers,uunet,cbosgd}!ukma!david, david@UKMA.BITNET
<---- I thought that time was this neat invention that kept everything
<---- from happening at once.  Why doesn't this work in practice?