Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!cmcl2!rutgers!pleasant From: pleasant@rutgers.rutgers.edu (Mel Pleasant) Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: Duplicate site names Message-ID: <7036@rutgers.rutgers.edu> Date: 29 Dec 87 19:57:10 GMT References: <872@uop.edu> <3569@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> Organization: Rutgers Univ., New Brunswick, N.J. Lines: 67 To: karl@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu In article <3569@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> karl@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) writes: > Our Tut always refers to himself by full domain name in all mail-related > things, and the only other place where his name is mentioned is in outbound > Path: lines in news headers, where he shows up as a neighbor of osu-cis and > bgsuvax, thus assuring his uniqueness within the frame of reference. Why use a fully qualified name (domainized) in mail and not in news?!? There are lots of sites which use the Path: header to generate return addresses when replying to news articles. This happens when a news administrator chooses not to define INTERNET in his defs.h file - a valid thing to do when his system does not grok internet addressing! So, you cannot so easily divorce your news system from your mail system by attempting to claim that news is news and mail is mail where neither the two shall meet. At Rutgers, we've developed the following solution to the Path: header problem. If you're up on RFC976, you'll note that this solution fits quite well. All internal internet sites use fully qualified hostnames in both mail and news. Only our networks gateway system presents itself to the world in different ways. For these purposes I'll only speak of two. Internet neighbors see our gateway system as rutgers.edu. To uucp neighbors we appear as just plain rutgers. Since all outbound news passes through rutgers, the Path: header, which should always appear in bangist form, winds up looking like: Path: rutgers!internal-host.rutgers.edu!user This solution works well if you have a gateway system that all outbound news actually passes through. If you do not have such a gateway system, the same effect can be had by a hack. I state this here and now so flames and groans can be directed towards /dev/null. The hack involves altering the GENERICPATH definition in defs.h. Its definition depends heavily on your connections, particularly your news connections to the outside world e.g. those systems not in your domain. Essentially you want to build a Path: header that looks like: Path: a-unique-uucp-name!myname.with.my.domain!user Remember, the local news system is generating this Path: header so, in essence, you're faking the "a-unique-uucp-name" (AUUN) portion. The AUUN must name a system that a) all of the local system's news neighbors can reach via uucp and b) has a mailer that groks internet addresses according to RFCs 822 and 976. If you can identify such a system that also happens not to run the netnews software then you're in really great shape. Not running the netnews software is not a requirement but is highly recommended. Once you've identified an AUUN system, you change GENERICPATH to "a-unique-uucp-name!myname.with.my.domain". If you want to be fancy about the definition or if your attempting to build executables that can run on more than one system, you can define GENERICPATH as "a-unique-uucp-name!%s%s". The netnews software will replace the first %s with the local nodename and the 2nd %s with the domainas defined by MYDOMAIN. Note that if you define GHNAME and the name returned contains a domain, you should undef MYDOMAIN. Also take note: it is the name that appears in the Path: header that the news system uses to determine whether a site has received a particular article or not. So, if your site's name is going to appear as "myname.with.my.domain" in the Path: header, then it must also appear this way as the first token of the entry in the news sys file that represents your system. Using the same reasoning, the AUUN system, if it runs netnews, must receive the article before your local system does!! This disqualifies all outbound news neighbors from acting as your AUUN. So like I said, this is a real hack. But, it will allow you to use fully qualified names everywhere in mail and news. Good luck.... -- Mel Pleasant {backbone}!rutgers!pleasant pleasant@rutgers.edu mpleasant@zodiac.bitnet