Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mit-eddie!ll-xn!adelie!minya!jc
From: jc@minya.UUCP (John Chambers)
Newsgroups: news.newsites
Subject: Re: Map addition for u.usa.ny.1, a new site: "entire".
Message-ID: <444@minya.UUCP>
Date: 1 Jan 88 21:51:36 GMT
References: <3121@entire.xerox.com> <1777@epimass.EPI.COM> <2613@killer.UUCP> <3094@phri.UUCP>
Organization: home
Lines: 32
Keywords: new site, map approval: working
Summary: It's been done

> 	In fact, I think given the lack of security in UUCP, it would be
> possible (actually, pretty trivial) for several physically distant PC's to
> masquerade as a single UUCP site (which could be in the map); each would
> call the common feed periodically and pick up everthing addressed to the
> pseudo-site.  It would keep what was really meant for it and forward the
> rest to the other sites.  

This isn't a new idea; it's been done by several organizations that have
installations at widely-separated sites.

>	...  There might be some subtle problems with simultaneous
> conversations to different PC's which are part of the same site, but I
> think the standard built-in UUCP locking mechanism would deal with this.
> UUCP meets distributed computing!

The only problem is that uucp really doesn't allow two adjacent sites to
have the same name, or for one site to have two neighbors with the same
name.  However, at least on Sys/V machines, there is a simple solution.
These come with at least two names (see /usr/include/sys/utsname.h) that
are called the 'sysname' and 'nodename'.  The idea was that they were for
use on different (local/global?) networks.  UUCP uses the nodename.  If
two machines have different sysnames and the same nodename, they can't
talk UUCP, but they can use any mailer or ftp that uses the sysname.
You can easily replace /bin/rmail on both systems with a forwarder of
your choice that figures out where the recipient really lives.

Lately I've been working on some BSD systems; I've yet to find anything
comparable there, though I'd like to get some flames about how blind
I've been (:-).

-- 
John Chambers <{adelie,ima,maynard,mit-eddie}!minya!{jc,root}> (617/484-6393)