Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!osu-cis!att-cb!cblpf!tgt
From: tgt@cblpf.ATT.COM (Tim Thompson)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.headers
Subject: Re: ! and @ -- which RFC ?
Message-ID: <1121@cblpf.ATT.COM>
Date: 6 Apr 88 02:55:40 GMT
References: <12798@brl-adm.ARPA> <4557@chinet.UUCP> <2052@epimass.EPI.COM>
Reply-To: tgt@cblpf.ATT.COM (45264-Tim Thompson)
Distribution: na
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories - Columbus, Ohio
Lines: 53

In article <2052@epimass.EPI.COM> jbuck@epimass.EPI.COM (Joe Buck) writes:
>

>In article <4557@chinet.UUCP> les@chinet.UUCP (Leslie Mikesell) writes:
>>What if you have a bunch of uucp machines that only know ! addresses
>>and you don't want to store routing info on all of them anyway.  One
>>machine can talk to the rest of the world, and some of the others are
>>two (local) hops away.

For one thing, why would your have a bunch of uucp machines that only know
! addresses (which are probably actually routes, NOT addresses)? With
the free smail package, and the ease with which it can be installed, there
just doesn't seem to be a reason why a uucp machine can not understand
the "@" syntax.


>
>For the most part, UUCP machines that do routing run the smail
>program and handle the domain!user convention (all the official
>UUCP-Internet gateways do).  So yes, you can mail to an ARPA site
>using all-bang paths.  Mail to me using ...!uunet!epimass.epi.com!jbuck,
>for example.  This type of address is completely unambiguous (unless
>it goes through a rerouting mailer but that's another war); the details
>are discussed in the RFC by Mark Horton (forget the number).

One clarification:

   ...!uunet!epimass.epi.com!jbuck is NOT an address, it is a route. Using
this type of syntax depends on where you are sending the mail from. For one
person, the route might be ihnp4!rutgers!uunet!epimass.epi.com!jbuck, and
for someone else, it might be ucbvax!harvard!uunet!epimess.epi.com!jbuck.
It's not an address if it depends on where the mail is being sent from.


   An address would be:

	jbuck@epimass.epi.com
		or
	epimass.epi.com!jbuck

provided your are running smart mailer. This address will get mail to Joe
no matter where it is being sent from, including UUCP machines running 
smart mailers, and the DDN.

Mark Horton gave a good example somewhere, which I forget, that gives a good
example of the difference between a route and an address. If you think of
an address in the sense of a postal address, it makes sense: No matter where
you mail a letter from, the address for the recipient always stays the same,
regardless of if you're in New York, California, or even (God forbid!)
Columbus, Ohio.

					Tim Thompson
					tgt@cblpf.att.com