Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bbn!bbn.com!rsalz
From: rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: Any auto-adaptive pathalias software out there?
Message-ID: <674@fig.bbn.com>
Date: 27 Apr 88 23:45:30 GMT
References: <2572@c3engr.UUCP> <1618@bigtex.uucp> <4499@hoptoad.uucp>
Organization: BBN Laboratories Inc., Cambridge MA
Lines: 29

John Gilmore says he finds the set of reliability guidelines:
 	personal knowledge			(most reliable)
 	signature lines 
 	domain From: addresses in mail headers
 	news paths
 	From_ lines in mail headers
 	advertised mail paths in map entries
 	domain From: addresses in news headers
 	uucp From: addresses in mail headers
 	mixed From: addresses in mail headers	(least reliable)

I don't wanna start any "is/isn't" wars, but just to throw in a different
opinion.  When I was at Mirror (started out small, became a fairly goodsized
UUCP-only site), I found the best order to be
	personal knowledge
	domain From: lines
	comp.mail.maps data
signature lines were actually fairly low on my list; people just didn't
update them in the face of big changes.  Nowadays at BBN and UUNET I
only use personal knowledge to force a faster route to an MX-based
domain (e.g., foo.com takes longer because they only call their server
daily).

I still to get the highest ratio of quality-of-service to effort you
should run uuhosts, pathalias, and smail if you're UUCP-only, or
an MX-cognizant sendmail if you're not.
	/rich $alz
-- 
Please send comp.sources.unix-related mail to rsalz@uunet.uu.net.