Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!ubvax!vsi1!lmb
From: lmb@vsi1.UUCP (Larry Blair)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: an example of why I don't believe in automatic routing
Message-ID: <881@vsi1.UUCP>
Date: 3 Aug 88 17:34:45 GMT
References: <676@bacchus.DEC.COM>
Reply-To: lmb@vsi1.UUCP (Larry Blair)
Organization: VICOM Systems Inc., San Jose, CA
Lines: 42

In article <676@bacchus.DEC.COM> reid@decwrl.UUCP (Brian Reid) writes:
=
=This evening, after weeks of behaving itself, decwrl's pathalias database
=told me that the best route to mcvax from here is 
=
=sun!daver!altnet!altmail!altger!unido!mcvax!%s

Since we talk to sun, daver, and altnet, let's run "address xxx@mcvax":

xxx@mcvax: altnet!uunet!mcvax!xxx

This is why I always hand run pathalias.  A few days usually don't matter
and I can be sure that my database is complete.

Another thought occurs to me:  Do you have "-d uunet" in your pathalias
command?

=This is completely preposterous. If my MTA started routing mail along paths
=like this I would newfs it and start using the telephone. I'm sure that if I
=take the trouble to go look (I probably won't) I'll find that according to
=the current pathalias data this really *is* the best path from decwrl to
=mcvax. It's just that pathalias and I have different ideas of what
=constitutes "best". Remember, folks, pathalias believes exactly what you tell
=it.
=
=Until problems like this stop happening, MTA's should not do routing.

There is nothing wrong with letting the MTA route for you if the first hop
is a non-connect.  Your mail WILL get to mcvax, unless (pet peeve!) it goes
through some Bozo site, like rutgers, that thinks that the maps are gospel
and refuses to let you do your own routing.  As long as the MTA allows
specific routing, it is far better to concentrate route generation in the
one facility.

Btw, our bounce rate for "reasonable" paths has gone to zero since I added
"-d rutgers" to our pathalias run.
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