Path: utzoo!utgpu!attcan!uunet!husc6!rutgers!bellcore!tness7!texbell!ssbn!bill From: bill@ssbn.WLK.COM (Bill Kennedy) Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp Subject: Re: an example of why I don't believe in automatic routing Keywords: not rutgers fault Message-ID: <213@ssbn.WLK.COM> Date: 5 Aug 88 14:05:54 GMT References: <676@bacchus.DEC.COM> <881@vsi1.UUCP> <340@ateng.UUCP> Reply-To: bill@ssbn.UUCP (Bill Kennedy) Distribution: na Organization: W.L. Kennedy Jr. and Associates, Pipe Creek, TX Lines: 76 In article <340@ateng.UUCP> chip@ateng.UUCP (Chip Salzenberg) writes: >According to lmb@vsi1.UUCP (Larry Blair): >>Btw, our bounce rate for "reasonable" paths has gone to zero since I added >>"-d rutgers" to our pathalias run. > >Amen! Both rutgers and harvard are marked as "dead" in my local adjustments >file, which is automatically included by my pathalias wrapper script. I don't often disagree with Chip but he's solved the problem with his local adjustments, as he reports. >I personally think that rutgers should be dropped from the net unless the >arrogant "you can't possibly know more about routing than me" attitude >is replaced by something more cooperative. Unfortunately, too many sites >depend on rutgers for this to happen. Here I whole heartedly disagree. Any site is, of course, free to route around rutgers and I used to contribute a few db/btu's to this topic, but "removing" rutgers isn't the answer at all. 1) By _definition_ rutgers is the official map custodian 2) Any site is free to fold, spindle, or mutilate mail or news 3) Rutgers is trying to improve the situation and improvement attempts are easy to mistake for malice. The best way to encourage sites to keep their maps up to date is to have other sites use them. That's precisely what rutgers does. When I see mail jostled all over the country because of a screw up in ssbn's map, a new map is sent in promptly. Such wierdness is normally a result of rutgers' literal interpretation of ssbn's map, ssbn is mistaken, rutgers is not. If you want to suggest that the maps are wrong, you are mistaken. The map that's posted is, by definition, the way that site wants to look to the rest of the net. That's why many sites have their posted map and another that they use for themselves to generate their own paths. >If you agree, send mail to Mel Pleasant and complain. >If Mel gets enough flames, he just might reconsider. >-- >Chip Salzenberg or >A T Engineering My employer may or may not agree with me. > You make me wanna break the laws of time and space > You make me wanna eat pork That's doubtful too Chip, he's got some pretty flame retardant garb and I'm pretty sure that flames on this topic will get to /dev/null more directly than they got to rutgers :-) If their behaviour is objectionable you can do as you have done, route around them. I think that the ultimate solution is for the posted maps to reflect how each site really wants mail to move. If that was the case we would not be having this discussion. Let me briefly describe a scenario in support of this. There are ssbn neighbors who log in from time to time, directly, to collect some bulky item that shouldn't be mailed. They appear in ssbn's map in order to report that such a connection exists, not to advertise it as a good path. It has a very high cost on it to discourage pathalias but it exists in case a router can't find any better path to get it there. In those few cases ssbn will gladly forward the mail but it is not the "preferred" route. If mail for that site came from rutgers (ssbn is a rutgers neighbor) I am *certain* that there was no better way, so off it goes. When we see some beax eaux routing done by rutgers you can be sure that it's the result of some beaux eaux map, not malicious intent by rutgers. Roasting Mel won't cut it, we have to use peer pressure to make people get it right before they send it in. Gosh! Look at the agony AT&T is in with their new (monster?) approach. They can't get their own SA's to get in step and it's causing near cardiac size problems within att. Finally (mercifully), when I don't know what else to do with a piece of mail I toss it at rutgers. If it bounces from them I can be sure that it just can't be delivered within the net as posted. I think that's a good use of rutgers even if you don't like what they do as a matter of routine. -- Bill Kennedy usenet {killer,att,rutgers,sun!daver,uunet!bigtex}!ssbn!bill internet bill@ssbn.WLK.COM