Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cwjcc!gatech!ncar!boulder!sunybcs!bingvaxu!leah!itsgw!steinmetz!uunet!jetson!john
From: john@jetson.UPMA.MD.US (John Owens)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: .US domain map entries incorrect
Keywords: .US domain, map
Message-ID: <154@jetson.UPMA.MD.US>
Date: 13 Oct 88 03:28:42 GMT
References: <537@comdesign.CDI.COM> <10357@s.ms.uky.edu>
Organization: SMART HOUSE Limited Partnership
Lines: 36

In article <10357@s.ms.uky.edu>, david@ms.uky.edu (David Herron -- One of the vertebrae) asks:
> Why *wouldn't* you want such a thing?
[as "fernwood .fernwood.mpk.ca.us" in your map entry]

Then provides the seed of the answer:
> declaring the gateway *does* handle the routing for fernwood...us.
> In *addition* it gives you the flexibility of having other
> hosts 'under' the fernwood name.

Yes, it does, but by the definition of the .US domain, there can be no
names under the fernwood.mpk.ca.us domain.  anything.fernwood.mpk.ca.us
(or anything.jetson.upma.md.us) is illegal.  You can argue whether
that should or shouldn't be true, but it simply is.  (The idea is that
anyone who needs more than one name should get a name in .COM, .EDU,
.ORG, etc., perhaps through uunet or the UUCP Project.)

> If there is to be a difference between domains and host names, why
> isn't the difference made explicit in the way they are represented?  I
> put forward that since the representation is the same in either case,
> then neither human nor software is able to tell a difference.  If there
> is no difference, then they are the same thing.

Well, from what I hear, there will be a difference in the way smail
3.X handles
fernwood .fernwood.mpk.ca.us
and
fernwood = fernwood.mpk.ca.us

smail 2.x will still gateway mail to xyz.fernwood.mpk.ca.us to
fernwood given the second form; smail 3.X will (correctly) reject this
gateway (and eventually hit a general .US gateway which will bounce
the message since no MX exists for *.fernwood.mpk.ca.us).

-- 
John Owens		john@jetson.UPMA.MD.US		uunet!jetson!john
+1 301 249 6000		john%jetson.uucp@uunet.uu.net