Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!decwrl!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!steinmetz!ge-dab!ge-rtp!edison!rja
From: rja@edison.GE.COM (rja)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: Grumpy != grumpy
Summary: this is why we have domain names
Message-ID: <1689@edison.GE.COM>
Date: 26 Oct 88 13:16:05 GMT
References: <398@ditka.UUCP> <42300005@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu>
Organization: GE-Fanuc North America
Lines: 36

In article <42300005@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu>, kai@uicsrd.csrd.uiuc.edu writes:
> Are we supposed to register EVERY site on EVERY local network with a name
> unique to the world, just so that some rude people will be happy?  How long
> before we run out of unique names?

The correct thing to do is to obtain a REAL domain name ( .UUCP is not a
real domain ) from the good folks at nic-sri.arpa.  Then if you always use
your fully-qualified domain names including subdomain names for each machine
you might have, no name conflicts can arise.  Small sites can join the 
.US domain wihtout dealing with the NIC directly and should contact 
westine@isi.edu for more info.

> I'd rather just register the gateway between our local network and the rest
> of the world, and let people route through it.

The key thing is that you should use your valid domain name for each system.
A gateway into your domain is common and fairly easy to do.  Using the
 .UUCP kludge just leads to more problems.  

> If someone far far away tries to route mail through our registered gateway to
> a non-registered host on our local network, a re-routing host might
> incorrectly recognize that local name as someone else's registered host, and
> send the mail to the wrong place.  Is that my fault for making sure every
> hostname we use is unique?

If you use real domain names that are fully qualified this cannot happen.

> A better solution would be to avoid and/or eliminate those obnoxious
> re-routing programs.  Maybe this has been proposed before, but how about a
> new header, "NOreroute:".

The real solution is for all of the sites to get real domain names.  The
 .US domain removes any former objections based on complexity.  

I'm glad that people are beginning to think in terms of domainising their
site names even in the uucp-only world.  I hope everyone gets switched over.