Path: utzoo!dciem!dretor!tim
From: tim@dretor.dciem.dnd.ca (Tim Pointing)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: Connection timed out
Message-ID: <1360@dretor.dciem.dnd.ca>
Date: 11 Jan 89 17:09:23 GMT
Article-I.D.: dretor.1360
References: <2888@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Reply-To: tim@dretor.dciem.dnd.ca (Tim Pointing)
Organization: Defence and Civil Institute of Environmantal Medicine
Lines: 44

In article <2888@cbnews.ATT.COM> military@cbnews.ATT.COM (William B. Thacker) writes:
> 
> I'm having a problem with one of the addresses on a mailing list
> I maintain.  I keep getting nuucp hate-mail like the following:
>    
> ...
>    Your mail to orion.mc.duke.edu!bet is not yet delivered.
>    Delivery attempts will continue.
>    ---------- diagnosis ----------
>    orion.mc.duke.edu [128.109.165.2]: Connection timed out	(9 attempts)
>    ---------- unsent mail ----------
> ...
> Now, I'm an unqualified novice, but I read this to mean that when
> uucp calls up orion.mc.duke.edu, some problem occurs...

I think that you'll find that the attempt to forward the mail is actually
done over the Internet (not UUCP) as evidenced by the Internet address
in the diagnosis (i.e. [128.109.165.2]). What is happening is that when
the system tries for send the mail to Duke, there is a long enough delay
in establishing the connection over the Internet that the system trying
to connect gives up before a reply comes from the other end. Some systems,
such as ours, require several gateways to actually get to most other hosts
on the Internet.)

> Am I then correct in my guess there's nothing I can do about it but
> remove the name from the mailing list ?  

Often, the most important factor causing the "Connection timed out" message
is the number of gateways which your Internet packets have to go through
to get to the other system. One way of reducing this is to use an
intermediate host to pass the mail on the the desired host. How do you
find such a host? In the case of Duke, I would choose another host at Duke
but not so deeply domain-ized. (I know that, strictly speaking,
domain != routing, but, in practice, this is usually the way packets go)
For the above host, I might choose "cs.duke.edu" [128.109.140.1]. Thus,
the new address would be "cs.duke.edu!orion.mc.duke.edu!bet".
Give it a try and see if it works any better.

Good Luck!
-- 
	Tim Pointing, DCIEM
	{decvax|ihnp4|watmath}!utzoo!dciem!ben!tim
        uunet!mnetor!dciem!ben!tim or nrcaer!dciem!ben!tim
	tim%ben@zorac.dciem.dnd.ca or tim@ben.dciem.dnd.ca