Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU!af%sei.ucl.ac.be
From: af%sei.ucl.ac.be@CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU ("Alain FONTAINE ", Postmaster - NAD)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.tcp-ip
Subject: Re: Seeking advice on establishing a LARGE centralized mail system
Message-ID: <890428.154928.+0200.af@sei.ucl.ac.be>
Date: 28 Apr 89 13:49:28 GMT
References: <pritch@TUT.CIS.OHIO-STATE.EDU>
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
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For what it is worth (two belgian cents = approx 0.0005 dollar..) :

We have established an unified address  scheme here. But we did not find
any way to  allow external correspondants to send mail  to an individual
when  only  knowing   his  name,  *and*  avoid   clashes...  This  seems
theoretically impossible. The sender must *know* and *specify* some more
information to  garantee uniqueness.  So the addresses  used are  of the
form   :  personal-identifier@unit.ucl.ac.be,   where   'unit'  is   the
standardized three or four letter sigle  of the laboratory or service in
which  the person  can  be found.  Of  course, it  is  difficult for  an
external correspondant trying to contact  somebody for the first time to
guess the 'unit' to  be used. On the other hand, clashes  are a very low
probability event, since units never count more than 50 persons.

Implementation : the DNS would be  a marvelous tool for this, since each
unit  could have  and manage  its  own name  server. Halas,  (one of  my
favorite gripes), the arbitrary division  of mail addresses into a local
and  a domain  part makes  it  impossible to  use  the DNS  down to  the
individual  level. So  the  current situation  is  that one  centralized
machine contains a centralized database of mail routing information, and
nearly all domain-addressed mail goes physically (uh, should we say that
about zeroes-and-ones on wires and disks and ...) through that machine.

Alain FONTAINE                       +--------------------------------+
Universite Catholique de Louvain     | If your mail software barks at |
Service d'Etudes Informatiques       | my address, you may try :      |
Batiment Pythagore                   |                                |
Place des Sciences, 4                |     FNTA80@BUCLLN11.BITNET     |
B-1348 Louvain-la-Neuve, BELGIUM     +--------------------------------+
phone +32 (10) 47-2625