Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!ucsd!brian
From: brian@ucsd.EDU (Brian Kantor)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: Connecting to HP
Message-ID: <1735@ucsd.EDU>
Date: 24 May 89 20:34:18 GMT
References: <3241@lindy.Stanford.EDU>
Reply-To: brian@ucsd.edu (Brian Kantor)
Organization: The Avant-Garde of the Now, Ltd.
Lines: 35

I just spent some time chasing a similar problem with mail to HP going

It seems that internet mail going to hpiosa.hp.com is getting rejected
as being for a non-existent host.

The story is this:  Our root nameserver (the NIC) tells me that there
are three nameservers for HP.COM
	1. sde.hp.com
	2. nnsc.nsf.net
	3. hplabs.hp.com

When querying these, sde.hp.com doesn't respond - perhaps it's broken.

nnsc.nsf.net responds, and its authority records lists sd.hp.com, so I'm
going to assume that it's done a zone transfer or something to serve as
a secondary server.  It doesn't know anything about 'hpiosa'.

hplabs.hp.com responds too.  The serial number of the authority records
from hplabs is MUCH higher than the one I got from nnsc, and the host
I'm looking for IS listed with hplabs.

The short-term workaround is for my poor suffering luser to address his
mail to "@hplabs.hp.com:user@hpiosa.hp.com" so that the host resolution
will be done on hplabs, which presumably knows about the contents of its
nameserver.

The long-term solution is probably for the secondary server at nnsc
to ALSO check with hplabs.  It might also be a worthwhile thing to
set the timeout just a bit shorter so that it checks once a day or
so.

	Brian Kantor	UCSD Office of Academic Computing
			Academic Network Operations Group  
			UCSD C-010, La Jolla, CA 92093 USA
			brian@ucsd.edu ucsd!brian BRIAN@UCSD