Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cs.utexas.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!b-tech!zeeff
From: zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us (Jon Zeeff)
Newsgroups: news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: Stuck with .UUCP forever?
Message-ID: <9439@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us>
Date: 12 Jun 89 14:22:31 GMT
References: <9426@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us> <300@capmkt.COM> <9436@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us> <233@ncis.tis.llnl.gov>
Reply-To: zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us (Jon Zeeff)
Organization: Branch Technology Ann Arbor, MI
Lines: 61

In article <233@ncis.tis.llnl.gov> mcb@ncis.tis.llnl.gov (Michael C. Berch) writes:
>In <9436@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us> zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us (Jon Zeeff)writes:
>> In article <300@capmkt.COM> brent@capmkt.UUCP (Brent Chapman) writes:
>> >When, oh, when will people learn that just because a site has a "domain
>> >style" name, that does _not_ mean it's on the InterNet.  My site, for
>> 
>> As you should have been able to guess from "b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us", 
>> I'm quite aware of this.  You could either check each site to make 
>> sure it handles mail directly or simply allow the non internet site to 
>> do the forwarding.  
>> 
>> >definitely _not_ an InterNet site; we're strictly UUCP-only, and thus
>> >totally unable to perform the type of gatewaying you propose. 
>> 
>> Why is a uucp site unable to do mail forwarding?  Most do.
>
>This totally misses the point of the previous discussion. 
> "Forwarding", 
>in this contest, MEANS "Internet forwarding". A UUCP-only site, by definition, 
>is not on the Internet, and, ipso facto, is unable to do Internet forwarding.

No, I meant forwarding as in any kind of forwarding that gets the mail 
there.  Uucp only sites with domain names already have an internet 
forwarder that will get mail to them.  These uucp sites can generally 
do additional forwarding, providing indirect "internet forwarding".  I 
should have said "additional forwarding" instead of just "forwarding" 
to make this clear.  

>In order to do Internet forwarding you have to be ON the Internet, so 
>that Internet hosts using the Domain Name System that receive MX 
>records pointing at your host can contact you to send mail that is to 
>be forwarded to the UUCP universe.  It does not mean just "passing mail on".

See above.

Assume uucp only site foo.com has an internet forwarder bar.edu and 
talks to another uucp site xxx.  It may be perfectly reasonable for 
mail to travel bar.edu->foo.com->xxx.  Unfortunately, the software 
most internet sites are using makes this impossible if xxx wants to 
use a domain name such as xxx.com and isn't a special case for 
bar.edu.  xxx.uucp often works, perpetuating it's use.

If you don't know someone at an internet site and can't afford a uunet 
connection, it is often difficult for a uucp site to use the DNS 
(which is why we may have .uucp forever).  Solutions to this problem 
should be explored.  

Parts of a possible solution include 1) internet sites attempting to 
use the pathalias data when they find that mx records for some site 
point to themselves and 2) a way for such internet sites to register the 
fact that they are willing to provide uucp forwarding.  

I should probably be much verbose and fully explain the details to 
prevent these "you don't understand" postings.  I'm off to usenix - 
send me email if you want to discuss this further.  

-- 
  Jon Zeeff			zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us
  Ann Arbor, MI			sharkey!b-tech!zeeff