Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!apple!coherent!dplatt
From: dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt)
Newsgroups: news.config
Subject: Unregistered-but-referenced sites (was Re: deleted UUCP sites)
Message-ID: <43496@improper.coherent.com>
Date: 3 Jan 90 07:32:08 GMT
References: <4195@convex.UUCP> <30273@mcdchg.chg.mcd.mot.com>
Reply-To: dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt)
Distribution: news
Organization: Coherent Thought Inc., Palo Alto CA
Lines: 79

In article <30273@mcdchg.chg.mcd.mot.com> heiby@chg.mcd.mot.com (Ron Heiby) writes:
> When I received similar email, I sent the following message.  Am I way
> off base here?  Thanks.
> -----
> Excuse me, but just because a site does not choose to continue to maintain
> a map entry is no reason to delete it from *my* map entry.  My site still
> talks with ilmss.  I still forward news and mail to and from them.  Removing
> them from the maps is not the right thing to do.  Delete *their* entry, sure!
> But, don't pull them out of everyone else's.  You don't have a map entry
> for "falkor", do you?  Yet, it's a real machine that I talk with almost
> every day.  Falkor just chooses not to have a map entry.  I keep my map
> entry pretty current.  If you think a change (other than a simple typo)
> needs to be made, you should consult me first.  If I've committed a typo,
> I'd like to at least be informed.  Thanks.  Ron.

Ron... I wouldn't say you are "off base"... but I do disagree with you.

If your neighbors, such as "ilmss" and "falkor", choose not to bother
maintaining map entries, that's their right.  And, you have a perfect
right to maintain connections to them... and to have them listed in a
path-file that's fed into pathalias at _your_ site.

However, the pathalias map file that your site broadcasts to the world
should _not_ list these nodes.

The reason is this:  if ilmss and falkor aren't maintaining entries in
the global map files, then (according to the rules of the game) their
node-names are up for grabs.  If they aren't registered, they don't have
"dibs" on the names that they are using.  Reserving names, and avoiding
namespace conflicts, is one of the two primary purposes of the map files
(listing connectivity data is the other, of course).  As a USENET deity
has commented, "The good names are all taken."
				    
So... consider what happens if some new site comes on line, and chooses
a name for itself... say, "ilmss".  That name isn't reserved, it's up
for grabs, and they take it.  They publish a map-file, reserving this
name for themselves.

All of a sudden, there are two "ilmss" sites on the net... the official
one, and your neighbor who chose not to bother keeping dibs on the name.
Pathalias can't tell the difference between them.

All hell breaks lose, because _your_ site lists a connection to
"ilmss".  Mail destined for the "official" ilmss will tend to end up
being routed to your neighbor, via you.  The closer you are to a
high-connectivity site (nee "backbone"), the more likely this is to
occur.  If the new "ilmss" has set up connections to a couple of
popular sites, thousands of systems across the net may try to use it as
a relay... and that mail will end up roaring through your system, passed
to your neighbor, and rudely bounced back through you.

Everybody loses... you, your neighbor, the folks at the officially-
registered "ilmss", and the folks trying to reach "ilmss".  It's a bad
scene.  It's possible for large amounts of mail to end up being routed
to the wrong continent, in severe cases of double-name-binding.

So... it's absolutely your right to keep "ilmss" listed in the
map file that you maintain locally.  It's not your right, I feel, to
insist that your private connection to an unregistered host be
propagated into the pathalias data all across the network.  To do so is
to demand that the "ilmss" name be reserved for use by a site that
isn't willing to play by the rules.

There are polite and effective ways to support sites which choose not to
post individual map entries.  Any neighbor who has a registered
domain-name can act as a forwarder... in effect, "hiding" the
unregistered site as a subdomain of the registered name.  This way, the
unregistered site's machine-name doesn't "pollute" the global namespace
for the .uucp subdomain, and doesn't confuse pathalias.

So... to sum it up, I think that your area map-coordinator did an
appropriate thing by removing the names of unregistered sites from the
copy of your map entry that was added to your area's distributed map-file.

-- 
Dave Platt                                             VOICE: (415) 493-8805
  UUCP: ...!{ames,apple,uunet}!coherent!dplatt   DOMAIN: dplatt@coherent.com
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  USNAIL: Coherent Thought Inc.  3350 West Bayshore #205  Palo Alto CA 94303