Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!wuarchive!rex!uflorida!novavax!twwells!bill
From: bill@twwells.com (T. William Wells)
Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions
Subject: Re: UUCP Addresses
Message-ID: <1990Feb5.095936.19612@twwells.com>
Date: 5 Feb 90 09:59:36 GMT
References: <7419@tank.uchicago.edu> <V^3|J|@rpi.edu> <1990Feb4.005552.11753@twwells.com>
Organization: None, Ft. Lauderdale, FL
Lines: 56

I wrote:

: More accurately, there is a strong push towards domain names of
: some kind. The geographically specified names are just one kind
: of name that is available. I am, for example, a .com site, even
: though I am uucp only. What kind of name you choose depends on
: your preferences.

and received e-mail asking how a uucp only site could use a .com
name.

I'm writing the following from the standpoint of a site in the
USA; how things work in the rest of the world, I don't know.

There are two ways to legitimately use a domain name.

The obvious one is to become an Internet site. This is expensive.

Alternately, you can arrange for some Internet site to forward
your mail for you. Not being an Internet guru, I don't know the
mechanics, but the essential part is that someone has to provide
an "MX record" to the Internet which, presumably, tells the
Internet mail delivery software how to get the mail to you.

I, for example, have an MX with uunet; when someone tries to send
me mail, uunet responds with the appropriate information for
delivering it. In this case, my mail goes to uunet which then
routes it to me.

To use a domain name when you are not on the Internet, you have to
do two things: find someone willing to provide an MX record and
register with the Internet.

The easiest way to get an MX record is to become a uunet
subscriber. Alternately, you can try to hunt up an Internet site
that is willing to do it. I'd guess that posting to, say,
comp.mail.misc or possibly news.sysadmin might scare up someone.

I don't know the details of registering with the Internet; I had
it easy, being a uunet subscriber. All I did was ask them how to
register and they sent me a simple form to fill out.

Your best bet, if you want to get a domain name, is to send e-mail
to domain-request@uunet.uu.net (uunet!domain-request in uucp-land)
and ask them what to do next. I got this information from
comp.mail.maps, the README file, and so it should be OK to do
this even if you are not a uunet subscriber.

Last I checked, getting one of the geographically based names
involved a different registration process than getting .com-like
names, and one did not go through uunet to do it. I don't know if
that is still true.

---
Bill                    { uunet | novavax | ankh } !twwells!bill
bill@twwells.com