[net.mail] Recent changes in uucp mail routing addresses to ARPA gateways

hokey@plus5.UUCP (Hokey) (03/10/85)

If a site is translating:
	a!b!c%d.e@f.g
to
	a!b!f.g!c@d.e
they are mangling the *route* (it isn't just an *address*).

In any event, the Internet gateway should bang-format all mail coming off
the Internet which is being routed through uucp-land.  This shouldn't be
that hard to do; all our mail from the Internet manages to be properly
formatted in the proposed class 3 format.  I don't know if this formatting
is being done by the gateway, or by the site which relays mail to us from
the gateway.

If downstream sites can't handle the class 3 syntax, the gateway should
prepend its name to the path list.  For example, if Berkeley passes mail
from user@site.arpa to "neighbor", one of two formats should be used when
passing the mail to "neighbor":

   From user  remote from site.arpa		if "neighbor" is smart, or
   From site.arpa!user  remote from ucbvax	otherwise.

In any event, the From: line should *not* mention ucbvax.

One way to handle this is to separate your UUCP neighbors into two lists.
One list contains "smart" neighbors, the other list for sites which can't
understand the site.arpa!user syntax.  The decision to prepend your site
name can then be made based on which list contains the neighbor.

While I'm spouting, please remember that it is *wrong* to blindly tack
your sitename on the front of the Sender list in sendmail.cf.  Your
sitename should only be added to *unqualified* names.  Please don't
forget to qualify names in both the Sender and Recipient fields, in
*all* mailers.  Also, it is better to avoid @ addresses in favor of !
*within the UUCP arena*.  This is true because replys to @ addresses
produce ambiguous routes (from "dumb" mailers).

To answer jer@peora, your site in Florida would be in a different domain
from your home office (in New Jersey) and your main mail-delivery site in
Santa Clara.  Sales offices would also reside in different geographic
domains.  This in no way impinges on how you choose to route mail from
within PE.  It does, however, imply that mail "outside" would not tend
to travel to the nearest PE site, but through other sites.  If there were
a PE subdomain, however, it would tend to give PE the responsibility for
maintaining its map info, as well as tend to make PE sites bear the costs
for mail to (and, perhaps from) PE sites.

>Does the geographic subdomain in any way indicate routing, or is it simply
>for naming convenience?

Personally speaking, I believe the geographic domain scheme is *less*
convenient than giving (commercial) sites their own subdomain.
-- 
Hokey           ..ihnp4!plus5!hokey
		  314-725-9492

mark@cbosgd.UUCP (Mark Horton) (03/10/85)

In article <635@plus5.UUCP> hokey@plus5.UUCP (Hokey) writes:
>To answer jer@peora, your site in Florida would be in a different domain
>from your home office (in New Jersey) and your main mail-delivery site in
>Santa Clara.  Sales offices would also reside in different geographic
>domains.  This in no way impinges on how you choose to route mail from
>within PE.  It does, however, imply that mail "outside" would not tend
>to travel to the nearest PE site, but through other sites.  If there were
>a PE subdomain, however, it would tend to give PE the responsibility for
>maintaining its map info, as well as tend to make PE sites bear the costs
>for mail to (and, perhaps from) PE sites.

Not necessarily true.  While the current plan is to divide UUCP into
subdomains that are mostly geographically based, there are two other
proposals being considered.  One would abolish the .UUCP domain and
instead have UUCP sites join the EDU, COR, PUB, and GOV domains.  The
other would keep the UUCP domain but subdivide according to the same
rules that the COR et all domains subdivide, possibly by technical
specialty.  There are no plans to allow every startup company to have
their own 2nd level domain, because that would create an unmanageably
large number of 2nd level domains.

	Mark Horton