brian@sdccsu3.UUCP (08/13/84)
We are in the process of rebuilding our entire set of mailer rules, and some questions of format for addresses have come up. We have the problem of spanning more than one network, each with its own attendent syntax, so we chose to use RFC822 internally and transform it as needed for the outside world, as appropriate to each network. As I understand it, RFC822 requires that the 'local part' (the part to the left of the @ ) not be semantically significant until the 'domain part' (to the right of the @ ) is fully resolved. Thus an address such as farkle!nurd!wombat!brian (1) would have the same semantics as nurd!wombat!brian@farkle (2) Our local mailer syntax is therefore becoming person%internalsite@UCSD which looks like ...!sdcsvax!person%internalsite in its uucp incarnation. (We are known as 'sdcsvax' to uucp, and as 'UCSD' elsewhere.) Since the % is not considered a delimeter by most mailers, it passes cleanly thru the outside world. We don't parse it until the domain part of the address is satisfied (i.e, when the mail arrives at UCSD), at which time we simply substitute an '@' for the '%', which gives us an RFC822 compatable address internal to the campus, like: person@internalsite Any one have suggestions? Comments? Its a hairy mess to remain compatable, and I'd like to get it as right as possible the first time. I'll summarize to the net if answers are of general interest. ihnp4 \ Brian Kantor, UC San Diego decvax \ akgua >---- sdcsvax ----- brian dcdwest/ ucbvax/ Kantor@Nosc
gregc@ucsfcgl.UUCP (Greg Couch%CGL) (08/15/84)
One problem with using the percent sign as a local delimitor, is that the percent sign is often used as a substitute for "extra" at signs when sending mail to the Arpanet. This especially hurt us since since Berkeley (ucbvax) does this, and ucbvax is our link to the outside world (e.g. <user@berksite> becomes <user%berksite@Berkeley.Arpa>). The solution we implemented was to use the colon as the local delimitor, since it historically has been for local networks (e.g. berknet) and uucp sites (ucbvax) don't mung it. Thus a local net address would be <ucsfcgl!ucsfbcl:gregc@Berkeley.Arpa> for ArpaNet sites, and <ucbvax!ucsfcgl!ucsfbcl:gregc> for uucp sites. If we were directly on the ArpaNet, then <ucsfbcl:gregc@uscfcgl.Arpa> would work too. - Greg Couch ucsfcgl!gregc@Berkeley.Arpa ucbvax!ucsfcgl!gregc