lyndon@ncc.UUCP (08/19/87)
While we're on the subject of TCNET, et al, does anyone know what's happening with the .CA domain? For the last year (almost) people have been saying Real Soon Now, although I've yet to see anything come out of this. I WANT to get a registered address, but it's a bit tough without a top level to register under. I realise .COM is there; I would just rather register under .CA (wave flag here :-) --lyndon
lamy@utegc.UUCP (08/19/87)
mcgill.ca is on the ARPANET and is currently designated as a name server
for .ca (I don't know who the backup is at present). There is also a MX
entry for ubc.ca that points to UBC on CSNet.
There are also sites on NetNorth (the canadian segment of the Bitnet family)
that claim to be in .ca (e.g. unb.ca), but until some machine on the internet
agrees to forward mail to them they cannot really use that name since it would
make any mail to the Internet unrepliable. The details of coordination of
registries do not seem to have been ironed out yet.
It seems that the X.400-ish idea of having organisations as second level
domains seems to have prevailed. Meanwhile, the maintainer of the Domains
database on Bitnet keeps bouncing requests from organisations, asking them
instead to reconsider using "logical" second level domains like "ac" for
academic institutions. Oh well. I can imagine the mess the .ca domain
is going to be in 10 years.
At present it is not clear to me who has authority over the .ca domain.
I guess whoever runs the name server has de facto control, since accessibility
from the Internet is quite vital...
(Quickie sketch: a UUCP-only site could be in .ca if two conditions are met:
a) a machine on the Internet will respond to requests from machines on the
Internet of the form "who is foo.ca" with the names of machines
on the Internet that will accept mail addressed to foo.ca (ouf!)..
The machine that answers to requests is the name server. The machine
that relays the messages is the mail exchanger, which explains why the
pointers in the name server are called MX records. The name server and
the exchanger will often be different machines.
b) the machine designated by the MX record must be able to send mail
on its way to foo.ca, no matter how.
)
This is the current situation as I understand it. No doubt someone will jump
if something is wrong...
Jean-Francois Lamy lamy@ai.toronto.edu (CSnet,UUCP,Bitnet)
AI Group, Dept of Computer Science lamy@ai.toronto.cdn (EAN X.400)
University of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4 {seismo,watmath}!ai.toronto.edu!lamy