scw@cepu.UUCP (05/11/84)
Two reasonable points have already been raised about my proposal.
1) What is to keep site a from thinking that site b is a vector to the
ARPA-net and vice-versa, causing a loop.
Well, I can think of several (1) cooperating systems with hardwired paths
(not elegant but it works reasonably well, this is what is currently in
use around ucla). (2) Looking at the path (don't send it back to someone
that just (or somewhere) had it) this is reasonable, and perhaps should be a
part of any system (3) Routing tables, updated regulary/periodicly.
I would suspect that (3) is the best way to go. Especially if we can implement
some reasonable mechanisim for detecting undelivered messages, picking them
up and forwarding/rerouting them, and perhaps a method of automagicly
reconfigureing the routing tables.
2) This implies that any site need to know how to get to any site on the
ARPA-NET. The implication is that this is most of the intra-uucp routing
problem.
The nice part of this delivery system is that there is NO one ARPA-NET routing
center, by definition *ANY* ARPA host has a complete routing table. This is
possiable for several reasons. (1) A limited (semi-fixed) number of sites,
unlike uucp.anarchy where systems come and go almost at will, it takes:
(2) A central control point that assigns site numbers (and approves names??),
and limits access to (membership on) the net. (3) Each site has a FIXED name
(number actually) and there is hardware (IMPs?/TIPs?) that does the actual
routing of packets (this is all hearsay, from quite a while ago, and third hand
at that).
NOTE: This is not attempting to address the problem of intra-uucp domain
addressing, it is only a suggestion for the problem of inter-domain
communications (messages that cross the ARPA-NET/uucp.anarchy) boundry with
some specific path information.
--
Stephen C. Woods (VA Wadsworth Med Ctr./UCLA Dept. of Neurology)
uucp: { {ihnp4, uiucdcs}!bradley, hao, trwrb, sdcsvax!bmcg}!cepu!scw
ARPA: cepu!scw@ucla-locus location: N 34 06'37" W 118 25'43"