[comp.sys.amiga] Recent PORTAL email problems explained

thad@cup.portal.com (Thad P Floryan) (01/09/91)

I've received phone calls indicating email problems and bounces to/from PORTAL
during the past week re: persons attempting to contact me and others.  PORTAL's
Customer Services (cs@cup.portal.com) just posted the following "locally" which
I'm posting on behalf of those whom you've tried to reach; don't gripe to me as
I'm just a customer here, too.

Thad Floryan [ thad@cup.portal.com (OR) ..!sun!portal!cup.portal.com!thad ]

-------------------- begin included material

PORTAL Network mail routing change

The Portal mail system underwent major changes over the weekend.

First, whether by accident or design, Sun "forgot" how to forward mail for
Portal.  All mail routed through Sun since last Thursday, January 3, 1991,
should be resent.  Sun feels that this mail is not sufficiently important to
reactivate the link.

Second, our mail is now being sent and received through our direct connection
to the Internet.  Internet mail being sent to us may temporarily be bounced.
We have made the necessary changes, but it may take a day or two for everything
to work its way through the network.  This will greatly improve the speed of
mail delivery, since mail will be sent to the remote machine within seconds of
your typing 'ok'.

Third, outgoing mail to Internet sites is slightly flaky.  This is apparently
due to a bug in the Sun supplied mail program.  If it cannot find the location
of a remote machine (due to network congestion, for example), it sometimes
returns the mail with error messages that resemble:

	----- Transcript of session follows -----
	421 Host corp.sun.com not found for mailer ddn.
	550 <blort@Corp.sun.com>... Host unknown

Yes, the bug can actually prevent mail from being sent to Sun!  Anyway, if this
happens, just resend the mail.  We have opened a service order with Sun, but do
not yet have a fix.  If the problem persists, try sending the mail to:

	apple!user%domain

Fourth, all uucp traffic for sun is automatically being routed through apple.
This will be shown by check address for mail.