tower@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Leonard H. Tower Jr.) (11/15/89)
In article <3115@husc6.harvard.edu> nemap@harvard.harvard.edu (New England UUCP Mapping) writes: | |**** buita is no longer a uucp site **** | ... | |If you are running smail/pathalias, you will need to obtain a patch to |smail2.5 that will deal with the '.' in the UUCP hostname. | ... | | thanks, -jj The patch is appended. enjoy -len PS: Thanks to Jeff for a great job helping out with this transistion. Path: bu-cs!mirror!necntc!dbd From: dbd@necntc.nec.com (Dave Davidian) Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp Subject: smail 2.5 patch for a dotted hostname Date: 8 Nov 89 21:54:05 GMT Date-Received: 9 Nov 89 00:23:51 GMT Organization: NEC Electronics Inc. Natick, MA 01760 Keywords: re-posted here from comp.sources.bugs Follow-ups: comp.mail.uucp SMAIL 2.5 PATCH FOR A DOTTED HOST NAME I am posting this smail 2.5 patch for all to use as appropriate. I am making no claimes as to whether there should or should not be a "." in a host name. However, this patch works. The source of this patch is from cs.utexas.edu and was forwarded from bu.edu to urartu.sdpa.org (which talks to bu.edu) and was subsequently tested for several days. note: the paths file entry for such a case would be: xy.edu xy.edu!%s #which would make smail abort or revert to a #smart-host if in domain format (if you are #lucky) - - - The problem, as I understand it, is that smail 2.5 wants to treat a dotted UUCP hostname (such as cs.utexas.edu or bu.edu) as a domain and not a host. And it apparently must resolve addresses to a host and not a domain before it will deliver. I think smail 2.5 is broken in this regard. RFC976 is ambiguous on this. However, Mel Pleasant and the UUCP Project have officially blessed dotted UUCP names such as ours. I doubt that any future software will have this restriction (and I know that smail 3+ does not). Here's a patch which we hand out to all our smail 2.5 peers. *** headers.c.old Fri May 27 09:19:59 1988 --- headers.c Fri May 27 09:27:50 1988 *************** *** 148,153 **** --- 148,161 ---- return(UUCP); } + { + char path[SMLBUF]; + int cost; + + if(getpath(domain, path, &cost) == EX_OK) + return(UUCP); + } + if(partv[parts-1][0] == '\0') { partv[parts-1][-1] = '\0'; /* strip trailing . */ } -- David Davidian | dbd@necntc.nec.com | ..harvard!necntc!dbd Facts are facts, in my | dbd@urartu.sdpa.org employer's opinion. | ..bu.edu!urartu!dbd
zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us (Jon Zeeff) (11/16/89)
Re: dots in uucp host names. I think you are going to find other software that makes assumptions about addresses with dots needing a DNS lookup. You will also have problems with some versions of uucp that don't allow such long uucp names. -- Branch Technology <zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us>
tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) (11/16/89)
Also, while I could sympathize with a desperation patch to deal with some old dinosaur of a pre-existing node with a dot in its name, creating a NEW node in this day and age with a dot in the name is LUDICROUS! Use another delimiter, or be prepared to spend hour after hour dealing with net problems. Says here, life's too short... -- "NASA Announces New Deck Chair Arrangement For \_/ Tom Neff Space Station Titanic" -- press release 89-7654 \_/ tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET
fletcher@cs.utexas.edu (Fletcher Mattox) (11/19/89)
In article <14919@bfmny0.UU.NET> tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff) writes: >Also, while I could sympathize with a desperation patch to deal with >some old dinosaur of a pre-existing node with a dot in its name, >creating a NEW node in this day and age with a dot in the name is >LUDICROUS! Use another delimiter, or be prepared to spend hour after >hour dealing with net problems. Says here, life's too short... I've spent very little time "dealing with net problems" in the 18 months of existence of cs.utexas.edu as a UUCP host. Most of that time involved handing out the smail2.5 patch. And that was more than recovered in the time I *used* to spend explaining to users why we needed two different hostnames for the same machine depending on which email transport layer was used. Personally, I'm quite pleased with the results. If any of our 74 UUCP peers have been greatly inconvenienced by our dotted UUCP name, they were too polite to mention it to me. (The original author of the smail2.5 patch is one of our peers. He, no doubt, was a little frustrated 18 months ago. No longer.) cs.utexas.edu!fletcher