[news.sysadmin] Stuck with .UUCP forever?

rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) (05/18/89)

In <285@xdos.UUCP> doug@xdos.UUCP (Doug Merritt) writes:
>Since all of your options are unsatisfactory to many people, you can
>assume that ".UUCP" is never going to go away, at least not via those
>options.

Sure you can; you make it VERY WORTHWHILE for folks to join the standards...

Concrete example:  It would be trivial for me to set things up so that
mail to the moderator of comp.sources.unix will NEVER get a reply unless
a valid domain address is sent.

I have wanted to take lines like this out of my sendmail.cf for quite
some time:
    R$+<@$+.$+.uucp>	$1<@$2.$3>		u@aaa.bbb.uucp -> u@aaa.bbb
    R$-!$+		$@$>6$2<@$1.UUCP>	resolve uucp names
    R$+@$-.UUCP		$2!$1			u@h.UUCP => h!u

I haven't done it yet, but I might.  "If you wanna talk, speak my language."
Does that make me an asshole?  Probably.  Do I care?  So far, yes, that's
I haven't done it.
	/rich $alz
-- 
Please send comp.sources.unix-related mail to rsalz@uunet.uu.net.
Use a domain-based address or give alternate paths, or you may lose out.

doug@xdos.UUCP (Doug Merritt) (05/19/89)

In article <1728@fig.bbn.com> rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) writes:
>In <285@xdos.UUCP> doug@xdos.UUCP (Doug Merritt) writes:
>>Since all of your options are unsatisfactory to many people, you can
>>assume that ".UUCP" is never going to go away, at least not via those
>>options.

>Sure you can; you make it VERY WORTHWHILE for folks to join the standards...

Please don't misunderstand me, I very much like the idea of domain
naming becoming a *universal* standard. I'm just concerned about the
mechanics of the process.

>I haven't done it yet, but I might.  "If you wanna talk, speak my language."
>Does that make me an asshole?  Probably.  Do I care?  So far, yes, that's
>I haven't done it.

I appreciate that you care, and I don't think that your concerns make
you an asshole at all; it's an understandable temptation.

But look at the situation for poorly connected leaves (the situation I've
almost always been in myself). It's usually not easy at small companies
to scrape up the disk/modem/phone/manager-approval resources in the
first place. Once you do (for it's certainly worth the effort to keep
trying) you start asking around for a net link, and often are turned
down because "we're too small to support an outgoing feed" or because
"we're too large to support a leaf". You finally find a cooperative
link to the net, get the software set up, hurray, etc.

You try hard to make your software follow the standards, to have your
local users be informed about netiquette, etc. In general, you follow
all the rules to the best of your ability.

And then you find out that you're blowing it because you don't have
a domain address. Oops! What did I do wrong? Well, let's see, I can't
afford to talk to uunet, so that's out. (Ignorant thinking follows, not
having seen recent discussion in this group:) Gee, there's thousands of
other .UUCP folks out there too, but I want to do things "right". Yet I
can't afford to either link directly to Internet nor to call uunet. Now what?

Ok, now I've been informed that all I need is to dig up yet another
cooperative site (on the arpanet) to do mail forwarding for me. Sounds easy,
right? Well, judging by the number of "no's" I've gotten in past years for
a simple local uucp news feed (and sometimes even mail links!), that's
not necessarily going to be easy.

I guess I'll start trying to figure out who nearby might be willing to
cooperate, but can you see from the above why it is that there are so
many .UUCP leaves without a domain address???

My naive feeling about this is that a small technical solution
would solve it: what if there were a way to get a proper domain address
*without* requiring mail forwarding? Technically it seems like a reasonable
solution. All you need is for smart mailers (particularly at arpa gateways)
to understand how to send to e.g. doug@xdos.COM, right? And that general sort
of capability is already widespread. Naturally I would have to go through
some sort of procedure to get registered, and if it costs a bit (e.g. that
famous $35), no problem.

If it were that easy, then you could quite quickly get 95% of the .UUCP
sites to become part of the .COM domain. So why not? What am I missing???
	Thanks,
		Doug
-- 
Doug Merritt		{pyramid,apple}!xdos!doug
Member, Crusaders for a Better Tomorrow		Professional Wildeyed Visionary

gore@eecs.nwu.edu (Jacob Gore) (05/20/89)

/ news.sysadmin / doug@xdos.UUCP (Doug Merritt) / May 18, 1989 /
>Ok, now I've been informed that all I need is to dig up yet another
>cooperative site (on the arpanet) to do mail forwarding for me. [...]that's
>not necessarily going to be easy.
[...]
>My naive feeling about this is that a small technical solution
>would solve it: what if there were a way to get a proper domain address
>*without* requiring mail forwarding? Technically it seems like a reasonable
>solution. All you need is for smart mailers (particularly at arpa gateways)
>to understand how to send to e.g. doug@xdos.COM, right? And that general sort
>of capability is already widespread.

But that is EXACTLY what Internet forwarders are!  Registering your domain
simply means telling Internet mailers which "arpa gateways", as you call
them, "understand how to send to, e.g. xdos.com."

You do NOT have to be directly connected to your forwarders!  Of course,
you'll get your mail faster if you are, but what else is new?

Jacob Gore				Gore@EECS.NWU.Edu
Northwestern Univ., EECS Dept.		{oddjob,chinet,att}!nucsrl!gore

doug@xdos.UUCP (Doug Merritt) (05/21/89)

In article <3790007@eecs.nwu.edu> gore@eecs.nwu.edu (Jacob Gore) writes:
>But that is EXACTLY what Internet forwarders are!  Registering your domain
>simply means telling Internet mailers which "arpa gateways", as you call
>them, "understand how to send to, e.g. xdos.com."

Ok. But I'm still missing one central point: why can't I simply register
my machine as "xdos.com", and automatically have Internet forwarders
know who I am? Why is it necessary to make a personal arrangement with
some such machine? I don't see why it can't be as easy as it is with
registering uucp map connections. Is it just due to historical problems
that grew out of the old arpanet, that no one has gotten around to
changing? Or is there some inherent reason for it?

Internet folks seem to universally agree that domains are the way to
go. Well, if I could get a real domain *purely* by following a registration
procedure, with no "would *someone* please do me a a big personal favor
and forward mail" arrangements necessary, then it would seem that most .UUCP
sites would be .COM sites very rapidly. What, if anything, is wrong with
this picture?
	Thanks,
		Doug
-- 
Doug Merritt		{pyramid,apple}!xdos!doug
Member, Crusaders for a Better Tomorrow		Professional Wildeyed Visionary

mcb@ncis.tis.llnl.gov (Michael C. Berch) (05/21/89)

In article <320@xdos.UUCP> doug@xdos.UUCP (Doug Merritt) writes:
> [...]
> Ok. But I'm still missing one central point: why can't I simply register
> my machine as "xdos.com", and automatically have Internet forwarders
> know who I am? Why is it necessary to make a personal arrangement with
> some such machine? I don't see why it can't be as easy as it is with
> registering uucp map connections. Is it just due to historical problems
> that grew out of the old arpanet, that no one has gotten around to
> changing? Or is there some inherent reason for it?

The latter.  There's no such thing as "Internet forwarders" in
general; what matters is *your* site's Internet forwarder(s), which
means the machine or machines that are named in MX records in the
name server for your domain.  

Here's how it works: the servers for the top level domain COM are the
root servers of the Domain Name System (DNS).  They contain a name
server (NS) record that will show the name of the name server for your
domain.  Let's say that machine is NS.FOO.GOV.  A resolver will then
contact NS.FOO.GOV looking for an MX (mail exchanger) record for the
particular machine in your domain (or a wild card that matches the
whole domain).  The MX record or records (there may be several) 
will point at hosts that are forwarders for your machine.  

This latter relationship is something *you* must arrange with the
forwarding site, because all that site's machine is going to get when it's
forwarding for you are messages addressed to "doug@xdos.com" suddenly
showing up in its incoming SMTP connections.  It's gotta know what to do
with those pieces of mail, like (for example) sending them direct by
UUCP or over a private line, or whatever.  So the forwarding site has
to specially configure its mailer to handle the messages that it is
forwarding from the Internet.  There's no way to trivially automate this; 
it requires that the forwarder has some existing method of sending mail
to you (or sets one up at your request), and configures its mailer to
special-case your site.

The example you give comparing this to UUCP map registration is a
reasonable analogy, but remember that before you registered the map entry 
you had to personally set up all the UUCP connections that are mentioned
in it.  The same is true for domain registration; you have to set up
the forwarding relationship yourself, but once you do so, registering the 
domain and getting it into the Domain Name System is simple & cheap.

--
Michael C. Berch  
mcb@tis.llnl.gov / uunet!tis.llnl.gov!mcb

henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (05/21/89)

In article <320@xdos.UUCP> doug@xdos.UUCP (Doug Merritt) writes:
>Ok. But I'm still missing one central point: why can't I simply register
>my machine as "xdos.com", and automatically have Internet forwarders
>know who I am? ...

How are they supposed to know who you are?  (The Internet generally doesn't
deign to recognize the existence of the UUCP maps, and even if they did,
it is not necessarily true that "xdos.UUCP" and "xdos.com" are the same
system.)  This is like asking the Post Office to deliver mail to you without
telling them where you live.

>... if I could get a real domain *purely* by following a registration
>procedure, with no "would *someone* please do me a a big personal favor
>and forward mail" arrangements necessary, then it would seem that most .UUCP
>sites would be .COM sites very rapidly...

What good would it do to have a domain if nobody could reach you by using
it?  Arrangements for forwarding *have* to be made if your domain is to
be of any use.  If you're asking why nobody is willing to automatically
forward mail to any site in the uucp maps, who is going to be masochistic
enough to volunteer his machine for such a job?  Actually, as I understand
it, UUNET is quite happy to handle registration and provide forwarding, but
quite sensibly insists that you pay for the service.
-- 
Van Allen, adj: pertaining to  |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
deadly hazards to spaceflight. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu

peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva) (05/22/89)

In article <1989May21.061438.14394@utzoo.uucp>, henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) writes:
> How are they supposed to know who you are?  (The Internet generally doesn't
> deign to recognize the existence of the UUCP maps, and even if they did,
> it is not necessarily true that "xdos.UUCP" and "xdos.com" are the same
> system.)  This is like asking the Post Office to deliver mail to you without
> telling them where you live.

All it would take is one site to set itself up as the MX forwarder for
the *.UUCP domain to make everyone in uucp-land happy, right? And if .UUCP
is such a small world compared to the internet that'd be no great load,
right? And, wow, uunet already does this for you... and gets paid for the
privilege.

I don't see the problem.
-- 
Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation.

Business: uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter, peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180.
Personal: ...!texbell!sugar!peter, peter@sugar.hackercorp.com.

pleasant@porthos.rutgers.edu (Mel Pleasant) (05/22/89)

The last time there was any discussion about a real .UUCP domain, it
was soundly trounced by those in control of the root nameservers.  So,
it isn't so easy after all!!
-- 

                                  Mel Pleasant
 {backbone}!rutgers!pleasant   pleasant@rutgers.edu     mpleasant@zodiac.bitnet

matt@oddjob.uchicago.edu (Matt Crawford) (05/23/89)

) You do NOT have to be directly connected to your forwarders!  Of course,
) you'll get your mail faster if you are, but what else is new?

There are certain things that *can* go wrong if you aren't.  And
whatever *can* go wrong ...
________________________________________________________
Matt Crawford	     		matt@oddjob.uchicago.edu

matt@oddjob.uchicago.edu (Matt Crawford) (05/23/89)

In article <320@xdos.UUCP>, doug@xdos (Doug Merritt) writes:
) Ok. But I'm still missing one central point: why can't I simply register
) my machine as "xdos.com", and automatically have Internet forwarders
) know who I am?

Define "who I am".  Names are entered in the domain system database as
the keys to various types of resource records (RRs).  What kind of RR
should be entered for xdos.com?

The first thing that has to happen is that the keepers of the "com"
domain enter one or more NS (name server) RRs for xdos.com.  These
direct queries to whatever host keeps the rest of the information about
xdos.com (and *.xdos.com, if any such names exist).  Right away you need
the cooperation of SOMEBODY on the internet, because the root servers
who keep "com" do not want to keep all the data for all the subdomains
also.

OK, so you find somebody who will insert your data in their files and
the root servers name that site in the NS record.  Now what?  The NS
records show that xdos.com exists, but you want to receive mail.

A randomly selected site on the internet delivers mail this way: first
it looks for an MX (mail exchanger) RR for the given name.  If one
exists, it names the INTERNET site to or through which mail should be
forwarded.  If there is no MX it looks for an A (address) record for the
target.  "Address" means numeric internet address.  You don't have one.

Unless you find some machine that will accept mail for "NAME@xdos.com" and
send it by UUCP to "xdos!NAME", there is no way for an arbitrary sending
site to bridge the gap between the internet and UUCP.  Much of the
internet has no interest in keeping UUCP map files.  (For that matter, a
lot of the UUCP world has no interest in keeping them either.)

) Why is it necessary to make a personal arrangement with some such
) machine?

It isn't.  You can make a business arrangement instead.  For $35 plus
connect time charges, UUNET will take care of you.

) Well, if I could get a real domain *purely* by following a registration
) procedure, with no "would *someone* please do me a a big personal favor
) and forward mail" arrangements necessary, then it would seem that most .UUCP
) sites would be .COM sites very rapidly. What, if anything, is wrong with
) this picture?

Who's going to forward your mail into UUCP-land?  Why should they
bother?  Do you want someone to force them to do it for you?  What are
you doing for them in return?
________________________________________________________
Matt Crawford	     		matt@oddjob.uchicago.edu

lear@NET.BIO.NET (Eliot Lear) (05/23/89)

Matt's message probably demands a bit of elaboration.  It isn't hard
to imagine a loop occurring if you allow non Internet sites to
forward.  Moreover, if you use the current version of sendmail, you
might get back a wonderful host unknown error message if you try to
mail to contact a forwarder through its MX, when its forwarder is
down.  {This was a real problem when NORDUNET came on line.}

For example:

I would mail to user@kre.nl.  You would see something like the
following for that host.

kre.nl	IN	MX	hp4nl.nluug.nl	110

and for hp4nl you might see something like the following:

hp4nl.nluug.nl	IN	A	192.16.184.9
hp4nl.nluug.nl	IN	MX	UUNET.UU.NET 100

If hp4nl.nluug.nl was out, sendmail would return a host unknown.
Obviously, this is a bug in sendmail, but one that should be fixed if
people are going to ``chain''.

bbh@whizz.uucp (Bud Hovell) (05/25/89)

In article <May.22.01.46.36.1989.17215@porthos.rutgers.edu>, pleasant@porthos.rutgers.edu (Mel Pleasant) writes:
> The last time there was any discussion about a real .UUCP domain, it
> was soundly trounced by those in control of the root nameservers.  So,
> it isn't so easy after all!!

Mel, I'm frankly a little confused (by my own ignorance, I'm sure), but is
the problem of setting up a .uucp domain primarily technical, or - as I tend
to infer from your note - primarily political? 
 
                                 Bud Hovell

::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
: UUCP:  {sun!nosun  |  tektronix!{percival|bucket}  |  attmail}!whizz!bbh :
: TELEX: 152258436 (Whizz/Bud Hovell)               VOICE: +1 503-636-3000 :
: USPO:  McCormick & Hovell, Inc., PO Box 1812, Lake Oswego, OR  USA 97035 :
::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::
                       "May the source be with you!"

jbuck@epimass.EPI.COM (Joe Buck) (05/29/89)

In article <622@whizz.uucp> bbh@whizz.uucp (Bud Hovell) writes:
>Mel, I'm frankly a little confused (by my own ignorance, I'm sure), but is
>the problem of setting up a .uucp domain primarily technical, or - as I tend
>to infer from your note - primarily political? 

I'm not Mel, but I'll give it a shot.  There are both technical and
political problems -- the political problems are more of an economic
nature, as in Who Pays The Bills..  Yes, the powers that be COULD
declare .uucp an official domain, but that would effectively halt the
momentum towards the domain conversion of UUCP sites and greatly
increase the load on official gateways -- would we have MX records for
*.uucp pointing to uunet exclusively, generating large bills for
uunet's paying customers to send mail to folks two hops away?  Or
twist the arms of folks at six or seven sites and try to get some load
balancing?  Instead, the requirement of a forwarder for each domain in
the "UUCP Zone" tends to ensure that no one is being forced to pay for
traffic they haven't agreed to.

The technical problem is that the "UUCP domain" namespace is flat --
one list must be kept with all the thousands of names, and it must be
kept free of duplicates.  The list is large enough that errors
sometimes creep in (which is why agressive rerouters are so evil,
Mel :-).  On the other hand, I can name a new PC or workstation here
sierra.epi.com or toy-pc.epi.com without having some remote
bureaucracy approve, because I'm the domain administrator.
-- 
-- Joe Buck	jbuck@epimass.epi.com, uunet!epimass.epi.com!jbuck

roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) (05/29/89)

In <3243@epimass.EPI.COM> jbuck@epimass.EPI.COM (Joe Buck) writes:
> The technical problem is that the "UUCP domain" namespace is flat -- one
> list must be kept with all the thousands of names, and it must be kept
> free of duplicates. [...] On the other hand, I can name a new PC or
> workstation here sierra.epi.com or toy-pc.epi.com without having some
> remote bureaucracy approve, because I'm the domain administrator.

	Lest anybody think this is not a real problem (or, to put it
another way, not a real advantage of the domain naming system), let me give
you an example.  We've got a machine here, wombat.phri.nyu.edu.  A couple
of weeks ago, while I was giving somebody the Grand Tour, I pointed to a
rack of stuff in the corner and said "that's wombat, one of our file
servers".  He replied, "Oh, so *that's* where wombat is!  I've sent a lot
of mail through there, but never really knew where it was".  This seemed
odd, since nobody gets their mail on wombat, and it doesn't talk uucp, so
nobody would be sending mail through it.  It took me a while to realize
that he didn't mean my wombat, but some other wombat.  Presumably, there is
one and only wombat.UUCP, and presumably that was the machine he was
thinking of.  Wombat being such a nice name, I'm sure there are several
wombats in different domains scattered around the world.  They all happily
coexist, not knowing the they have namesakes in other domains, or caring.
-- 
Roy Smith, System Administrator
Public Health Research Institute
{allegra,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers,hombre}!phri!roy -or- roy@phri.nyu.edu
"The connector is the network"

karl@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) (05/30/89)

bbh@whizz.uucp (Bud Hovell) writes:
   Mel, I'm frankly a little confused (by my own ignorance, I'm sure), but is
   the problem of setting up a .uucp domain primarily technical, or - as I tend
   to infer from your note - primarily political? 

I wouldn't describe it as a political problem, but realize that
top-level domains like .uucp (not to mention .bitnet, .csnet, .fido,
and .IDontKnowWhatAllElse) all constitute TRANSPORT-based domains,
which is the philosophical inverse of one of the things which domains
are supposed to do: hide the underlying technical nonsense of how the
bits get flown between Hither and Yon.

The folks running the root servers were no more impressed with the
idea of a .bitnet top-level domain than .uucp, for the same reason.
Domains are supposed to provide organizational information, not
connectivity.  It shouldn't matter to you what network the remote end
connects with, or how your mail gets there, just so long as it does.

--Karl

Makey@LOGICON.ARPA (Jeff Makey) (06/05/89)

In article <May.22.01.46.36.1989.17215@porthos.rutgers.edu> pleasant@porthos.rutgers.edu (Mel Pleasant) writes:
>The last time there was any discussion about a real .UUCP domain, it
>was soundly trounced by those in control of the root nameservers.

Could "those in control" stop the creation of a UUCP domain if it were
called .UU.NET (or something else that fits in the current top level)?
I realize that Rick Adams, et al, at uunet.uu.net would have to
consent since they "own" that domain name, but would the NIC attempt
to stop it?

Similarly, there could be .BIT.NET for all of the BITNET hosts.

                           :: Jeff Makey

Department of Tautological Pleonasms and Superfluous Redundancies Department
    Disclaimer: Logicon doesn't even know we're running news.
    Internet: Makey@LOGICON.ARPA    UUCP: {nosc,ucsd}!logicon.arpa!Makey

rick@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Adams) (06/05/89)

The NIC would be happy to register uucp.org (or whatever) for the
uucp project.

The trick is finding someone stupid enough to be willing to be the
uucp forwarder for 15,000 uucp hosts.

The fundamental problem is not registering a domain name, but setting
up the appropriate forwarders.

--rick

tneff@bfmny0.UUCP (Tom Neff) (06/05/89)

In article <56904@uunet.UU.NET> rick@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Adams) writes:
>The trick is finding someone stupid enough to be willing to be the
>uucp forwarder for 15,000 uucp hosts.
>
>The fundamental problem is not registering a domain name, but setting
>up the appropriate forwarders.

Is there no way under the current/proposed scheme to share the 
forwarding work load in an organized way? The problem as I see it from 
reading the RFC's and following the discussion here, is that if you 
treat UUCP as a full fledged domain then the temptation will be too 
great to dump everything destined for any UUCP site onto some unlucky 
overworked VAX somewhere and thus bottleneck the net to death while 
driving the admins to the poorhouse. 

Now unless I have this completely wrong, if I am sending to an address
that lies in a domain of which I am also a member (say xyz.FOO.NET
wants to send to bfmny0.UU.NET) then I am at liberty to try and parse
the address (up to some limit, I scratch my head on this) within that
known domain so as to optimize delivery.  Whereas if it's a domain
I'm not in, I should just send to the forwarder and let him deal with it.
Now this is happening today by and large, for foreign nets am I right?
If someone on MILNET wants to send me mail he has to go through the One
True Gateway who does the forwarding... so gatewaying UUCP to Whatevernet
is already relying on someone "stupid enough."

However most UUCP mail incoming and outgoing (as of now) does have a UUCP
site at the other end of the delivery path.  So processing addresses
*within* the domain could work as it does now with programs like smail.

I'm sure I've overlooked something - my mailbox is open.  :-)

-- 
Tom Neff				UUCP:     ...!uunet!bfmny0!tneff
    "Truisms aren't everything."	Internet: tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET

rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) (06/05/89)

In article <56904@uunet.UU.NET> rick@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Adams) writes:
>The trick is finding someone stupid enough to be willing to be the
>uucp forwarder for 15,000 uucp hosts.

In <14379@bfmny0.UUCP> tneff@bfmny0.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
>Is there no way under the current/proposed scheme to share the 
>forwarding work load in an organized way?

No.  Under the domain system, you can basically say one of two things:
	1.  Give *.UUCP mail to me
	2.  Give a.UUCP, b.UUCP, c.UUCP, d.UUCP, etc., mail to me
No one site is willing to forward for the world, so choice 1 is out.
(Nor is it feasible for them to take in all the load then hand it off
helper sites -- that's the same thing as routing to the final destination.)

No five sites are going to maintain 3000 lines of data -- but it would be
interesting to see if the current system could handle 15,000
flat-namespace records. :-)
	/rich $alz
-- 
Please send comp.sources.unix-related mail to rsalz@uunet.uu.net.
Use a domain-based address or give alternate paths, or you may lose out.

brad@looking.on.ca (Brad Templeton) (06/05/89)

Yes, there could easily be uucp.org with multiple forwarders, but that's not
the point.

There are many sites who simply stick ".uucp" on the end of their name.
They would only be allowed to change to uucp.org once they had registered
themselves with a forwarder.   We would have the same problem.   The old
sites, with .uucp, that don't change, would still have to be routed by the
old means.
-- 
Brad Templeton, Looking Glass Software Ltd.  --  Waterloo, Ontario 519/884-7473

rick@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Adams) (06/06/89)

> Is there no way under the current/proposed scheme to share the 
> forwarding work load in an organized way?

You have just described the existing domain name system (e.g. foo.com etc)

If you have to take the trouble to organize thigns, its trivial to
fit into the existing domain heirarchy.

rick@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Adams) (06/06/89)

> No five sites are going to maintain 3000 lines of data -- but it would be
> interesting to see if the current system could handle 15,000
> flat-namespace records. :-)

It's called pathalias and it works fine now.

UUNET (and lots of others) effectively do the hardpart already
(e.g. the routing to foo.uucp to the final destination).

The hard part is paying for the computer upgrades necessary to
handle a huge increase in the mail volume once the entire 60,000 machine
internet decides to route the mail through one site.

--rick

zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us (Jon Zeeff) (06/07/89)

>It's called pathalias and it works fine now.

>The hard part is paying for the computer upgrades necessary to
>handle a huge increase in the mail volume once the entire 60,000 machine
>internet decides to route the mail through one site.
>

Let's say I create uucp.net and do name service for any *.uucp.net.  I 
have some pathalias data that lists the route from various internet 
sites to individual uucp sites.  I use this data for the MX request.  

Example: someone wants to send to foo.uucp.net.  I find that rutgers talks
to xxx which talks to foo.  So rutgers gets the mail (it never arrives
here).  

The net effect is that people can just use name.uucp.net if they are 
in the uucp maps without putting a huge load on one site.  I'm not 
in favor of this, but it seems that it could be done.  

Something similar can be done now - try sending mail to 
user@any_uucp_name.uunet.net.  It worked last time I tried it.  

-- 
  Jon Zeeff			zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us
  Ann Arbor, MI			sharkey!b-tech!zeeff

rick@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Adams) (06/07/89)

> Let's say I create uucp.net and do name service for any *.uucp.net.  I 
> have some pathalias data that lists the route from various internet 
> sites to individual uucp sites.  I use this data for the MX request.  

But where do you get this data? Thats the hard part that everyone glosses
over.

> Something similar can be done now - try sending mail to 
> user@any_uucp_name.uunet.net.  It worked last time I tried it.  

There are many things that are not currently blocked on uunet.
As soon as the world starts dumping everything to uunet, I assure
you that filtering will begin.

Right now use of FOO.uu.net (not FOO.uunet.net) is strongly discouraged
for non directly connected sites and if it get abused, it will
be restricted.

--rick

rynes@isis.CWRU.EDU (Edward M. Rynes Esq.) (06/08/89)

In article <57064@uunet.UU.NET> rick@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Adams) writes:
>> Let's say I create uucp.net and do name service for any *.uucp.net.  I 
>> have some pathalias data that lists the route from various internet 
>> sites to individual uucp sites.  I use this data for the MX request.  

>But where do you get this data? Thats the hard part that everyone glosses
>over.

**********************************************************************
****  I sent this out once but it never made it off of our system ****
**********************************************************************

In article <1780@fig.bbn.com> rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) writes:
>In article <56904@uunet.UU.NET> rick@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Adams) writes:
>>The trick is finding someone stupid enough to be willing to be the
>>uucp forwarder for 15,000 uucp hosts.

>In <14379@bfmny0.UUCP> tneff@bfmny0.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
>>Is there no way under the current/proposed scheme to share the 
>>forwarding work load in an organized way?

>No.  Under the domain system, you can basically say one of two things:
>	1.  Give *.UUCP mail to me
>	2.  Give a.UUCP, b.UUCP, c.UUCP, d.UUCP, etc., mail to me
>No one site is willing to forward for the world, so choice 1 is out.


   There are a large number of UUCP/Internet gateways scattered around
the world right now.  The problem is that there is no way to get this
information in a useful form.  What I would like is for the UUCP Maps
to start listing this information and for pathalias to start using it.
This would help in two ways.

   First if we assume that all UUCP/Internet gateways can talk to each
other directly (at very low cost via the Internet) then shorter, more
direct paths can be generated by pathalias.  For example, cwjcc and
uunet are both Internet sites and can talk to each other directly.
But pathalias doesn't know that so it generates the path:
	"mailrus!ames!mimsy!uunet!%s"
And before I added mailrus to our maps it was much longer!  Arpatext
was supposed to solve this problem but it doesn't work.  There are
too many name collisions between Arpanet and UUCP hosts.

   This information can also be used to automatically generate a list
of forwarders.  The forwarder for any registered .uucp site could be
the nearest registered UUCP/Internet gateway.  If enough gateways are
listed the load on each site would be small.  Of course, if only a few
gateways declare themselves then we are back to choice one above. :-(

   Of course this is all just mental gymnastics and not intended to
reflect reality in any way.  Use it as you see fit. :-)
--
Edward M. Rynes  <rynes@isis.CWRU.Edu>
Jennings Computing Center                  "Hey!!!  Somebody stole my quote!"
Case Western Reserve University
Cleveland, OH  44106    (216) 368-2982

erik@mpx2.mpx.com (Erik Murrey) (06/08/89)

In article <1780@fig.bbn.com> rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) writes:
>In article <56904@uunet.UU.NET> rick@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Adams) writes:
>>The trick is finding someone stupid enough to be willing to be the
>>uucp forwarder for 15,000 uucp hosts.
>
>In <14379@bfmny0.UUCP> tneff@bfmny0.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
>>Is there no way under the current/proposed scheme to share the 
>>forwarding work load in an organized way?
>
>No.  Under the domain system, you can basically say one of two things:
>	1.  Give *.UUCP mail to me
>	2.  Give a.UUCP, b.UUCP, c.UUCP, d.UUCP, etc., mail to me
>No one site is willing to forward for the world, so choice 1 is out.
>(Nor is it feasible for them to take in all the load then hand it off
>helper sites -- that's the same thing as routing to the final destination.)


This is why I think the .US domain is a *good thing*.  If the
coordinators can find enough internet forwarders, and divide the load
appropriately, then .UUCP would(could) slowly go away.  And since
registration is free, I don't see why people wouldn't pass up the
chance to have a proper domain name for their homes/school/businesses.
If we had enough forwarders, in the key geographical areas, then your
connection could be a local phone call away.

As a small step, I will be willing to help out (time permitting) any
internet site in setting up the proper sendmail/cf files to forward
domains via UUCP.  Please drop me a line via e-mail if you are
interested.


... Erik
-- 
Erik Murrey                            /|   //  /~~~~/  |  /
MPX Data Systems, Inc.                / | / /  /____/   |/
erik@mpx.com                         /  /  /  /        /|  Data Systems, Inc. 
{vu-vlsi, bpa, cbmvax}!mpx1!erik    /     /  /       /  |====================

david@dhw68k.cts.com (David H. Wolfskill) (06/08/89)

In article <56966@uunet.UU.NET> rick@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Adams) writes:

>The hard part is paying for the computer upgrades necessary to
>handle a huge increase in the mail volume once the entire 60,000 machine
>internet decides to route the mail through one site.

With all due respect (and appreciation!) for folks like Rick who run
such a site (among a few other things...), as well as folks who design &
build some amazingly reliable systems (both hardware and software) --
given the nature of what they're doing -- I would think that the notion
of having the successful delivery of all that mail being dependent on
one site might be a subject familiar to comp.risks readers....

I tend to be suspicious of a design that involves a single point of
failure....  (This is not to say I refuse to use such a design; merely
that I'm mildly paranoid about such things....  :-)

Cheers,
david
-- 
David H. Wolfskill
uucp: ...{spsd,zardoz,felix}!dhw68k!david	InterNet: david@dhw68k.cts.com

zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us (Jon Zeeff) (06/09/89)

In article <57064@uunet.UU.NET> rick@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Adams) writes:
>> Let's say I create uucp.net and do name service for any *.uucp.net.  I 
>> have some pathalias data that lists the route from various internet 
>> sites to individual uucp sites.  I use this data for the MX request.  
>
>But where do you get this data? Thats the hard part that everyone glosses
>over.
>

From the uucp map entrys of the form "uucpname=name.domain".  The hard part
would be checking if these sites are willing and able to do the forwarding.

-- 
  Jon Zeeff			zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us
  Ann Arbor, MI			sharkey!b-tech!zeeff

brent@capmkt.COM (Brent Chapman) (06/10/89)

In article <9426@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us> zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us (Jon Zeeff) writes:
# In article <57064@uunet.UU.NET> rick@uunet.UU.NET (Rick Adams) writes:
# >> Let's say I create uucp.net and do name service for any *.uucp.net.  I 
# >> have some pathalias data that lists the route from various internet 
# >> sites to individual uucp sites.  I use this data for the MX request.  
# >
# >But where do you get this data? Thats the hard part that everyone glosses
# >over.
# >
# 
# From the uucp map entrys of the form "uucpname=name.domain".  The hard part
# would be checking if these sites are willing and able to do the forwarding.

When, oh, when will people learn that just because a site has a "domain
style" name, that does _not_ mean it's on the InterNet.  My site, for
instance, is registered with the NIC as "capmkt.com", but we are most
definitely _not_ an InterNet site; we're strictly UUCP-only, and thus
totally unable to perform the type of gatewaying you propose. 

And even if we were able to do such forwarding, we probably wouldn't want
to.  This poor overloaded machine has more than enough to do without taking
on the rest of the world's screwed up mail problems.


-Brent
--
Brent Chapman					Capital Market Technology, Inc.
Computer Operations Manager			1995 University Ave., Suite 390
brent@capmkt.com				Berkeley, CA  94704
{apple,lll-tis,uunet}!capmkt!brent		Phone:  415/540-6400

zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us (Jon Zeeff) (06/12/89)

In article <300@capmkt.COM> brent@capmkt.UUCP (Brent Chapman) writes:
>In article <9426@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us> zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us (Jon Zeeff) writes:
># >> Let's say I create uucp.net and do name service for any *.uucp.net.  I 
># >> have some pathalias data that lists the route from various internet 
># >> sites to individual uucp sites.  I use this data for the MX request.  
># >
># >But where do you get this data? Thats the hard part that everyone glosses
># >over.
># >
># 
># From the uucp map entrys of the form "uucpname=name.domain".  The hard part
># would be checking if these sites are willing and able to do the forwarding.
>
>When, oh, when will people learn that just because a site has a "domain
>style" name, that does _not_ mean it's on the InterNet.  My site, for

As you should have been able to guess from "b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us", 
I'm quite aware of this.  You could either check each site to make 
sure it handles mail directly or simply allow the non internet site to 
do the forwarding.  

>definitely _not_ an InterNet site; we're strictly UUCP-only, and thus
>totally unable to perform the type of gatewaying you propose. 

Why is a uucp site unable to do mail forwarding?  Most do.

>And even if we were able to do such forwarding, we probably wouldn't want
>to.  This poor overloaded machine has more than enough to do without taking
>on the rest of the world's screwed up mail problems.

Which is why I wrote:

># The hard part
># would be checking if these sites are willing and able to do the forwarding.

A new entry in the uucp map data is probably the best way to handle this.

















-- 
  Jon Zeeff			zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us
  Ann Arbor, MI			sharkey!b-tech!zeeff

allbery@ncoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery) (06/12/89)

As quoted from <9415@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us> by zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us (Jon Zeeff):
+---------------
| The net effect is that people can just use name.uucp.net if they are 
| in the uucp maps without putting a huge load on one site.  I'm not 
| in favor of this, but it seems that it could be done.  
| 
| Something similar can be done now - try sending mail to 
| user@any_uucp_name.uunet.net.  It worked last time I tried it.  
+---------------

Sorry, but *only* uunet subscribers are allowed to do that.

++Brandon
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery, moderator of comp.sources.misc	     allbery@ncoast.org
uunet!hal.cwru.edu!ncoast!allbery		    ncoast!allbery@hal.cwru.edu
      Send comp.sources.misc submissions to comp-sources-misc@<backbone>
NCoast Public Access UN*X - (216) 781-6201, 300/1200/2400 baud, login: makeuser

mcb@ncis.tis.llnl.gov (Michael C. Berch) (06/12/89)

In <9436@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us> zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us (Jon Zeeff)writes:
> In article <300@capmkt.COM> brent@capmkt.UUCP (Brent Chapman) writes:
> >When, oh, when will people learn that just because a site has a "domain
> >style" name, that does _not_ mean it's on the InterNet.  My site, for
> 
> As you should have been able to guess from "b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us", 
> I'm quite aware of this.  You could either check each site to make 
> sure it handles mail directly or simply allow the non internet site to 
> do the forwarding.  
> 
> >definitely _not_ an InterNet site; we're strictly UUCP-only, and thus
> >totally unable to perform the type of gatewaying you propose. 
> 
> Why is a uucp site unable to do mail forwarding?  Most do.

This totally misses the point of the previous discussion.  "Forwarding", 
in this contest, MEANS "Internet forwarding". A UUCP-only site, by definition, 
is not on the Internet, and, ipso facto, is unable to do Internet forwarding.
In order to do Internet forwarding you have to be ON the Internet, so
that Internet hosts using the Domain Name System that receive MX
records pointing at your host can contact you to send mail that is to
be forwarded to the UUCP universe. It does not mean just "passing mail on".

Mr. Zeeff, if you're having a problem getting through this, please
drop me a note and I'll attempt to explain the best I can via e-mail.

--
Michael C. Berch  
News/mail admin, tis.llnl.gov systems
mcb@tis.llnl.gov / uunet!tis.llnl.gov!mcb

zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us (Jon Zeeff) (06/12/89)

In article <233@ncis.tis.llnl.gov> mcb@ncis.tis.llnl.gov (Michael C. Berch) writes:
>In <9436@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us> zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us (Jon Zeeff)writes:
>> In article <300@capmkt.COM> brent@capmkt.UUCP (Brent Chapman) writes:
>> >When, oh, when will people learn that just because a site has a "domain
>> >style" name, that does _not_ mean it's on the InterNet.  My site, for
>> 
>> As you should have been able to guess from "b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us", 
>> I'm quite aware of this.  You could either check each site to make 
>> sure it handles mail directly or simply allow the non internet site to 
>> do the forwarding.  
>> 
>> >definitely _not_ an InterNet site; we're strictly UUCP-only, and thus
>> >totally unable to perform the type of gatewaying you propose. 
>> 
>> Why is a uucp site unable to do mail forwarding?  Most do.
>
>This totally misses the point of the previous discussion. 
> "Forwarding", 
>in this contest, MEANS "Internet forwarding". A UUCP-only site, by definition, 
>is not on the Internet, and, ipso facto, is unable to do Internet forwarding.

No, I meant forwarding as in any kind of forwarding that gets the mail 
there.  Uucp only sites with domain names already have an internet 
forwarder that will get mail to them.  These uucp sites can generally 
do additional forwarding, providing indirect "internet forwarding".  I 
should have said "additional forwarding" instead of just "forwarding" 
to make this clear.  

>In order to do Internet forwarding you have to be ON the Internet, so 
>that Internet hosts using the Domain Name System that receive MX 
>records pointing at your host can contact you to send mail that is to 
>be forwarded to the UUCP universe.  It does not mean just "passing mail on".

See above.

Assume uucp only site foo.com has an internet forwarder bar.edu and 
talks to another uucp site xxx.  It may be perfectly reasonable for 
mail to travel bar.edu->foo.com->xxx.  Unfortunately, the software 
most internet sites are using makes this impossible if xxx wants to 
use a domain name such as xxx.com and isn't a special case for 
bar.edu.  xxx.uucp often works, perpetuating it's use.

If you don't know someone at an internet site and can't afford a uunet 
connection, it is often difficult for a uucp site to use the DNS 
(which is why we may have .uucp forever).  Solutions to this problem 
should be explored.  

Parts of a possible solution include 1) internet sites attempting to 
use the pathalias data when they find that mx records for some site 
point to themselves and 2) a way for such internet sites to register the 
fact that they are willing to provide uucp forwarding.  

I should probably be much verbose and fully explain the details to 
prevent these "you don't understand" postings.  I'm off to usenix - 
send me email if you want to discuss this further.  

-- 
  Jon Zeeff			zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us
  Ann Arbor, MI			sharkey!b-tech!zeeff

allbery@ncoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery) (06/16/89)

As quoted from <9436@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us> by zeeff@b-tech.ann-arbor.mi.us (Jon Zeeff):
+---------------
| Why is a uucp site unable to do mail forwarding?  Most do.
+---------------

In this context, "forwarding" means forwarding messages sent via SMTP over a
network from a site with an IP address to a site with an IP address; UUCP is
not and can not be integrated into such a network, it can only be layered on
top of such a network.  That is, a random direct-connected Internet site can
not send mail to NCoast.ORG by having the nameserver return an [xx.yy.zz.ww]
IP address pointing to ncoast from an "A" record in the nameserver.  We have
to have a forwarder; that is, we have an "MX" record in the nameserver which
gives the IP address (indirectly, via another lookup?  I dunno, but it
doesn't really matter) of our forwarder; and our forwarder must be capable
of recognizing that even though the message was sent to them, it's really
for us.

++Brandon
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery, moderator of comp.sources.misc	     allbery@ncoast.org
uunet!hal.cwru.edu!ncoast!allbery		    ncoast!allbery@hal.cwru.edu
      Send comp.sources.misc submissions to comp-sources-misc@<backbone>
NCoast Public Access UN*X - (216) 781-6201, 300/1200/2400 baud, login: makeuser

allbery@ncoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery) (06/16/89)

As quoted from <13756@ncoast.ORG> by allbery@ncoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery):
+---------------
| In this context, "forwarding" means forwarding messages sent via SMTP over a
| network from a site with an IP address to a site with an IP address; UUCP is
+---------------

Uh, one other thing that may not be clear:  the IP address is used by the
network itself to indicate what site should grab the packet out of the
network stream.  TCP/IP is not store-and-forward, it transmits packets
immediately, and the IP address states which system should pay attention to
the packet.  The packet recognition is done at too low a level (it might
even be at the hardware level) to be "spoofed" after the fashion of MX
records; the closest one can get to that is to tell the recognizer to accept
anything with a subset of the IP fields having a specific value, and the
subset must be consecutive items and start at the left -- which is how
gateways to subnetworks are implemented.  Thus, you can't just assign, say,
NCoast.ORG an IP address to get around the restrictions on Internet mail.

If you want to convince some direct Internet site to run TCP/SLIP on a
modem for your benefit and install TCP/SLIP on your system, you can (in
fact, must) get an IP address.  But UUCP doesn't work like the IP protocol;
it can't handle IP packets, and IP protocols can't handle UUCP packets, not
just because the protocols have different packet configurations but because
UUCP isn't designed to be running constantly and ignoring data not addressed
to the local system.  The two do not work in the same way at all.

++Brandon
-- 
Brandon S. Allbery, moderator of comp.sources.misc	     allbery@ncoast.org
uunet!hal.cwru.edu!ncoast!allbery		    ncoast!allbery@hal.cwru.edu
      Send comp.sources.misc submissions to comp-sources-misc@<backbone>
NCoast Public Access UN*X - (216) 781-6201, 300/1200/2400 baud, login: makeuser

childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers) (06/16/89)

mcb@ncis.tis.llnl.gov (Michael C. Berch) writes:

>> Why is a uucp site unable to do mail forwarding?  Most do.

>This totally misses the point of the previous discussion.  "Forwarding", 
>in this contest, MEANS "Internet forwarding". A UUCP-only site, by definition, 
>is not on the Internet, and, ipso facto, is unable to do Internet forwarding.
>In order to do Internet forwarding you have to be ON the Internet, so
>that Internet hosts using the Domain Name System that receive MX
>records pointing at your host can contact you to send mail that is to
>be forwarded to the UUCP universe. It does not mean just "passing mail on".

What about playing with your sendmail.cf so that it recognizes Internet
addresses and forwards them to an Internet site that _can_ forward them,
in a classic Internet sense ?

>Michael C. Berch  
>News/mail admin, tis.llnl.gov systems
>mcb@tis.llnl.gov / uunet!tis.llnl.gov!mcb

-- richard

-- 
 *    "We must hang together, gentlemen ... else, we shall most assuredly     *
 *     hang separately."         Benjamin Franklin, 1776                      *
 *                                                                            *
 *      ..{amdahl|decwrl|octopus|pyramid|ucbvax}!avsd.UUCP!childers@tycho     *

mcb@ncis.tis.llnl.gov (Michael C. Berch) (06/17/89)

In article <13757@ncoast.ORG> allbery@ncoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery) writes:
> [...] Thus, you can't just assign, say,
> NCoast.ORG an IP address to get around the restrictions on Internet mail.
> 
> If you want to convince some direct Internet site to run TCP/SLIP on a
> modem for your benefit and install TCP/SLIP on your system, you can (in
> fact, must) get an IP address.  But UUCP doesn't work like the IP protocol;
> it can't handle IP packets, and IP protocols can't handle UUCP packets, not
> just because the protocols have different packet configurations but because
> UUCP isn't designed to be running constantly and ignoring data not addressed
> to the local system.  The two do not work in the same way at all.

Uh, now *I'm* mixed up.  I think Brandon is confusing a technical issue with 
a policy issue.  There is no problem with using UUCP over a TCP/IP
connection, whether it is SLIP or LAN or WAN or whatever. We do it all
the time, using the TCP-UUCP code provided by Rick Adams (which I
believe is distributed as the UUCP version in 4.xBSD). UUCP is just
another TCP service, living on logical port 540.  You make a connection 
and start up the protocol and there you are.

The "restrictions on Internet mail", on the other hand, are
policy based rather than technically based.  There is absolutely no
problem with getting a SLIP connection to someone on an Internet
network, getting the NIC to assign you some IP namespace (i.e., a Class C 
network number), getting whomever runs the gateway for the site you
connect to to advertise your net via EGP, and *poof*, you're on the Internet. 
You can do TCP-UUCP via that connection with anyone you please, but
there's no reason to, since you can do SMTP with anyone you please,
and that's much cleaner.

The policy issue is permission to connect to the Internet.  Mere
possession of an official network number is not sufficient; the NIC
will give those to anyone who asks.  You also have to get permission
from whomever your SLIP partner is connected to to put your packets on
their net.  In the old days, DOD had a monopoly on that, but this is
no longer true.  You will also have to negotiate about getting your
connection known to the core gateways and may or may not need and
Autonomous System Number, etc., etc.

The technical issues are pretty trivial compared to the
administrative/policy ones.

--
Michael C. Berch  
mcb@tis.llnl.gov / uunet!tis.llnl.gov!mcb

bob@tinman.cis.ohio-state.edu (Bob Sutterfield) (06/17/89)

In article <13756@ncoast.ORG> allbery@ncoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery) writes:
   ...that is, we have an "MX" record in the nameserver which gives
   the IP address (indirectly, via another lookup?...)

Nope, MX records can't point to other MXs.  See RFC974.

sob@watson.tmc.edu (Stan Barber) (06/20/89)

In article <13757@ncoast.ORG> allbery@ncoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery) writes:
>But UUCP doesn't work like the IP protocol;
>it can't handle IP packets, and IP protocols can't handle UUCP packets, not
>just because the protocols have different packet configurations but because
>UUCP isn't designed to be running constantly and ignoring data not addressed
>to the local system.  The two do not work in the same way at all.
>

Not strictly true, Brandon. There are many sites that to UUCP over TCP/IP.
For some sites, it's the only way they do TCP/IP. It's sorta like the 
experiments with RSCS that are being done with the BITNET II Project. The
Internet provides what appears to be a leased-line for UUCP or RSCS to
address the other site.

It is correct that the design of UUCP is different that TCP/IP.

STAN

Stan           internet: sob@bcm.tmc.edu         Manager, Networking
Olan           uucp: {rutgers,mailrus}!bcm!sob   Information Technology
Barber         Opinions expressed are only mine. Baylor College of Medicine

mcb@ncis.tis.llnl.gov (Michael C. Berch) (06/21/89)

In article <1320@avsd.UUCP> childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers) writes:
> mcb@ncis.tis.llnl.gov (Michael C. Berch) writes:
> >This totally misses the point of the previous discussion.  "Forwarding", 
> >in this context, MEANS "Internet forwarding". A UUCP-only site, by definition
> >is not on the Internet, and, ipso facto, is unable to do Internet forwarding.
> >In order to do Internet forwarding you have to be ON the Internet, so
> >that Internet hosts using the Domain Name System that receive MX
> >records pointing at your host can contact you to send mail that is to
> >be forwarded to the UUCP universe. It does not mean just "passing mail on".
> 
> What about playing with your sendmail.cf so that it recognizes Internet
> addresses and forwards them to an Internet site that _can_ forward them,
> in a classic Internet sense ?

If you're talking about doing this on the UUCP side, that's presumably
what UUCP-only sites are doing already in order to participate in the
Domain Name System (specifically, the ability to mail to
fully-qualified domain addresses that do not belong to one's UUCP
neighbors.)  This is an alternative to using the pathalias data from
the UUCP map, but really should only be used to send to actual Internet
sites, since otherwise the system may be used to go UUCP->Inet->UUCP,
which violates the rules of *some* Internet component networks.
The problem is that there's no way to tell, given a domain-type address,
whether it is or is not on the Internet *without* having access to an
Internet name server.

I don't run a UUCP-only site, so don't have a sendmail.cf that does
this.  Someone around here undoubtedly does.  All it really has to do
is take any host address that has a dot in it where the domain isn't
your own and isn't ".UUCP" and send it to a relay host which is on the
Internet that can resolve arbitrary domain addresses.  (Presumably
this site is the one that you have arranged incoming Internet MX
service with.)

But this only solves the outgoing mail problem, not the incoming one.

--
Michael C. Berch  
mcb@tis.llnl.gov / uunet!tis.llnl.gov!mcb