vixie@decwrl.dec.com (Paul Vixie) (08/12/88)
In <Aug.11.16.57.31.1988.21678@topaz.rutgers.edu> ron@topaz.rutgers.edu writes:
# The first point that I would like to make is that as Associate Directory
# here responsible for the expenditures on this machine, if you don't like the
# way it runs, you can feel free to route your mail elsewhere.
I'm going to assume that you havn't seen my "THANK YOU" article yet, Ron,
because I agree with you completely and have already done so, netwide.
# [...] The machine, being much more intelligent [...] than your average
# random UUCP site, needs the facility to optimally route mail rather than
# constraining it to follow the news paths [...].
I've explained several times in the last week, in these forums, that the place
to avoid having mail travel over news paths is in the news user agents, not in
gateway MTAs. If the mail were auto-routed at the source, or bumped up to
Rutgers or another smart host for delivery, this problem would not exist. The
netnews and RN installation documents explicitly recommend against hoping that
a reverse news-path will get your reply delivered. I echo that recommendation.
# The alternative to doing rerouting is to drop mail transiting through
# Rutgers that isn't using a path that specifies the correct next hop (or
# giving up on forwarding mail for people entirely such as ihnp4 has done).
My complaint has nothing to do with finding a route to a next-hop that you
do not directly speak to. Here, I'll say it again:
Smart hosts are good things. A host that will find a route to
the next hop in a path if it doesn't speak to it directly is a very
nice host to have.
What I object to is assuming that all hosts mentioned in the path which are
also mentioned in the UUCP database are in fact hosts which are registered
with the UUCP Project. This is simply not guaranteed.
I object to finding a route to some host _other than_ the first one mentioned
in a path, unless the first one mentioned in the path isn't reachable, in
which case I can sit quietly while you search (starting from the left) for
a host you _can_ reach. But stipping LHS hosts out of a path because you can
find them in your UUCP database is not the right thing to do.
--
Paul Vixie
Digital Equipment Corporation Work: vixie@dec.com Play: paul@vixie.UUCP
Western Research Laboratory uunet!decwrl!vixie uunet!vixie!paul
Palo Alto, California, USA +1 415 853 6600 +1 415 864 7013