jbs@mit-eddie.UUCP (04/10/87)
In article <149@4gl.UUCP> honzo@4gl.UUCP (Honzo Svasek) writes: > I am working on a gateway Usenet <-> Fidonet, and like to know > what type of addressing this gateway should accept according > to the Usenet communitie. > > Honzo.Svasek@333.500.FIDO > In order to conform to the standards, this should be: Honzo.Svasek@333.500.FIDO.NET > This is totally in line with current Usenet practice, but might > need a registration of the domains. (And I hate filling in > registration forms (Any Volunteers :)). I'll fill out the forms; you pay the $150/year (1/4 a :-)) > > The other way (quick and dirty) would be > > mcvax!4gl!FIDO!500_333!Honzo.Svasek > > but this would prevent getting the mail to the nearest fido > gateway (there must be more people interested in providing > such a service). > > Comments please! The syntax you should use is: ...!4gl!333.500.FIDO.NET!Honzo.Svasek since this would be compatible with how mail would be addressed (in the envelope) under the domain scheme. 4gl should recognize that it is processing a FIDO-bound message by the FIDO.NET at the end of the hostname. What you need to do: Get the person who maintains the map entry for the UUCP machine 4gl, and get them to add a line like this to their map entry: 4gl .FIDO.NET($COST$) Where you would replace "$COST$" with one of the standard UUCP map link cost values (e.g. HOURLY, DAILY, etc.) indicating how expensive it is to get the message from 4gl into FIDONET. Then they should send their uucp map entry to uucpmap@cbosgd.ATT.COM. If there are any other FIDONET gateways on uucp, they should also send such an line to their map entries (and send in their updated entry) Once this is done, mail would then be routed from UUCP hosts to the nearest (to the sender) FIDOnet gateway. I don't know the specifics of FIDONET topology, but if the subnets are organized according to low-cost communications (i.e. local calls), it makes sense to also put in a line like: 4gl .500.FIDO.NET($COST$) (again, replace $COST$ with a valid UUCP cost). With lines like this for each UUCP->FIDO gateway (indicating which FIDO subnet it talks to--if it talks to more than one, you'd have more than one such line), the mail will be routed via UUCP to a UUCP->FIDO gateway on the same subnet as the destination address, if one exists, otherwise to a general UUCP->FIDO gateway (one with a .FIDO.NET($COST$) line) closest to the sender. The next step is to apply to register your domain. Having the domain registered will extend FIDO mail accessiblilty to the Internet (including the ARPAnet, the MILNET, CSnet, etc.). It will also guarantee you exclusive use of the FIDO.NET name, preventing someone else from 1) using it and screwing you up or 2) registering it and forcing you to give it up. Hope this answers your questions. Jeff Siegal
plocher@hobbes.UUCP (04/12/87)
+---- In article <149@4gl.UUCP> Honzo Svasek writes: | | How to address a Fido node! | =========================== | | I am working on a gateway Usenet <-> Fidonet, and like to know | what type of addressing this gateway should accept according | to the Usenet communitie. +---- The unofficial standard already in use (by Bob Hartman, John Galvin, and others) is to use the following address syntax: ...uucppath!uucpgateway!Fidogateway!NET!NODE!USER_NAME Propogation from the Fido gateway to non-local nets *must* be up to the sysop of the Fido gateway! ie. in Madison, WI, the sysop of 'circle' (aka 121/0) will only propogate mail to machines within net 121. He can not send email to other nets (long distance) unless they make arrangements to poll him for their mail. His address as currently implemented and functioning is: ...rutgers!uwvax!uwmacc!hobbes!circle!121!0!John_Galvin This syntax leaves inter-net mail delivery up to the Fido gateway admin; the uucp node hobbes never worries about it. This gets a bit unwieldy for people wanting to send email to Fido. They must remember the uucp path, the uucp name of the Fido node (circle), the Fido net number of that node (121), and the node/name of the recipient (0!John_Galvin). It might be better for the Fidonet gateways to be known to Usenet by their net numbers instead of a fanciful name like 'circle'. Thus the address would be: ...rutgers!uwvax!uwmacc!hobbes!121!0!John_Galvin This leaves the inter-net mail delivery up to the admin of hobbes. Mail delivery then would depend on the Unix gateway calling up the receiving fidonet gateways when mail was waiting for them. ...rutgers!uwvax!uwmacc!hobbes!1!0!FidoNews ...rutgers!uwvax!uwmacc!hobbes!121!10!Joe_Blow ...rutgers!uwvax!uwmacc!hobbes!132!42!Georgette_Public The problem, you see, is that FidoNet is not really a store-and-forward network like Bitnet and Usenet/uucp. The FidoNet is more of a wide area network where each node can comunicate directly with any other node, albeit with quite a bit of delay built into the system. If there was some way of setting up a node which would act as a clearinghouse for email, then every node (or hub) could poll it for mail on a daily basis. In this case, the address: uucppath!FIDO!121!0!John_Galvin would work out for everyone. Just as 'psuvax1' is the uucp <=> BITNET gateway, 'FIDO' could be the uucp <=> FidoNet gateway. Alternitively, some uucp site could maintain the FIDO domain as a second level domain under UUCP: John_Galvin@0.121.FIDO.UUCP This site would have a database of those uucp sites which were acting as uucp <=> FidoNet gateways, and route the email to the appropriate gateway. John_Galvin@0.121.FIDO.UUCP -- would become -- John_Galvin%0.121.FIDO@hobbes.UUCP (or some such) Hope that this hasn't been too long... :-) BTW, the link between hobbes and circle is based on uuslave and a set of utilities to integrate News and email into the _familier_ Fido message areas. These utilities are almost ready for distribution, send email to me if you are interested. -- John Plocher UUCP: <backbone>!uwvax!uwmacc!hobbes!plocher ============== Internet: plocher%hobbes.UUCP@uwvax.WISC.EDU FidoNet: 121/0 BITNET: uwvax!uwmacc!hobbes!plocher@psuvax1
gore@nucsrl.UUCP (Jacob Gore) (04/12/87)
>> I can imagen the following: >> >> Honzo.Svasek@333.500.FIDO > [...] > > I see the addressing working like this: > > user_name@NODEn.NETn.ZONEn.FIDO.NET or > Tim_Pozar@NODE406.NET125.ZONE1.FIDO.NET > > This takes care of two problems. > 1] Smart mailers could route to the nearest Fido Gateway. > 2] If additional areas get added (such as POINTs) it can be added > with out screwing up the gateway. The whole beauty of Internet addresses (as I see it) is that they hide the networking details. What network(s) is "prep.AI.MIT.Edu" on? (That's a rhetorical question (:-)) "Smart" mailers can figure out how to send to a host without having a network name inplanted into the address. It would be nice if Fido hosts could fit into this scheme. Jacob Gore Northwestern University, Computer Science Research Lab {ihnp4,chinet}!nucsrl!gore
taylor@hplabsc.UUCP (04/13/87)
A lot of people seem to be confused about how to address different systems
that have different address notations (e.g. Fidonet). I've seen suggestions
that range from having each part of the Fido address being a different
``hostname'' (e.g. gateway!node!net!user), ones that suggest .FIDO should
be a top-level domain (joe@44.24.FIDO), that should be a second-level
domain under .ORG (joe@44.24.FIDO.ORG) and a second-level domain under
.UUCP (!) (as in joe@44,24.FIDO.UUCP).
Well . . . . As Tim Pozar pointed out in his message on this subject,
there are a number of existing standards that need to be considered,
not only on OUR end (e.g. RFC-822, RFC-976, etc), but on the other
end too, on the FIDO systems. As he pointed out, the Fido system is
most likely going to be changing to a point and zone address
notation since TJ never anticipated it catching on this well and
crushing the original addressing scheme.
So what does this all mean? It means that:
1. All fidonet gateways should speak the same address format for mail
TO fidonet (and from Fidonet too, but that's a subject we haven't
talked about much yet in this group). This address should allow for
future expansion of the Fidonet system and be a legal set of domains
in the UUCP/ARPA world.
2. Since the conceptual model of Fido addresses is a heirarchical domain
system (e.g. local-user/local-host-number/host-network) (or something
like that) it is needlessly confusing to change the notation to appear
to be a series of hostnames (e.g. gateway!host-network!local-host-num!user).
This is a *BAD* scheme...
3. The existing heirarchical system is designed to have a *very* small
number of different top-level domains (including .COM, .EDU, .MIL, and
.ORG). One of the existing domains is ".NET" and is meant to denote
a gateway to a different network. For example, the CSNET gateway for
the ARPA Internet is at "RELAY.CS.NET". There is *NO* reason why
we shouldn't fit in with this scheme (e.g. .FIDO.NET) and this not only
means we're compatible, but that the routing software (e.g. smail) will
know what to do with mail to Fidonet (it will, correctly, send it to the
'cheapest route' Fido gateway on the system).
4. As far as the individual node addresses and all, I strongly agree with
Tim that we need to identify WHICH PART of the address each part is.
So this means that, for example, his address is:
Tim_Pozar@NODE137.ZONE65.FIDO.NET
and we let the local mail system route the mail appropriately. (Cheap
plug: the Elm system supports the "domains" database too, so you can
have a simple one-line entry to allow users to directly type in this
sort of address and have it routed as needed!)
I think that the other existing Fido gateways are great, but that we really
DO need to at least keep a consistent addressing format.
-- Dave Taylor
ps: I don't think we should have a "FIDO" host - we do *NOT* want to tie
the entire network into having a single gateway, do we??fair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU.UUCP (04/14/87)
In the referenced article, Jacob Gore <gore@nucsrl.UUCP> writes: > >The whole beauty of Internet addresses (as I see it) is that they hide the >networking details. What network(s) is "prep.AI.MIT.Edu" on? (That's a >rhetorical question (:-)) > >"Smart" mailers can figure out how to send to a host without having a network >name inplanted into the address. It would be nice if Fido hosts could fit >into this scheme. I agree wholeheartedly, however, the other people working on the gateway software don't agree with me. Among the problems with the idea is that the existing hostnames from the FidoNet nodelist will not work on the UUCP network or the ARPA Internet, which means that each FidoNet host would have to pick a new name within the rules imposed by the UUCP network and ARPA Internet. Somehow, I can't see all 1,500 sites doing this unless it's forced on them from outside. So for the moment we're stuck doing things with the net/node numbers... Erik E. Fair ucbvax!fair fair@ucbarpa.berkeley.edu
jbs@mit-eddie.UUCP (04/14/87)
In article <18304@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> fair@ucbarpa.Berkeley.EDU (Erik E. Fair) writes: >In the referenced article, Jacob Gore <gore@nucsrl.UUCP> writes: >>The whole beauty of Internet addresses (as I see it) is that they hide the >>networking details.[...] >[...]Among the problems with the idea >is that the existing hostnames from the FidoNet nodelist will not work >on the UUCP network or the ARPA Internet, which means that each FidoNet >host would have to pick a new name. The existance of a working, transparant, bidirectional, gateway between UUCP and FidoNet (is that the correct capitalization?) would allow, but not require, any FidoNet host to register with UUCP for both a domain and a map entry. Such a gateway would translate low-level (i.e. bang format) UUCP addresses into Fido addresses. In a sense, FidoNet would become part of UUCP, similar to the way notes sites exist on Usenet. Jeff Siegal
pozar@hoptoad.UUCP (04/14/87)
In article <3380002@nucsrl.UUCP> gore@nucsrl.UUCP (Jacob Gore) writes: >>> I can imagen the following: >>> >>> Honzo.Svasek@333.500.FIDO >> [...] >> >> I see the addressing working like this: >> >> user_name@NODEn.NETn.ZONEn.FIDO.NET or >> Tim_Pozar@NODE406.NET125.ZONE1.FIDO.NET >> >> This takes care of two problems. >> 1] Smart mailers could route to the nearest Fido Gateway. >> 2] If additional areas get added (such as POINTs) it can be added >> with out screwing up the gateway. > >The whole beauty of Internet addresses (as I see it) is that they hide the >networking details. What network(s) is "prep.AI.MIT.Edu" on? (That's a >rhetorical question (:-)) > >"Smart" mailers can figure out how to send to a host without having a network >name inplanted into the address. It would be nice if Fido hosts could fit >into this scheme. > I forgot one more reason to add the domain name to the front... 3] A RFC (which on was it Erik?) stated that domains must lead off with a alpha charicter, not a number. Fido hosts are not the culprits here. It is how the Net(fido) is structured and how the gateway is implemented. Here is a question to your question. Where do these two pieces of mail go? user_name@10.2.135.FIDO.NET or user_name@10.101.2.FIDO.NET The first could go to point10, node2, net135, and the second could go to node10, net101, zone2. The problem is that a "2" could be a zone, net, node, or point (and now someone proposed even regions and hubs as seperate levels!) How can smart mailers parse this when I can't? If I receive the first address I would asssume that he wants it to stay in the United States (zone 1) since zones haven't gone over the one digit numbers yet. Are writers of smart mailers going to write all of the possiblities into their mailers? Doubtful. Having the explicit name for the level of each domain can be parsed much cleaner. What we're trying to do is have UUCP mailers handle fido mail and fido mailers handle uucp style mail. The two systems are not entirely different, but they are significantly different to need to use each other a little different to insure the flow of mail.
hsu@santra.UUCP (04/15/87)
> user_name@NODEn.NETn.ZONEn.FIDO.NET or > Tim_Pozar@NODE406.NET125.ZONE1.FIDO.NET How about user_name@f1.n504.z358.FIDONET ? >in time, there is a group of UUCP and Fido people on a mailing list called >"spot-m@hoptoad.UUCP". If you are interested in participating in this sort add me on list, please, +--------------------+ ! hsu@santra.UUCP ! ! hsu@fingate.BITNET ! ! Fido 504/1 ! +--------------------+
david@ukma.UUCP (04/16/87)
Folksies ... please correct me if I'm wrong. In article <1589@hplabsc.UUCP> taylor@hplabs.HP.COM (Dave Taylor) writes: >3. The existing heirarchical system is designed to have a *very* small > number of different top-level domains (including .COM, .EDU, .MIL, and > .ORG). One of the existing domains is ".NET" and is meant to denote > a gateway to a different network. For example, the CSNET gateway for > the ARPA Internet is at "RELAY.CS.NET". There is *NO* reason why > we shouldn't fit in with this scheme (e.g. .FIDO.NET) and this not only > means we're compatible, but that the routing software (e.g. smail) will > know what to do with mail to Fidonet (it will, correctly, send it to the > 'cheapest route' Fido gateway on the system). The .net domains are supposed to be for the control centers of other networks. The only machines under .cs.net are those at the csnet-relay site. No others. I believe that would follow for other networks as well. Fido won't fit well with the current scheme. A large number of the machines are in foreign countries, so would easily fit into some subdomain of that countries' domain. ('cept, some of those countries have no existing organization using those domain names yet .... this could be *real* interesting..). Other machines are home personal machines, some are owned by some business, etc. For all but home/personal machines, there are existing domains which the machine can fit into. Remember, domains aren't supposed to imply routes. But putting everybody on Fido into ".fido.net" (for instance) would be exactly that. The meta-lesson is that rfc920 doesn't work in the general case, and that usenet/fidonet are close to the general case. -- ----- David Herron, cbosgd!ukma!david, david@UKMA.BITNET, david@ms.uky.csnet ----- (also "postmaster", "news", and the Usenet map maintainer for Kentucky.) ----- /*EOF
mark@cbosgd.UUCP (04/16/87)
You can't just create a top level domain name like .FIDO, or even a 2nd level domain name like .FIDO.NET. You have to get the registrar of the parent domain to agree to it. You'll never get the NIC to create a top level FIDO domain, and they own the root. They also own NET and ORG, but their position on these is less clear. The NIC is strongly opposed to physical network based domains like user@host.UUCP and user@host.ARPA. Since user@host.FIDO.NET is just a subterfuge to get the same effect, I suspect they won't allow it either. Certainly you don't see CSNET members with addresses like Ohio-State.CS.NET; the CS.NET domain is there for the use of CSNET owned machines, not CSNET members. FIDO.ORG is a concept that might fly, after all, FIDO is an organization and all the proposed subdomains are members of the organization. Also, UUCP is putting hobbyists who want domains in 3rd level domains under ORG (the typical hobbyist pays only $20/year for the domain when they go through a "hobby park", which is typically a local UNIX User's group - interested organizations should contact the UUCP Project at cbosgd!stargate!uucp-query, interested hobbyists should go through your local group or form one.) FIDO is really a separate large network, and as such many of their members are likely to also belong to some other network, either today or eventually, and to conduct business on their net. The danger of using FIDO.ORG is that any member who joins another network (or wants a commercial address under .COM somewhere to appear professional to business clients) may find themselves not wanting to be under FIDO.ORG. If the transport mechanism (FIDO) and the domain (FIDO.ORG) are so closely married in all the implementations, this may be difficult to solve. It's a gotcha lurking down the road, and I urge FIDO to consider it carefully. Others have pointed out that the domain used must be registered or it doesn't count, and that the RFC's forbid domains beginning with digits. (This last restriction came as a surprise to me - we've already registered 3Com.COM and they're working fine, then someone pointed out the RFC. It's currently under investigation, and it might turn out that leading digits are OK.) In any case, one obvious solution is to stick a standard letter in front: 310/100 becomes f100.f310.fido.org, for example (I hope I have this right.) Mark Horton Managing Director, the UUCP Project
pozar@hoptoad.UUCP (04/18/87)
In article <5022@santra.UUCP> hsu@santra.UUCP (Heikki Suonsivu) writes: > >How about > user_name@f1.n504.z358.FIDONET ? > Fine by me. Is f = node and n = net? I would only complain about not having "rememberable" mnemonics. Tim -- Tim Pozar UUCP pozar@hoptoad.UUCP Fido 125/406 USNail KLOK-FM 77 Maiden Lane San Francisco CA 94108 terrorist cryptography DES drugs cipher secret decode NSA CIA NRO IRS coke crack pot LSD russian missile atom nuclear assassinate libyan RSA