murakami@m.cs.uiuc.edu (03/01/89)
ihnp4 was powered down in Feb. 1989. To some people, this represents
the end of a chapter of computer history when email pioneers provided
electronic mail with free and friendly service (liberty and justice?)
for all.
There is some thought of donating ihnp4 to the computer museum in Boston.
At the request of Doug Price (postmaster, att), I am posting the following
outline of a previous talk on ihnp4 and email (speech and puns not included).
Hopefully this includes some useful information and bits of interesting
history.
I was glad to play a part in improving electronic mail. "Hello" and
"so long" to the many friends that I've met on this adventure, and thanks
for all the fish.
Gary J. Murakami
AT&T postmaster emeritus
--------------------------------------------------------ihnp4!gjm (09/24/88)
The History of ihnp4 and
The Growth of the Email Network
Gary J. Murakami
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
uiucdcs!murakami
murakami@cs.uiuc.edu
AT&T Bell Laboratories
research!gjm
gjm@research.att.com
ihnp4!gjm
gjm@ihnp4.att.com
Chicago Electronic Mail Conference
September 24, 1988
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1. Mail_Foundations
1700 B.C., Job 9:25
"Now my days are swifter than a post;
they flee away, they see no good."
500 B.C., Cyrus of Persia, Herodotus
"Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor gloom of night
stays these couriers from the swift completion of
their appointed rounds ..."
posts "posta" (Italian)
posts one day's journey apart
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2. Mail_History
1680 London, William Dockwra
charge, 1 english penny
1692 New York City - Boston
Boston Post Road -> U.S. Highway 1
1693 Boston, Richard Fairbanks
1737 Philadelphia, Ben Franklin, postmaster
1798 Portland, ME to Savannah, GA, 40 days
-> 1839, 8 days
1836 Rowland Hill, flat rate, penny paid by sender
(receiver previously charged by distance)
1839 Pony Express, East cost to St. Louis
12 mph, 3x charge
1847 Stamps in U.S.
1858 Street mailboxes
1860 Pony Express, St. Joseph, MO to Sacremento, CA
ended Oct. 1861, $5 -> $1/ounce
fastest trip 7 days 17 hours
1864 Mail sorted on train
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3. Early_UNIX_mail_at_Bell_Laboratories
1979- mail (1)
UNIX V7, Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ
UUCP - UNIX to UNIX copy
usend - IBM RJE network
nusend - NSC HYPERChannel (1982)
1979 UUCP - UNIX to UNIX copy
D. A. Nowitz, M. E. Lesk,
A Dial-Up Network of UNIX Systems,
in UNIX Programmer's Manual, Seventh Ed., 1979
transport - uuxqt rmail
queuing - /usr/spool/uucp
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4. UCB_Mail_and_ARPANET
1982- SMTP
J. Postel,
Simple Mail Transfer Protocol,
RFC821, Network Information Center,
SRI International, Menlo Park CA, 1982
1982- UCB Mail, delivermail
Kurt Schoens (Berkeley Mail)
D. H. Crocker,
Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet Text Messages,
RFC822, Network Information Center,
SRI International, Menlo Park CA, 1982
Mail - user agent
delivermail - routing/delivery agent
aliases
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5. AT&T_Corporate_Electronic_Mail_Project
Gary J. Murakami
1982- email --> paper mail
opr -mail
print paper mail, delivery to office
1982- post(1) name server
Mike Lesk, Ruby Jane Elliot
address email by people names
1982 Corporate Electronic Mail project
computer originated mail to all recipients
post (1)
Mail (1 UCB), mailx
sendmail
opr -mail
corporate database
electronic addresses
office addresses for paper mail
(output bin, local printer)
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6. ihnp4_and_Action_Central
Gary J. Murakami <ihnp4!gjm>
1982 ihnp4 installed, Naperville, IL
"Indian Hill Network Processor #4"
1982 Historical UUCP meeting
Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ 4/82
HoneyDanBer (HDB) UUCP initiated
Action Central announced
1982 Action Central - Bell Labs UNIX Registry
centralized UUCP information
ihnp4, fix hourly "prank" phone call
dialcode conventions
chicago 9= chicago 9=1312
AT&T internal machines fully connected
$10,000,000 savings/year
1988 ihnp4 "deinstalled"
powered-down 02/89
6-7 years of service
computer museum donation?
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7. Netnews_and_USENET
1982- netnews
A news - UNC (N. Carolina)
B news - M. R. Horton
ihnss, Bell Laboratories, Naperville IL
batching, DBM(3) indexed history
1983 USENET (netnews network)
backbone organized
increased UUCP load
large queues, slow large dir search
execution bottleneck
very long mail paths for replies
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8. HoneyDanBer_UUCP
1983- HDB UUCP
Peter Honeyman <allegra!honey>
Dave Nowitz <attunix!dan>
Brian Redman <harpo!ber>
connection improvements
Devices - multi-network
Dialers - chat scripts
queues - directory per host
uuxqt - per host performance, security
Permissions - improved security
lockfiles - improved (PID in lockfile)
DBM(3) indexed Systems file
Larry Auton <clyde!lda>
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9. Domains_and_sendmail
1983 domains, gateways, other networks
P. Mockapetris,
Domain Names - Concepts and Facilities,
RFC882, Network Information Center,
SRI International, Menlo Park CA, 1983
ARPANET, CSNET (ucbvax, seismo)
BITNET
1983 sendmail (UCB)
Eric Allman,
SENDMAIL - An Internetwork Mail Router,
in UNIX Programmer's Manual,
4.2 Berkeley Software Distribution, 1983
configuration - rewriting production language
domain routing
transport interface
route optimization
aliases
SMTP
queuing
complex, incomprehensible
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10. Pathalias
1984 pathalias - email route generator
Peter Honeyman, Steven M. Bellovin,
PATHALIAS or The Care and Feeding of Relative Addresses
paths host!user -> path!host!user
domains host.domain!user domain!user
gateways
arpa .gov, .csnet
ulysses .homer.att.com(0)
media media:path
NET-DK = { ihnp4 ... }
via-dk NET-DK(DEDICATED+HIGH)
ihnp4 via-dk:(0)
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11. Mapping_and_Routing
1984 UUCP Mapping Project - pathalias input
M. R. Horton, K. Summers-Horton, and B. Kercheval,
Proposal for a UUCP/USENET Registry Host,
in Proc. Summer USENIX Conference, Salt Lake City, 1984
1985 transport addresses
UUCP Project
unambiguous
host!domain!user
1985 smail
M. R. Horton
"simple" domain routing/delivery agent
1985 upas
D. Presotto,
Upas - A Simpler Approach to Network Mail,
in Proc. Summer USENIX Conference, Portland, 1985
routing/delivery agent
regular expressions
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12. Other_email_developments
1983 netword - ECOM (U.S. Post Office)
email -> paper mail
defunct
1985 pathparse
P. Honeyman, P. E. Parseghian,
A Parser for Electronic Mail Addresses,
in Proc. Winter USENIX Conference, Dallas, 1985
disambiguate problematic routes
e.g. down!bruce@asburypark
graph traversal
1986- ATTMAIL
commercial email service, paper mail
UUCP compatible, inter-networked
MCI MAIL (not UUCP compatible)
1987- NNTP - Netnews Transfer Protocol
1987- C News - efficient batch processing
1987 UUPC - UUCP for PCs (home computers)
increased growth of the UUCP network
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13. ihnp4_configuration
hardware (approximate)
AT&T 3B20S
16 dialin modems (8 external/8 internal)
2 dialout ACUs
16 Datakit(R) TY lines (in/out)
1 Datakit multiplexed host interface
dialout modem pool
1 RJE link 19.2 Kbps
1 NSC HYPERChannel interface
ihnp4 software configuration
post, Mail
HDB UUCP
sendmail
local domain handling
AT&T host optimization
name server escape
path/media routing
post name server
make - autoconfig
addresses
path ihnp4!system!user
domain ihnp4!host.domain!user
name ihnp4!gary.j.murakami
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14. ihnp4_statistics
capacity
50 MB/day UUCP traffic
50 MB/day (n)usend traffic
O(100) hosts queues/day
O(1000) jobs-messages/day
netnews neighbors
67 news
55 att (4 non-IH)
3 backbone (1 att)
7 chicago
1 other (stolaf)
email neighbors
2486 all
1870 att (AT&T)
536 ext (non-AT&T)
57 nsc (HYPERchannel)
1233 dk (Datakit VCS)
432 asp (RJE network)
1279 cor (internal dialup)
1815 acu (external dialup)
1302 nac (Action Central)
16274 paths (pathalias routes)
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15. Other_experiments_at_ihnp4
1985 UUCP Transport Interface
network library interface (e.g. NSC NETEX, TLI)
1985 distributed UUCP
Portable Distributed UNIX (PDU)
network file system
ihnp1, MYNAME=ihnp4
Datakit mux interface
mkdir, uudemon.hour rmdir problems
(SVR3 mkdir system call fix)
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16. Email_Vision
networks
UUCP persistence - UUPC on micros
internet - expanded, FDDI
global fabric - COLAN, ISDN
minimize store and forward hops
email software
smail/pathalias
upas/pathalias
addresses
bang persistence
some progress toward domains
commercial services
UUNET
attmail
news
centralize
commercial BBS (e.g. well)
single news server
network file system
continued growth
scaling problems
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