lauren@RAND-UNIX.ARPA (08/20/84)
From: Lauren Weinstein <vortex!lauren@RAND-UNIX.ARPA> I'd like to clarify the issues of uucp sitename length a little. Various versions of uucp have different rules for name truncation. Some use 7 chars (the majority) some use 6 (some System V uucp's--this was apparently an error that crept into a major distribution) and some don't truncate at all since they use separate directories for every site. These variations cause substantial compatibility confusion in some situations, but they can usually be worked out. For the purposes of sitename registration, the UUCP Project considers that sitenames must be unique in the first 6 characters (to deal with those "broken" System V uucp's) in order to be registered. However, sitenames may be LONGER than 6 chars (or even 7 chars) so long as they remain UNIQUE in the first 6. So, for example, "microsoft" is OK, even though it is 9 characters long--some software simply truncates the name. Eventually, under a domain-based system, many of the name uniqueness restrictions (for the domain-based addresses) will probably be lifted, though the underlying site transport name will still need to meet uniqueness restrictions to allow full intersite compatibility. --Lauren--
aps@decvax.UUCP (Armando P. Stettner) (08/22/84)
Lauren (and other net'ers), Although I can understand the problems that the name registry effort must be going through, I see no *good* reason to limit the name length to 6 characters because USG broke (or something) uucp. I feel that 7 has been the accepted limit for sometime and I suspect that some people feel that is too small. aps.
honey@down.FUN (code 101) (08/23/84)
There is no reason whatsoever to limit host names to six or even seven characters. However, if you are running a Seventh Edition based version of uucp, and if the first seven characters of your host name match the seven character prefix of some other host, you will not be able to talk to one another, nor to a common neighbor running Seventh Ed. code. (The effect of the USG six character mistake is left as an exercise.) My favorite version of uucp (scheduled for release this fall) allows 14 character host names without any of these problems. Peter
lauren@RAND-UNIX.ARPA@vortex.UUCP (08/26/84)
From: Lauren Weinstein <vortex!lauren@RAND-UNIX.ARPA> As it turns out, the problem of long (> 6 or > 7) sitenames in the UUCP's that allow such names (when talking to other software that doesn't) can be fixed by clever additions of multiple sitename entries in the appropriate tables. However, it should be noted that the UUCP project plans to insist on 6 char uniqueness in sitenames for the immediate to middle future. Once again, this is UNIQUENESS, not absolute length. The problem of truncated sitenames is not going to go away. In fact, on some OS's for which UUCP's are about to become available, the directory organizations which could allow for longer sitenames simply are not practical. The number of UUCP's running on these systems might quickly outnumber all other UUCP versions combined, which means that truncation (in this case at 7 characters) will be present for a very long time to come on a very large number of sites. A necessary evil on many small systems. --Lauren--
donn@utah-cs.UUCP (Donn Seeley) (08/26/84)
From: Lauren Weinstein <vortex!lauren@RAND-UNIX.ARPA> As it turns out, the problem of long (> 6 or > 7) sitenames in the UUCP's that allow such names (when talking to other software that doesn't) can be fixed by clever additions of multiple sitename entries in the appropriate tables. However, it should be noted that the UUCP project plans to insist on 6 char uniqueness in sitenames for the immediate to middle future. This already would send my old workplace down the tubes. All the machines there are named sdchem[a-z] and depend on 7-character uniqueness to distinguish them. They've had these names for years. Do they suddenly fail to conform to the 'standard' because some NEW UUCP can't distinguish the sitenames? Even if existing sitenames which require 7-character uniqueness are permitted, why should new sites need a more stringent standard? It strikes me as unfair, especially when (as Lauren notes) work-arounds can be found for troublesome sites. I doubt Lauren means to be unfair here, but I really think the directory should be more liberal. I suggest that we either allow arbitrary-length sitenames and let the individual sites with routing problems decide how to handle them, or at worst settle for the (existing) 7-character standard. The site directory could if necessary flag entries that cause problems for known versions of UUCP (e.g., a site has 7 letters in its name, a site is not unique in 7 letters, a site has upper case in its name, this site can only handle 6 character unique sitenames, and so on) and the requisite routing software on each machine could then make decisions about how best to get mail where it needs to go. Does that sound reasonable? Donn Seeley University of Utah CS Dept donn@utah-cs.arpa 40 46' 6"N 111 50' 34"W (801) 581-5668 decvax!utah-cs!donn
lauren@RAND-UNIX.ARPA (08/27/84)
From: Lauren Weinstein <vortex!lauren@RAND-UNIX.ARPA> Unfortunately, it is not up to me to decide how long sitenames should be, I only implemented the decisions of the project, which is the ONLY group (thanks partially to our modest funding by Usenix) that has any chance of organizing the network and allowing uucp sites to meet the requirements necessary for inclusion as an Internet domain. Existing sites with longer sitenames have problems, and we are encouraging them to change their names if possible--many have already done so or are in the process of doing so. The 6 char bug is very unfortunate, but has already spread to enough sites that we need to live with it for the time being. The problem of longer sitenames CANNOT be avoided by sites that THEMSELVES are not capable of having a longer sitename. For example: a site running software that allows a 14 char sitename can communicate with sites running shorter sitenames. If they are dealing with a site that truncates their name (like "microsoft", which shows up as "microso") the 14 char site can simply enter "microso" in their tables. This will allow communications, but might still cause problems with mail addressed to microsoft! vs. microso!. This, unfortunately, isn't too easy to deal with, and the people in charge of the new software that allows 14 char names have so far resisted my suggestion that a table entry be present to indicate the extent to which other sites truncate their names (which would be, as far as I can see, the "best" solution). The problem is much worse for the "normal" site (let's say with a 7 char sitename max) that tries to communicate with sites named foobar11 and foobar12. In practice, it is impossible for them to deal with this situation, since uniqueness does not appear until the 8th character, and no table entries of any kind are going to help. The long-term hope is that domain organization will help relieve some of the naming problems, though the current decision is to try ensure that all sites have the theoretical ability to set up direct connections with any other site. Any other outcome could result in uneconomical routings being forced simply because of naming conflicts. The situation is complex and confusing, but we're doing our best to make some sense out of it. Personally, I would have preferred to put the name limit at 7 instead of 6, but I was outvoted on this issue. Further discussions of these issues should probably be directed to the Usenet uucp discussion groups and mailing lists which have been designated for such purposes. Thanks much. --Lauren--
honey@down.FUN (08/30/84)
It is not a "NEW UUCP" that gives the six character sitename problem, it's an old one: the one shipped with System V (releases 1 and 2). Fortunately, future releases of System V will have a version of uucp that corrects this horrible mistake. Peter