[comp.mail.misc] MBAS flags in map entries

chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg) (05/30/91)

According to scott@skypod.guild.org (Scott Campbell):
>In article <1991May22.141737.26521@sceard.Sceard.COM> mrm@Sceard.COM (M.R.Murphy) writes:
>>How about having the MBAS not abuse its downstream sites unless they are
>>masochistic enough to accept the abuse willingly.
>
>What about a new line in everyone's map entry stating whether they will
>forward MBAS mail?

Rather, a new line that enumerates those sites and/or domains to which
the given site is willing to forward MBAS mail.  For example, the
following map entry would be reasonable for a domain gateway that
accepts MBAS mail for its domain and two neighbor sites, but not for
the site "distant":

    #N     bigcorp
    #O     Really Big Corporation
    #...
    #M     *.bigcorp.com friend buddy
    #
    bigcorp   .bigcorp.com(0)
    bigcorp   friend(DIRECT), buddy(DIRECT), distant(POLLED)

>This would mean that MBAS's would have to start getting the map files (which 
>they probably don't have, being on the internet).

Small price to pay, IMHO.  If an MBAS wants to be sociable, it has to
know who's who in society.

>Anyone that REALLY wants to get MBAS mail can update their map entry and
>convince sites upstream to do so also.

I like it.
-- 
Chip Salzenberg at Teltronics/TCT     <chip@tct.com>, <uunet!pdn!tct!chip>
          perl -e 'sub do { print "extinct!\n"; }   do do()'

mrm@sceard.Sceard.COM (M.R.Murphy) (05/31/91)

In article <28445E21.17D4@tct.com> chip@tct.com (Chip Salzenberg) writes:
>According to scott@skypod.guild.org (Scott Campbell):
>>In article <1991May22.141737.26521@sceard.Sceard.COM> mrm@Sceard.COM (M.R.Murphy) writes:
>>>How about having the MBAS not abuse its downstream sites unless they are
>>>masochistic enough to accept the abuse willingly.
>>
>>What about a new line in everyone's map entry stating whether they will
>>forward MBAS mail?
>
>Rather, a new line that enumerates those sites and/or domains to which
>the given site is willing to forward MBAS mail.  For example, the
>following map entry would be reasonable for a domain gateway that
>accepts MBAS mail for its domain and two neighbor sites, but not for
>the site "distant":
>
>    #N     bigcorp
>    #O     Really Big Corporation
>    #...
>    #M     *.bigcorp.com friend buddy
>    #
>    bigcorp   .bigcorp.com(0)
>    bigcorp   friend(DIRECT), buddy(DIRECT), distant(POLLED)
>
>>This would mean that MBAS's would have to start getting the map files (which 
>>they probably don't have, being on the internet).
>
>Small price to pay, IMHO.  If an MBAS wants to be sociable, it has to
>know who's who in society.
>
>>Anyone that REALLY wants to get MBAS mail can update their map entry and
>>convince sites upstream to do so also.
>
>I like it.
I like it, too:-)

I would suggest the following sort of syntax, since it can be processed with
exisiting software, i.e., pathalias, with a touch of sed...


    #N     bigcorp
    #O     Really Big Corporation
    #...
    #Mbigcorp   .bigcorp.com(0)
    #Mbigcorp   friend(DIRECT), buddy(DIRECT)
    #
    bigcorp   .bigcorp.com(0)
    bigcorp   friend(DIRECT), buddy(DIRECT), distant(POLLED)

This way the normal pass through pathalias makes the normal paths
file, and a pass of the map entries through

  sed -n -e 's/^#M//p'

and then through pathalias could be used to make a paths.MBAS.

The verification of a destination is then a dbz lookup of the destination
or maybe even just

  grep "^${destination} " paths.MBAS || { echo "no way, Jose"; exit 86; }

That's a tab after the brace after destination. It may look like a space,
but it's really a tab.

The current map coordinators get to do more work, but, then again,
that's what they're paid for.

There is a wry smiley applied to the last clause of the previous sentence.
(Sorry, Bill).

I think that this is a pretty minimal impact solution. It causes work for
the map coordinators, it causes work for the sites that act as MBASes, and
it causes work for the sites that are cooperative, but it spreads the work and
it uses software that is already in place. It is also flexible in that,
for example, if bigcorp didn't want to allow transfers to all of .bigcorp.com,
and wanted to be tricky, the map entry could look like

    #N     bigcorp
    #O     Really Big Corporation
    #...
    #Mbigcorp   sitea.bigcorp.com(LOCAL), <siteb.bigcorp.com>(LOCAL)
    #Mbigcorp   friend(DIRECT+FAST), buddy(DIRECT+LOW)
    #
    bigcorp   .bigcorp.com(0)
    bigcorp   friend(DIRECT), buddy(DIRECT), distant(POLLED)


The sed command could be written in a few lines of FORTRAN for the VMS folk :-)
Or COBOL ...
-- 
Mike Murphy  mrm@Sceard.COM  ucsd!sceard!mrm  +1 619 598 5874