[comp.mail.misc] Pilot Project: Hosts Table To Be Available Over Internet

bernstei@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu (Dan Bernstein) (10/19/89)

As a pilot project, we are going to make available to the Internet a
hosts table. Please note that this project is not an official project of
The Ohio State University.

Sites with reliable name server access should not need this table.

To reduce network load we plan to distribute the table in stages. If you
administer an FTP site or would like to help distribute the table in other
ways, type ``telnet 128.146.1.5 5555'' and fill out the questionnaire.
We hope to organize distribution within a week and prepare the FTP sites
in a few days.

The hosts table is compiled from public information only, by automatic
methods; approximately 96% of its information was culled from the Domain
Name Server system. For the moment we will not accept changes, additions,
or corrections to the table. The hosts table will remain reasonably static.

As of October 18, the table contains over one hundred thousand Internet
addresses and host domain names. It uses several megabytes of disk space.
The Internet is estimated to have between 120,000 and 150,000 hosts, so
the table is reasonably complete. However, we do not guarantee accuracy,
reliability, or completeness.

Mail any lengthy comments to this address. If you complain about the
operation of the table, make sure to suggest something better.

---Dan Bernstein, brnstnd@acf10.nyu.edu, bernstei@hpuxa.ircc.ohio-state.edu