[comp.mail.misc] determining domain type

larry@sgistl.SGI.COM (Larry Autry) (10/22/87)

I have noticed different suffixes in the mail addresses on the net. Some are
.COM, and others are .UUCP.  What are the different suffixes and domain types?
I have seen other suffixes besides the two mentioned.

					Larry Autry

					larry@sgistl.SGI.COM
-- 
Larry Autry,  Silicon Graphics, Inc.,  St.Louis, (314)232-2877
larry@sgistl.SGI.COM
...{decwrl,allegra,sun,adobe,ucbvax,pyramid,ames}!sgi!sgistl!larry

billw@killer.UUCP (Bill Wisner) (10/23/87)

There are, basically, two groups of top-level domains. The first are pretty
obsolete, and are simply the name of the network that machine is on. The site
I'm posting this from, killer.UUCP, is on USENET exclusively. Similarly,
foo.ARPA denotes an ARPA Internet site, and foo.BITNET means that the machine
is on bitnet.

Domains now are more descriptive. The "real" type of domain is something like
sgistl.SGI.COM -- the machine is sgistl, it is at SGI, and SGI is a COMpany.
Other top-level domains are .EDU for Universities (EDUcational institution)
and .ORG for organizations. Foreign sites use the country abbreviation for
the top-level domain, i.e. .UK for the United Kingdom. The big advantage
with this type of site domain name is that it is the same regardless of how
many networks a machine is on; a message sent to aramis.rutgers.edu is likely
to arrive whether send from a UUCP-only site with smail or an Internet-only
site with sendmail.
-- 
Bill Wisner, HASA 'A' Division		..ihnp4!killer!billw
"It's the coarse feel of the rope that I don't like."

pdb@sei.cmu.edu (Patrick Barron) (10/23/87)

In article <5533@sgistl.SGI.COM> larry@sgistl.SGI.COM (Larry Autry) writes:
>I have noticed different suffixes in the mail addresses on the net. Some are
>.COM, and others are .UUCP.  What are the different suffixes and domain types?
>I have seen other suffixes besides the two mentioned.

The current list of top level domains is (at the moment):

  .COM  -  Commercial organizations
  .EDU  -  Educational institutions
  .GOV  -  Government organizations
  .MIL  -  Military sites
  .NET  -  Network administration sites
  .ORG  -  Other random "organizations" that don't fit in any other domain

plus, the ISO country codes (like .UK, .AU, etc.) are top-level domains
for the associated countries.

The .ARPA domain is a temporary top-level domain for old ARPANET/MILNET
sites who haven't converted to the domain system yet.  There is no such
thing as the .UUCP domain (at least, as far as the root nameservers are
concerned);  it is a "fake" domain that some mailers happen to know how
to deal with.

--Pat.

forys@sigi.Colorado.EDU (Jeff Forys) (10/25/87)

In article <1885@killer.UUCP> billw@killer.UUCP (Bill Wisner) writes:
> Foreign sites use the country abbreviation for the top-level domain,
> i.e. .UK for the United Kingdom.

Quite correct, given that you are looking at the address from the "domain
system" point of view (which, I'm sure you are).  However, all the world
is not the same!  If you step into the United Kingdom their top level
becomes "UK.".  The NRS decided to use names like "UK.AC.Ucl.Cs" (note the
reverse order).  While this makes for more work in gateways between the
two systems, the result is *almost* always transparent to the end user
(i.e. under our "domain system", you would still use "Cs.Ucl.AC.UK").

Just adding a little dirt to the clear water...  :-)
---
Jeff Forys @ UC/Boulder Engineering Research Comp Cntr (303-492-4991)
forys@boulder.Colorado.EDU  -or-  ..!{hao|nbires}!boulder!forys

billw@killer.UUCP (10/25/87)

Me:
>> Foreign sites use the country abbreviation for the top-level domain,
>> i.e. .UK for the United Kingdom.

Jeff Forys:
>Quite correct, given that you are looking at the address from the "domain
>system" point of view (which, I'm sure you are).  However, all the world
>is not the same!  If you step into the United Kingdom their top level
>becomes "UK.".  The NRS decided to use names like "UK.AC.Ucl.Cs" (note the
>reverse order).

But then, the original question came from someone within the US.

One way of looking at it might be that those screwy Brits decided to futz
things up again :-), and change the definition of "top level".. to them,
perhaps the top level logically comes first, while to us yanks top leve
should be at the end. Or, maybe these are just the crazed midnight ramblings
of someone who really doesn't know what he's talking about.

Yes, that seems likely.
-- 
Bill Wisner, HASA "A" Division		..{codas,ihnp4}!killer!billw
"It's the coarse feel of the rope that I don't like."

randy@oresoft.UUCP (Randy Bush) (10/26/87)

forys@boulder.Colorado.EDU (Jeff Forys) writes:
>The NRS decided to use names like "UK.AC.Ucl.Cs" (note the reverse order).

When I first discovered the UK reversal, I was a bit confused.  Now, I am used
to it, like driving on the other side of the road.  But why is it done this
way?

Also, I have been getting to %uk...% by the CSnet relay.  We are getting a
uunet account.  How will that change the way I get to UK sites?
-- 
randy%oresoft.uucp@tektronix.tek.com                     FidoNet:1/105/6
randy%oresoft.uucp%tektronix.tek.com@relay.cs.net        1+(503) 245-2202

dipto@umbc3.UMD.EDU (Dipto Chakravarty ) (10/26/87)

Another confusing question --

I received a mail from user%opus@mucocs.cs.mcgill.ca
Now I can't get to send a successful reply to the 
person. Any advice/wisdom will be appreciated. Thanks
in advance

Dipto Chakravarty	     dipto@umbc3.umd.edu.ARPA
Univ. of Maryland	     dipto@umbc2.umd.edu.BITNET

verber@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu (Mark A. Verber) (10/26/87)

I just thought I should point out that the NIC is currently
restricting .gov to be only federal government.  I suggested that they
extend the .gov to include state and local government since they have
no where else to logically register but was turned down.  It can also
be noted that the NIC discourages the use of .org.

Cheers,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Computer Science Department			         Mark A. Verber
The Ohio State University			 verber@ohio-state.arpa
+1 (614) 292-7344				  cbosgd!osu-cis!verber

rajaei@ttds.UUCP (Hassan Rajaei) (10/26/87)

>the top-level domain, i.e. .UK for the United Kingdom. The big advantage
>with this type of site domain name is that it is the same regardless of how
>many networks a machine is on; a message sent to aramis.rutgers.edu is likely
>to arrive whether send from a UUCP-only site with smail or an Internet-only
>site with sendmail.

I like to believe that. It is really nice to see it actually works on all
nets interconnected to each other. But the big problem is that many gateways,
network routing tables/databases still do not recognize this kind of address-
ing. That means you have to route explicitly through some gateway.

Hassan Rajaei
rajaei@ttds.tds.kth.se

lamy@utegc.UUCP (10/26/87)

The world has been partitioned in a number of top-level domains, and
absolute addresses are defined in relation to these domains.  As of this
writing, top-level domains include at least

au 	Australia            	 jp 	Japan
ca 	Canada               	 kr 	Republic of Korea
ch 	Switzerland          	 mil	Internet Military
com	Internet Commercial  	 net	Internet Networks
de 	West Germany         	 nl 	Netherlands
edu	Internet Educational 	 org	Internet Organizations
fi 	Finland              	 se 	Sweden
fr 	France               	 uk 	United Kingdom Network
gov	Internet Government  	 us 	Internet Unites States
il 	Israel	

Until the transition to network-independent domains is complete, the following
pseudo top-level domains are often seen.  Their purpose is to allow the
specification of addresses independently of the actual route:

arpa	DARPA Internet                	irl	Irish Research Network
bitnet	Because It's There Network  	isanet	Iceland
cdn	Canadian Research Network	mailnet	EDUCOM Network (dead)
cern	CERN, Switzerland		mlnet	University of Western Ontario
chunet	Swiss University Network	osiride	Italian Research Networks
csnet	Computer Science Network	oz	Australian University Network
dfn	German Research Network	   	sunet	Swedish University Network
dunet	Danish University Network	surfnet	Netherlands Research Network
funet	Finnish University Network   	uninett	Norwegian University Network
iris	Spanish Research Network	uucp	Unix Network

Jean-Francois Lamy                     lamy@ai.toronto.edu, lamy@ai.utoronto
AI Group, Dept of Computer Science     lamy%ai.toronto.edu@relay.cs.net
University of Toronto, Canada M5S 1A4  {uunet,watmath}!ai.toronto.edu!lamy

forys@sigi.Colorado.EDU (Jeff Forys) (10/28/87)

In article <86@oresoft.UUCP> randy@oresoft.UUCP (Randy Bush) writes:
> When I first discovered the UK reversal, I was a bit confused.  But why
> is it done this way?

I had heard that the NRS decision to use reverse ordering (*) was made
independent of the "domain system" draft.  Rumor has it that the NRS
originally planned to use underscores, where we spec'd dots!  They were
later persuaded to change the underscore, but wouldnt budge on the order.

> Also, I have been getting to %uk...% by the CSnet relay.  We are getting
> a uunet account.  How will that change the way I get to UK sites?

I cant see that it will make a difference (provided your mailer knows
what's going on).  You should send mail to your "postmaster" to be sure.
Again, the gateways handle the reversal, so you need not worry about it.

(*) Of course, "reverse order" depends on which side you look at it.  :-)
---
Jeff Forys @ UC/Boulder Engineering Research Comp Cntr (303-492-4991)
forys@boulder.Colorado.EDU  -or-  ..!{hao|nbires}!boulder!forys

sjl@eagle.UUCP (10/30/87)

Summary:
Expires:
Sender:
Followup-To:

If you want to reach the uk from uucp you go through ukc. We will gateway it
onto JANET (the uk network for you. What is more you don't even need to worry
about our *stupid* domain ordering problem, we sort that out as we. So to mail
a uk site either

	..!ukc!site.ac.uk!user
or
	user%site.ac.uk@ukc

will work. If not mail postmaster@ukc and I will try and sort it out.

	sean

lubich@ethz.UUCP (10/31/87)

Please note that the Swiss University Network CHUNET has changed it's
top level domain name from 'chunet' to 'ch' to conform with the table
of 2-character country codes. The network name is still CHUNET, however.
The domain 'chunet' has never been approved by the NIC but 'ch' is.
Cheers
	--HaL

-- 
~ UUCP/Usenet   :   {known world}!seismo!mcvax!cernvax!ethz!lubich
~ CSNET         :   lubich%ifi.ethz.ch@relay.cs.net
~ ARPA          :   lubich%ifi.ethz.ch@csnet-relay.arpa                
The usual disclaimer : No, it wasn't me, somebody must have used my account.

david@ukma.UUCP (10/31/87)

In article <1907@killer.UUCP> billw@killer.UUCP (Bill Wisner) writes:
>One way of looking at it might be that those screwy Brits decided to futz
>things up again :-), and change the definition of "top level".. to them,
>perhaps the top level logically comes first, while to us yanks top leve
>should be at the end. Or, maybe these are just the crazed midnight ramblings
>of someone who really doesn't know what he's talking about.


well, if you think about it ...

their scheme is more usable.  For instance ... a list of domain names
will sort into the proper order ...  

Of course, if this discussion goes on too long I'll post that
RFC entitled --- On Holy Wars, or A Plea for Peace.
-- 
<---- David Herron,  Local E-Mail Hack,  david@ms.uky.edu, david@ms.uky.csnet
<----                    {rutgers,uunet,cbosgd}!ukma!david, david@UKMA.BITNET
<---- I thought that time was this neat invention that kept everything
<---- from happening at once.  Why doesn't this work in practice?

billw@igloo.UUCP (Bill Wisner) (11/13/87)

David Herron responds to an earlier article from yours truly:

>well, if you think about it ...

>their scheme is more usable.  For instance ... a list of domain names
>will sort into the proper order ...  

I always viewed it as being rather similar to which side of the road you
drive on. And your statement depends highly on what you consider the proper
order.. but enough of that.

>Of course, if this discussion goes on too long I'll post that
>RFC entitled --- On Holy Wars, or A Plea for Peace.

Mail that one to Mark Ethan Smith.
-- 
Bill Wisner				..{codas,ihnp4}!ddsw1!igloo!billw
"I don't mind at all.." -- Bourgeois Tagg