dave@utcsrgv.UUCP (Dave Sherman) (08/02/83)
Well, I sure have learnt something since posting my "gripe about the
way people sign articles". Seems like a LOT of people out there don't
have any kind of a path finder. So my *real* gripe is, why not?
I'm not blaming any individual for not having it, now. But
surely, in this day and age and with the size of the net at what it
is, it's time for us to think about mechanisms for ensuring that
mail can find its way around the net without human beings havings to
sit down with a map or list and figure out paths by hand. I've discussed
this by private mail with a couple of people, and it seems to me that
ideally there should be a backbone site somewhere which can maintain
the "official" list of connections; perhaps mail which fails for lack
of a path could automatically trigger a request of that system to supply
the correct path name (and requests in net.wanted with "path wanted" in
their header would automatically be answered:-). A news reader who
wanted to know a path could request that information by mailing to
backbone!pathfinder (assuming he knew the path to backbone), and
would get an automatic reply by return mail. Note that I said "ideally";
I've got a feeling that's not going to happen soon.
What SHOULD happen is that some path finding program should be
distributed as part of uucp, news, or whatever, and the various people
around the net who maintain databases of connections on their own
machines should co-ordinate efforts. I'm sure net.sources could tolerate
a (say) semi-monthly posting of the "official" connections list, in a format
usable by whatever pathfinder people want (I use nmail). Furthermore, using
the 'r' key in readnews should pass only the final site name and user name
(e.g., "utcsrgv!dave") to the mailer, and the mailer should be a pathfinding
mailer by default. (I *never* use the 'r' key now - it's always "!mailto
site!user" [mailto is our local name for nmail].)
In the meantime, I've given up and gotten myself a .signature. Sigh.
Dave Sherman, Toronto
--
{linus,cornell,watmath,ihnp4,floyd,allegra,utzoo,uw-beaver}!utcsrgv!daveteus@mcvax.UUCP (Teus Hagen) (08/04/83)
Signatures can be wise to give hints to the replier. But I prefer it
should be automated. So I need not to patch that in my mail reply.
To mail back via the path the news came to me is silly (a lot of hops,
but perhaps fast).
Via the sendmail included lines in the header we can descover some
path which is fast and not a lot of hops. There is a possibility to
rerout mail to the best path.
The pieces are around to automate rerouting via some statistics input.
It is possible to provide the rerout statistics automatically on the net.
Ideas?
Teus Hagen Math Centrum {decvax,philabs}!mcvax!teuspiet@mcvax.UUCP (Piet Beertema) (08/04/83)
..... What SHOULD happen is that some path finding program should be
distributed as part of uucp, news, or whatever, and the various people
around the net who maintain databases of connections on their own
machines should co-ordinate efforts. I'm sure net.sources could tolerate
a (say) semi-monthly posting of the "official" connections list,
in a format usable by whatever pathfinder people want ....
Such an "official connections list" is in fact already being distributed
monthly by Karen & Mark Horton, viz. in the form of a Usenet map.
It's quite easy to retrieve a pahtnames database from that. The only
major problem with it is that MANY US sites still don't seem to have
Europe map, you can what it should look like. So may we urge every site
to supply this information (to ..!cbosgd!uucpmap), so everyone can build
an up-to-date and reliable database.
Another thing about avoiding long pathnames: using the database it would
be a good idea to put a router AFTER mail & news; I've seen a reply
article crossing the Atlantic twice, passing through 15 sites, where
6 would have done.
--
--
Piet Beertema
Mathematical Centre, Amsterdam
...{decvax,philabs}!mcvax!piet