[ne.news] bu name change and smail patch

tower@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Leonard H. Tower Jr.) (11/15/89)

In article <3115@husc6.harvard.edu> nemap@harvard.harvard.edu (New England UUCP Mapping) writes:
|
|**** buita is no longer a uucp site ****
|
   ...
|
|If you are running smail/pathalias, you will need to obtain a patch to
|smail2.5 that will deal with the '.' in the UUCP hostname.
|
   ...
|
|	thanks, -jj

The patch is appended.  

enjoy -len 

PS: Thanks to Jeff for a great job helping out with this transistion.

Path: bu-cs!mirror!necntc!dbd
From: dbd@necntc.nec.com (Dave Davidian)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: smail 2.5 patch for a dotted hostname
Date: 8 Nov 89 21:54:05 GMT
Date-Received: 9 Nov 89 00:23:51 GMT
Organization: NEC Electronics Inc.  Natick, MA 01760
Keywords: re-posted here from comp.sources.bugs
Follow-ups: comp.mail.uucp


	SMAIL 2.5 PATCH FOR A DOTTED HOST NAME

I am posting this smail 2.5 patch for all to use as appropriate.

I am making no claimes as to whether there should or should not be a
"." in a host name. However, this patch works.

The source of this patch is from cs.utexas.edu and was forwarded from
bu.edu to urartu.sdpa.org (which talks to bu.edu) and was subsequently
tested for several days.

note: the paths file entry for such a case would be:

xy.edu	xy.edu!%s	#which would make smail abort or revert to a
			#smart-host if in domain format (if you are
			#lucky)
	
				- - -

The problem, as I understand it, is that smail 2.5 wants to treat a
dotted UUCP hostname (such as cs.utexas.edu or bu.edu) as a domain and
not a host.  And it apparently must resolve addresses to a host
and not a domain before it will deliver.  I think smail 2.5 is broken 
in this regard. 

RFC976 is ambiguous on this.  However, Mel Pleasant and the UUCP Project
have officially blessed dotted UUCP names such as ours.  I doubt
that any future software will have this restriction (and I know that
smail 3+ does not).

Here's a patch which we hand out to all our smail 2.5 peers.


*** headers.c.old	Fri May 27 09:19:59 1988
--- headers.c	Fri May 27 09:27:50 1988
***************
*** 148,153 ****
--- 148,161 ----
  			return(UUCP);
  		}
  
+ 		{
+ 		char path[SMLBUF];
+ 		int cost;
+ 
+ 		if(getpath(domain, path, &cost) == EX_OK)
+ 			return(UUCP);
+ 		}
+ 
  		if(partv[parts-1][0] == '\0') {
  			partv[parts-1][-1] = '\0'; /* strip trailing . */
  		}



-- 
David Davidian	              |		dbd@necntc.nec.com	
			      |		..harvard!necntc!dbd
Facts are facts, in my        |		dbd@urartu.sdpa.org
employer's opinion.	      |		..bu.edu!urartu!dbd