mikej@dasys1.UUCP (Mike Johnston) (08/14/88)
Where can one find the X.400 "standard" documented?
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dts@cloud9.UUCP (Daniel Senie) writes:
-> There is a standard called X.400, which is the Message Handling Systems
-> standard. It allows dissimilar machines to exchange and transport mail.
I thought that was what RFC-822 was all about. Silly me.
--
Roy Smith, System Administrator
Public Health Research Institute
{allegra,philabs,cmcl2,rutgers}!phri!roy -or- phri!roy@uunet.uu.net
"The connector is the network"andy@cayuga.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) (08/16/88)
In article <3437@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes: >dts@cloud9.UUCP (Daniel Senie) writes: >> There is a standard called X.400, which is the Message Handling Systems >> standard. It allows dissimilar machines to exchange and transport mail. >I thought that was what RFC-822 was all about. Silly me. Yes, silly you. They're looking for "future" standards, not standards that have been used for many years. If it predates the vax, it doesn't count. Does anyone how Europe's bold leap into the 60s a couple of summers ago came out? (ISO was advertising an experimental mail system between dissimilar hosts, probably based on an X.400 predecessor. We stupid Americans had been doing that for years.) -andy UUCP: {arpa gateways, decwrl, uunet, rutgers}!polya.stanford.edu!andy ARPA: andy@polya.stanford.edu (415) 329-1718/723-3088 home/cubicle
jon@chiron.UUCP (Jon L. Griffeth) (08/16/88)
As I begin, I would like to state that I am neither an expert, nor
VERY well read on this subject. The following is the result of the
short period (short for what this subject requires) I spent delving
into this subject.
First, RFC 821 and 822 are industry standards. X.400 is an international
standard being produced by CCITT and ISO.
The technical specifications can be obtained from OmniCom Publications (???).
I don't currently have the address, but I may be able to locate it quickly
enough. They're somewhere in Virginia.
X.400 is actually a series of recommendations made by CCITT concerning
the format of electronic messages and their subsequent transmission.
It references numerous other recommendations and relies heavily
on the Abstract Syntax Notation 1 (ANS.1). If anyone can tell how
to obtain information on ANS.1, I'd be greatful. I seem to have missed
it in my search.
A (possibly incomplete) list of recommendations for X.400 include:
X.400, X.402, X.403, X.407, X.408, X.411, X.413, X.419,
X.420 etc. etc. etc..
In addition, you'll need recommendations X.208, X.217, X.218, X.219 and
probably a host of others. I didn't have that much time to spend on
it and eventual gave up (for now).
The 1984 release is called the "Red Book". The 1988 release, called the
"Blue Book," is not currently available (or wasn't the last time I heard,
which was about two months ago). You shouldn't expect to see it until
sometime next year. A draft version is out, but only to selected groups.
The "Blue Book" is MUCH more extensive than the "Red Book". Also, the
authors seem to have taken a perverse pleasure in making it as unreadable
as possible (in my opinion).
I had a lot of hope for X.400. However, after hearing some comments
("X.400 is the SNA of electronic mail"), I'm no longer sure.
Jon L. Griffeth
jon@chiron.UUCP
P.S. If anyone can direct me towards a GOOD book on OSI, I would
again be greatful. OSI is the basis for an international networking
standard. Anyone wanting to learn about X.400 should learn this as
well.jrmacmillan@watdragon.waterloo.edu (John R. MacMillan) (08/16/88)
In article <3611@polya.Stanford.EDU> andy@cayuga.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) writes: |Does anyone how Europe's bold leap into the 60s a couple of summers |ago came out? (ISO was advertising an experimental mail system |between dissimilar hosts, probably based on an X.400 predecessor. We |stupid Americans had been doing that for years.) Keep in mind that they don't really have much choice; if they come up with something and then "you stupid Americans" do it differently, they are essentially steam-rollered into changing. -- John R. MacMillan jrmacmillan@dragon.waterloo.edu If the universe fits, wear it. ...!watmath!dragon!jrmacmillan
rsalz@bbn.com (Rich Salz) (08/16/88)
In comp.mail.uucp (<145@chiron.UUCP>), jon@chiron.UUCP (Jon L. Griffeth) writes: >First, RFC 821 and 822 are industry standards. X.400 is an international >standard being produced by CCITT and ISO. Not quite. The TCP/IP protocol suite was developed for the Department of Defense by an independent group of scientists and researchers. No one computer vendor had any particularly strong hand in their development. The DoD suite has become an industry standard because it is a set of good, solid protocols that have been worked on by a large number of highly intelligent people. They wanted something practical, and they did many of the first implementations themselves. The analogy to the early days of Unix (V7) is striking. The ISO mail and communications standards are being defined by an international body, whose representatives are primarily the national phone companies. This is a broad generalization, and somewhat unfair, but it's good enough. Technical competence and practical solutions have not been shown to be primary concerns. /rich $alz -- Please send comp.sources.unix-related mail to rsalz@uunet.uu.net.
karl@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) (08/16/88)
jrmacmillan@watdragon.waterloo.edu writes:
Keep in mind that they don't really have much choice; if they come up
with something and then "you stupid Americans" do it differently, they
are essentially steam-rollered into changing.
How is that? RFC821 and RFC822 are dated August 1982, which predates
(I believe) X.400. Within the US, RFC822 is quoted as The Truth of
Mail Formats rather often, but it's being somewhat ignored (it seems)
by X.400 people.
Someone across the cubicle wall just speculated the X.400 constitutes
an extreme case of NIH syndrome.
Food for thought, and
open to correction,
--Karldavidsen@steinmetz.ge.com (William E. Davidsen Jr) (08/17/88)
There are several standards, and probably all will be used for at least
the next few years.
RFC822 - specifies a message content (header and text)
SMTP - a protocol for connecting two machines for text transfer.
(Simple Mail Transfer Protocol)
X.400 - another content specification
Many sites speak SMTP and RFC822, X.400 is less popular in the USA, and
I have reason to believe that there are a lot of buggy implementations
which won't talk to one another.
--
bill davidsen (wedu@ge-crd.arpa)
{uunet | philabs | seismo}!steinmetz!crdos1!davidsen
"Stupidity, like virtue, is its own reward" -meguy@gorodish.Sun.COM (Guy Harris) (08/17/88)
> jrmacmillan@watdragon.waterloo.edu writes: > Keep in mind that they don't really have much choice; if they come up > with something and then "you stupid Americans" do it differently, they > are essentially steam-rollered into changing. > > How is that? RFC821 and RFC822 are dated August 1982, which predates > (I believe) X.400. I think the problem here is that Mr. MacMillan completely misunderstood the comment from Andy Freeman: |Does anyone how Europe's bold leap into the 60s a couple of summers |ago came out? (ISO was advertising an experimental mail system |between dissimilar hosts, probably based on an X.400 predecessor. We |stupid Americans had been doing that for years.) Mr. Freeman's comment wasn't that "we stupid Americans" had somehow "steam-rollered" Europe into picking up something that we "did differently". His comment was that "we stupid Americans" had come up with a mail system that worked between dissimilar hosts, long before ISO had ever done so - in fact, the Arpanet supported this *before* the advent of RFC821 and RFC822 - and that *ISO* had "done it differently". The result may well be some "steam-rollering" to get the SMTP users to change, thus somewhat *reversing* the situation Mr. MacMillan appears to be complaining about.
barmar@think.COM (Barry Margolin) (08/17/88)
In article <145@chiron.UUCP> jon@chiron.UUCP (Jon L. Griffeth) writes: > If anyone can tell how >to obtain information on ANS.1, I'd be greatful. I seem to have missed >it in my search. I believe ANS.1 is described in X.409, "Message Handling Systems: Presentation Transfer Syntax and Notation". However, it never actually seems to use the phrase "Abstract Syntax Notation", nor the abbreviation ANS.1. Barry Margolin Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
marc@apollo.COM (Marc Gibian) (08/17/88)
Having spent some significant time working with mail systems, and most recently X.400,
I feel I need to put my two cents into this discussion.
The two major distinctions between the familiar RFC822 mail standard and X.400 to me
seems to be:
1) Technology - X.400 uses a technological approach to information exchange that is
very different from that used by RFC822. The X.400 approach is closely matched
to the facilities and concepts provided by the OSI model.
2) Functionality - X.400 defines a very robust message passing capability that addresses
the current and future needs of the computing community. It incorporates facilities
for dealing with many message contents, not just simple text, acknowledging that
mail is no longer made up on simple text. In this world of graphics, voice mail,
and complex structured documents, it is very nice to have a standard that provides
a path to providing a mail facility that permits exchange of these things.
One final comment. X.400 is complex, and not the easiest to read. But I have found it
to be one of the better on the international standards in terms of readability,
completeness, and extensibility. I look forward enthusiastically to using an
X.400 based mail system and only wish it would arrive sooner.
Marc S. Gibian
email: marc@apollo.com or marc@apollo.uucpjrmacmillan@watdragon.waterloo.edu (John R. MacMillan) (08/17/88)
In article <64445@sun.uucp> guy@gorodish.Sun.COM (Guy Harris) writes: |I think the problem here is that Mr. MacMillan completely misunderstood the |comment from Andy Freeman: | ||Does anyone how Europe's bold leap into the 60s a couple of summers ||ago came out? (ISO was advertising an experimental mail system ||between dissimilar hosts, probably based on an X.400 predecessor. We ||stupid Americans had been doing that for years.) So I did. I thought he meant "they're doing it the _same way_ we did it years ago", and felt that this was not too surprising. I didn't know that the ISO had come up with something different (which seems incredibly silly until you remember that we're talking about a committee :-) |Mr. Freeman's comment wasn't that "we stupid Americans" had somehow |"steam-rollered" Europe into picking up something that we "did differently". I think I've been misunderstood too; I didn't mean that the US actively coerces the rest of the world, merely that it is such a large user/ producer/developer/etc that the rest of the world had better go along or they'll lose out. -- John R. MacMillan jrmacmillan@dragon.waterloo.edu If the universe fits, wear it. ...!watmath!dragon!jrmacmillan
mohsen@iconnect.UUCP (Mohsen Banan) (08/18/88)
In article <145@chiron.UUCP> jon@chiron.UUCP (Jon L. Griffeth) writes: > > .... >The 1984 release is called the "Red Book". The 1988 release, called the >"Blue Book," is not currently available (or wasn't the last time I heard, >which was about two months ago). You shouldn't expect to see it until >sometime next year. A draft version is out, but only to selected groups. > >The "Blue Book" is MUCH more extensive than the "Red Book". Also, the >authors seem to have taken a perverse pleasure in making it as unreadable >as possible (in my opinion). > >I had a lot of hope for X.400. However, after hearing some comments >("X.400 is the SNA of electronic mail"), I'm no longer sure. > >Jon L. Griffeth >jon@chiron.UUCP > >P.S. If anyone can direct me towards a GOOD book on OSI, I would >again be greatful. OSI is the basis for an international networking >standard. Anyone wanting to learn about X.400 should learn this as >well. I have read a few books on the subject. My favorit is: Standards for Open Systems Interconnection. McGraw-Hill Book Company ISBN 0-07-035119-8 Authors: Keith G. Knightson Terry Knowles John Larmouth In general my problems with many books on this subject is that I don't trust them. Most often the best source is the IS standards themselves. If you are just getting started, ISO7498 (X.200) is the best starting place. My two cents about X.400: It is real. It is here now. It addresses all of today's needs and some of tomorrow's. We'll see its wide spread use in the US in early 1990s. P.S. When are the Blue Books going to be ready?
kehres@tis.llnl.gov (Tim Kehres) (08/18/88)
In article <25924@think.UUCP> barmar@kulla.think.com.UUCP (Barry Margolin) writes: : > I believe ANS.1 is described in X.409, "Message Handling Systems: > Presentation Transfer Syntax and Notation". However, it never > actually seems to use the phrase "Abstract Syntax Notation", nor the > abbreviation ANS.1. ASN.1 has evolved from 1984 X.409. The most current documents that I have on ASN.1 are ISO 8824 (DIS) and ISO 8825 (DIS). The specification of ASN.1 will no longer be part of the X.400 series of recommendations. Tim Kehres
nigel@modcomp.UUCP (Nigel Gamble) (08/18/88)
in article <145@chiron.UUCP>, jon@chiron.UUCP (Jon L. Griffeth) says: > X.400 is actually a series of recommendations made by CCITT concerning > the format of electronic messages and their subsequent transmission. > It references numerous other recommendations and relies heavily > on the Abstract Syntax Notation 1 (ANS.1). If anyone can tell how > to obtain information on ANS.1, I'd be greatful. I seem to have missed > it in my search. Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1) is part of the Presentation Layer (layer 6) of the ISO/OSI 7 layer comms. protocol stack. The relevant ISO standards are: DIS 8824 Specification of Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1) DIS 8825 Specification of Basic Encoding Rules for Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1) The corresponding CCITT document is: X.409 Message Handling Systems: Presentation Transfer Syntax and Notation (ISO documents can be obtained from the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), which is the United States member body in the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).) > P.S. If anyone can direct me towards a GOOD book on OSI, I would > again be greatful. OSI is the basis for an international networking > standard. Anyone wanting to learn about X.400 should learn this as > well. The best book I have found (from which the above information is taken) is "Handbook of Computer Communications Standards, Volume 1: The Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) Model and OSI-related Standards" by William Stallings, published by Macmillan. -- Nigel Gamble "Everything should be made as simple as possible, MODCOMP/AEG but not simpler." Albert Einstein. uunet!modcomp!nigel
bar@dpmizar.sw.Datapoint.COM (Brian Ruptash) (08/18/88)
> DIS 8824 Specification of Abstract Syntax Notation > One (ASN.1) > DIS 8825 Specification of Basic Encoding Rules for > Abstract Syntax Notation One (ASN.1) IS 8824 and 8825 are now full-fledged International Standards. IS 8824 was published on 87.12.15, IS 8825 on 87.11.15. They should be available from your ISO member body (ANSI in the U.S., SCC in Canada). IS 8824 corresponds to JTC1/SC21 N2159, and IS 8825 to N2160, so if you already have those, you can save the fortune the national member bodies charge for the final ISs printed in Geneva... > P.S. If anyone can direct me towards a GOOD book on OSI, I would > again be greatful. OSI is the basis for an international networking > standard. Anyone wanting to learn about X.400 should learn this as > well. Stallings is OK, but by far the best one I've found is "Standards for Open Systems Interconnection", by Keith Knightson, Terry Knowles and John Larmouth, McGraw-Hill, 1988 (ISBN 0-07-035119-8). These guys are all key participants in the ISO and CCITT work, representing a cross-section of all the activities, and most certainly know their stuff. There have been several tutorials produced by the ISO/IEC JTC1 SC21 working groups on their respective projects; you may want to get a hold of those as well. -- Brian
mikulska@beowulf.ucsd.edu (Margaret Mikulska) (08/21/88)
In article <20063@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> karl@triceratops.cis.ohio-state.edu (Karl Kleinpaste) writes: > >How is that? RFC821 and RFC822 are dated August 1982, which predates >(I believe) X.400. Within the US, RFC822 is quoted as The Truth of >Mail Formats rather often, but it's being somewhat ignored (it seems) >by X.400 people. > Well, how about RFC 987 (and 1026, addendum to 987) which is entitled "Mapping between X.400 and RFC822" ? Margaret Mikulska Department of Computer Science and Engineering, C-014 Institute for Nonlinear Science, R-002 University of California | ARPA : mikulska@cs.ucsd.edu | mem@inls1.ucsd.edu at San Diego | UUCP : sdcsvax!mikulska | BITNET : mmikulska@ucsd.bitnet La Jolla, CA 92093 | voice : (619) 534-1452
campbell@maynard.BSW.COM (Larry Campbell) (08/21/88)
In article <3437@phri.UUCP> roy@phri.UUCP (Roy Smith) writes: }dts@cloud9.UUCP (Daniel Senie) writes: }-> There is a standard called X.400, which is the Message Handling Systems }-> standard. It allows dissimilar machines to exchange and transport mail. } }I thought that was what RFC-822 was all about. Silly me. RFC822 is incredibly primitive. It has no provisions for encoding messages with multiple parts. It has no notion of different content types -- everything must be 7-bit ASCII. It provides no way to encapsulate a message within a message. It has no provisions for non-English messages -- you must use 7-bit U.S. ASCII, and if your language uses accented or non-Latin characters, tough. It is nearly impossible to layer a real office automation system on top of RFC822, as there is no _standard_ way to mail binary files, revisable form documents, images, etc. etc. RFC822 (nee RFC733) was OK in 1973, but by now we should be eager to toss it out and move on to something with reasonable functionality. -- Larry Campbell The Boston Software Works, Inc. Internet: campbell@bsw.com 120 Fulton Street, Boston MA 02109 uucp: {husc6,mirror,think}!maynard!campbell +1 617 367 6846
henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer) (08/23/88)
In article <1101@maynard.BSW.COM> campbell@maynard.UUCP (Larry Campbell) writes: >RFC822 is incredibly primitive. It has no provisions for encoding >messages with multiple parts. It has no notion of different content >types -- everything must be 7-bit ASCII. It provides no way to >encapsulate a message within a message. It has no provisions for >non-English messages -- you must use 7-bit U.S. ASCII, and if your >language uses accented or non-Latin characters, tough. > >It is nearly impossible to layer a real office automation system on >top of RFC822, as there is no _standard_ way to mail binary files, >revisable form documents, images, etc. etc. And it's quite impossible, of course, to *layer* a standard for such things on top of RFC822? (Of course, it's much more *interesting* to invent a new standard from the ground up, rather than adhering to silly, old-fashioned ideas like building on others' work and maintaining compatibility, but adults supposedly are capable of doing what's right, not just what's fun.) -- Intel CPUs are not defective, | Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology they just act that way. | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu
john@basser.oz (John Mackin) (08/23/88)
In article <145@chiron.UUCP> jon@chiron.UUCP (Jon L. Griffeth) writes: > P.S. If anyone can direct me towards a GOOD book on OSI, I would > again be greatful. `The Elements of Networking Style', by Padlipsky. John Mackin, Basser Department of Computer Science, University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia john@basser.oz.AU (john%basser.oz.AU@UUNET.UU.NET) {uunet,mcvax,ukc,nttlab}!munnari!basser.oz!john
andy@cayuga.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) (08/24/88)
In article <26196@think.UUCP> barmar@kulla.think.com (Barry Margolin) writes: >In article <304@pvab.UUCP> robert@pvab.UUCP (Robert Claeson) writes: >>What does an X.400 address look like? > >If you're asking what the equivalent to user@domain and >host!host!...!user is, there isn't really such a thing, since X.400 is >not a textual protocol. Both messages and the the message-transfer >protocol are binary, based on structured objects. > but this form of ambiguity is not possible in >X.400 because there is no parsing involved (except, perhaps, by the >user application used to create mail, but that's not the problem of >the mail transfer protocol). I sure hope this doesn't mean that x.400 doesn't define a canonical textual representation of addresses. I rarely use a mail system to give addresses to other people and quite often, I don't even use a computer. If x.400 addresses don't have a standard text format, they're useless for business cards, phone conversations, magazine articles, etc., and they require special handling for databases. Maybe it is time to extend 822; the conforming implementations work and its problems with non-conforming implemenations are no worse than X.400's will be. (Even if there's a PD X.400 implementation, there are a lot of people who won't run it even if you cut them off if they don't.) -andy UUCP: {arpa gateways, decwrl, uunet, rutgers}!polya.stanford.edu!andy ARPA: andy@polya.stanford.edu (415) 329-1718/723-3088 home/cubicle
jim@cs.strath.ac.uk (Jim Reid) (08/24/88)
In article <1423@basser.oz> john@basser.oz (John Mackin) writes: >In article <145@chiron.UUCP> jon@chiron.UUCP (Jon L. Griffeth) writes: > >> P.S. If anyone can direct me towards a GOOD book on OSI, I would >> again be greatful. > >`The Elements of Networking Style', by Padlipsky. Well said! Jim The inews 50% rule is a pest sometimes -- ARPA: jim%cs.strath.ac.uk@ucl-cs.arpa, jim@cs.strath.ac.uk UUCP: jim@strath-cs.uucp, ...!uunet!mcvax!ukc!strath-cs!jim JANET: jim@uk.ac.strath.cs "JANET domain ordering is swapped around so's there'd be some use for rev(1)!"
marc@apollo.COM (Marc Gibian) (08/24/88)
In article <3714@polya.Stanford.EDU> andy@cayuga.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) writes: >In article <26196@think.UUCP> barmar@kulla.think.com (Barry Margolin) writes: >>In article <304@pvab.UUCP> robert@pvab.UUCP (Robert Claeson) writes: >>>What does an X.400 address look like? >> <a number of comments and questions regarding addresses in X.400> The addresses to be used in delivering an X.400 letter are specified as X.400 Originator/Recipient names, commonly refered to as O/R names. The available variants (according to my red book, granted a bit out of date) are: variant 1: Country name Administration domain name [Private domain name] [Personal name] [Organization Name] [Organizational Unit Names] [Domain-defined attributes] Note - at least one of private domain name, personal name, organization name and organizational names must be selected. variant 2 Country name Administration domain name UA unique numeric identifier [Domain-defined attributes] variant 3 Country name Administration domain name X.121 address [Domain-defined attributes] I will not expand upon the individual fields, please look at your X.400 standard to find that information. I would observe that a lot of the details are left to the implementation of the user agent (UA), though if I remember properly everything is intended to be entered as pretty flexible text. One other note on this topic. There is a related standard, X.500, which addresses networked directory services. This is far beyond what the current RFC based mail systems can do as this provides a way to complete addresses, find addresses, and so on. The identification scheme described by the standard provides a way of generating a unique address for every item of data in the world, including people. Marc S. Gibian email: marc@apollo.com
barmar@think.COM (Barry Margolin) (08/24/88)
In article <3714@polya.Stanford.EDU> andy@cayuga.Stanford.EDU (Andy Freeman) writes: >I sure hope this doesn't mean that x.400 doesn't define a canonical >textual representation of addresses. I rarely use a mail system to >give addresses to other people and quite often, I don't even use a >computer. If x.400 addresses don't have a standard text format, >they're useless for business cards, phone conversations, magazine >articles, etc., and they require special handling for databases. Sorry, but they don't. There is nothing in X.400 regarding the user interface to the mail system, nor does it ever even mention business cards. It is a standard for communication between computers. If magazine/journal editors want to come up with a standard printed form for X.400 addresses, that is fine, but it should not be part of the computer protocol standards. By the way, I don't recall any place in RFC-822 where it specifies a representation of addresses for use on business cards, either. The user@host form is only recommended for use internally by the mail protocols; if an implementation chooses (as most have) to use it in the user interface, that's the implementor's choice, neither encouraged nor discouraged by the standard. For many years I have been using a system (a close relative to Unix) where one types "send_mail user -at domain", because we felt that it would be more appropriate to use the standard control argument syntax and also because @ is the default line-kill character. The read_mail command on this same system displays addresses in the header as "user at domain" because we feel it is a better human interface, and messages are even stored this way in mailboxes. The user@domain syntax is ONLY employed when the message is sent out over the network. Many other mail system implementors have taken the easy route of using RFC-822 as their user interface, taking advantage of the fact that RFC-822 was designed to be human-readable. I imagine that a typical mail-sending interface on an X.400 system would use a form-filling interface. It would let you fill in all the fields you know, and if you've specified a complete enough set it will then proceed to send the message. Remember, one of the goals of X.400 addressing is that you NOT be required to use computer-specific addresses, but just give an ordinary postal address (many of the X.400 designers work for European PTTs). And even if you do have to use machine addresses (for instance, until Directory Services is implemented), there is no real need for a canonical representation. A business card could say "User BARMAR on ARPANET host THINK.COM"; in fact, I expect that the old BARMAR@THINK.COM syntax might continue to be used. Someone actually sending mail would then translate that to the appropriate syntax for their system. Barry Margolin Thinking Machines Corp. barmar@think.com {uunet,harvard}!think!barmar
robert@pvab.UUCP (Robert Claeson) (08/29/88)
In article <3e0ccda9.166d8@apollo.COM>, marc@apollo.COM (Marc Gibian) writes: > >>In article <304@pvab.UUCP> robert@pvab.UUCP (Robert Claeson) writes: > >>>What does an X.400 address look like? > The addresses to be used in delivering an X.400 letter are specified > as X.400 Originator/Recipient names, commonly refered to as O/R names. > The available variants (according to my red book, granted a bit out > of date) are: Ah, thank you for that answer to my question. Now I know...