[comp.mail.sendmail] pseudo-domains

bob@kahala.hig.hawaii.edu (Bob Cunningham) (08/30/89)

I'm interested in getting feedback on what common pseudo-domains are
genrally useful in an Internet environment with many different types
of people wanting to mail to all sorts of places that don't yet have
clean domain-style addresses [yes, pseudo-hosts can be useful, too, but
that's another story...].

Here's what I'm using (ruleset zero stuff)...

The most used pseudo-domains I have are for UUCP and BITNET.  Provided
decent relays are defined as $U and $B, that's:


R$*<@$+.bitnet>$*	$#$M $@$B                $:$1<@$2.bitnet>$3
R$*<@$+.uucp>$*		$#$M $@$U                $:$1<@$2.uucp>$3

However, I also find these useful:

R$*<@$*.vnet>		$#$M $@ibm.com           $:$1<@2>$3
R$*<@$+.hepnet>$*	$#$M $@lbl.gov           $:$1<@$2.hepnet>$3
R$*<@$+.janet>$*	$#$M $@nss.cs.ucl.ac.uk  $:$1<@$2.janet>$3
R$*<@$+.mfenet>$*	$#$M $@lbl.gov           $:$1<@$2.mfenet>$3
R$*<@$+.sdscnet>$*	$#$M $@sds.sdsc.edu      $:$1<@$2.sdscnet>$3
R$*<@$+.xerox>$*	$#$M $@xerox.com         $:$1.registry

And I'm retaining this pseudo-domain as a crutch for people who still
insist upon mailing to user@mumble.csnet instead of
user@mumble.cs.net

R$*<@$+.csnet>$*	$#$M $@$2.cs.net         $:$1<@$2.cs.net>$3

And this for people who want to type user@mumble.span instead of
user@mumble.span.nasa.gov

R$*<@$+.span>$*		$#$M $@$2.span.nasa.gov  $:$1<@$2.span.nasa.gov>$3

I've not yet figured out a general and reliable way to route mail using
a .fido pseudo-domain.

The .acsnet pseudo-domain seems to be obsolete (and, of course there are
other .au addresses, but I believe those are handled correctly with MXs):

#R$*<@$*.ACSNET>         $#$M $@$2.oz.au          $:$1

And so, I think are these, since apparently domain-style addresses (and MX
records) exist.  True?

#R$*<@$+.CDN>$*		$#$M $@relay.cs.net      $:$1%$2.CDN<@ucb.csnet>$3
#R$*<@$+.COSAC>$*	$#$M $@relay.cs.net      $:$2/$1<@france.csnet>$3
#R$*<@$+.DFN>$*		$#$M $@relay.cs.net      $:$1%$2.DFN<@ucb.csnet>$3
#R$*<@$+.JUNET>$*	$#$M $@relay.cs.net      $:$1%$2.JUNET<@utokyo-relay>$3

Bob Cunningham
Hawaii Institute of Geophysics, University of Hawaii
bob@kahala.hig.hawaii.edu

cfe+@andrew.cmu.edu (Craig F. Everhart) (08/31/89)

I'd argue that you're doing your users a disservice by maintaining the
pseudo-domains.  Toss 'em all.  Why continue with bad craziness?

Tell your insistent users (if any still insist) that you're simply
helping them get used to the real world should they want to use anybody
else's software.

None of the domains you mention has any status recognized by the root
name servers.

		Craig

bob@kahala.hig.hawaii.edu (Bob Cunningham) (09/01/89)

Thanks to many people, I can now say that the only pseudo-domains really
worth carrying are for .UUCP and .BITNET (and most domestic BITNET sites
already have equivalent domain-style addresses).


Here are the gory details:

Virtually all MFENET and HEPNET sites have domain equivalent addresses.

Ditto for SDSCNET.

IBM sites are handled though MX records (site.vnet.ibm.com).

Registered FIDO systems ditto (site.fido.org).

CSNET sites ditto (site.cs.net).

SPAN sites ditto (site.span.nasa.gov).

ACSNET systems have .au domain addresses.

CDN systems have .ca domain addresses.

JANET systems have .uk domain addresses

JUNET systems have .jp domain addresses.

COSAC is definitely obsolete, have .fr domain addresses

DFN also obsolete, have .dbp.de domain addresses.

XEROX sites have .xerox.com domain addresses.

Your trivia for today is that most DEC sites previously addressed
as site.dec.com are now site.enet.dec.com (subdomain enet for DEC
engineering; presumably there are or soon will be separate subdomains
for sales, etc.).

Bob Cunningham
Hawaii Institute of Geophysics, University of Hawaii
bob@kahala.hig.hawaii.edu

nomad@convex1.uucp (Lee Damon) (09/01/89)

In article <4710@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> bob@kahala.hig.hawaii.edu (Bob Cunningham) writes:
>Registered FIDO systems ditto (site.fido.org).

Minor correction time: site.fidonet.org not site.fido.org. Also, this will
work for ANY fidonet node - even if they aren't registered. Just
use their node number in the form fFIDONUMBER.nNETNUMBER.zZONENUMBER.fidonet.org
as in f115.n104.z1.fidonet.org for 1:104/115  or p3.f115.n104.z1.fidonet.org
for 1:104/115.3 .

nomad (hostmaster for fidonet.org)
---------------------------------                                      \
work: convex!nomad or nomad@convex.com        - Lee "nomad" Damon -     \
Marketing Computer Systems Administrator - Convex Corp.                / \
          Oxymoron of the week: "Athletic Scholarship"                /   \

hubcap@hubcap.clemson.edu (Mike Marshall) (09/01/89)

From article <4710@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu>, by bob@kahala.hig.hawaii.edu (Bob Cunningham):
> Thanks to many people, I can now say that the only pseudo-domains really
> worth carrying are for .UUCP and .BITNET (and most domestic BITNET sites
> already have equivalent domain-style addresses).
> 
> Here are the gory details:
> 
> CSNET sites ditto (site.cs.net).
> 

Nope... all csnet sites now have registered domain names, but not in the 
cs.net domain. The only hosts that use the cs.net domain are those associated 
with the CSNET Coordination and Information Center. All csnet sites (like
us) have meaningful domain names like clemson.edu.

-Mike Marshall      hubcap@clemson.edu

gandalf@csli.Stanford.EDU (Juergen Wagner) (09/01/89)

In article <4710@uhccux.uhcc.hawaii.edu> bob@kahala.hig.hawaii.edu (Bob Cunningham) writes:
>Thanks to many people, I can now say that the only pseudo-domains really
>worth carrying are for .UUCP and .BITNET (and most domestic BITNET sites
>already have equivalent domain-style addresses).

In fact, these two should be the only two left. Oh, I should also mention
that many Bitnet sites have already Internet domain names.

>CSNET sites ditto (site.cs.net).

Not all sites have names of that form. In fact, only a few have that form.
All sites on CSnet have Internet domain names with MX forwarding on an
appropriate CSnet-Internet gateway. There are lots of hosts in the .jp domain
(Japan), or in .de (West Germany), just to name two. In general, I think, it
is unnecessary to know that a particular site is on CSnet, unless you want to
try ftp or telnet.

>XEROX sites have .xerox.com domain addresses.

That's almost true. They have .xerox.com NAMES. You cannot reach any
arbitrary Xerox host from the Internet. The official mail gateways are
xerox.com, arisia.xerox.com, xait.xerox.com, and maybe a Fuji Xerox host
I don't know of. The mail system is set up in a way such that outside
people do not have to know about Xerox-internal machines.

Juergen Wagner		   			gandalf@csli.stanford.edu
						 wagner@arisia.xerox.com