CSvax:cak (09/21/82)
Arpa addresses are centrally administered to a point -- if you're strictly on the Arpanet, the address is just your IMP number (as maintained by DARCOM) plus the host port on that IMP that you talk to. The numbering of networks is also centrally administered, but once you claim a network number, you can assign hosts on it any way you please. At the moment, the folks at the Network Information Center at SRI maintain a central database of all the hosts on the Internet; as the nameserver services come up, this will probably go away. We could probably claim a class B address from the Internet, and adminster the 16 bits of host number as we pleased, but I don't see the point! First off, those numbers are really only meaningful if you speak the Internet Protocol; secondly, you still want names to map onto those numbers, which should, of course be unique. So we're back to the same problem of trying to keep a new uucp site from using a non-unique name. Cheers, Chris Kent, Purdue CS
grg (09/21/82)
The point about organizational addressing is good, especially since inside organizations are the large links which support high speed long distance transfers. The only problem is that everyone would have to re-name their machines, and this may go against internal conventions. Geographic conventions seem like loosers, but a data base in which names could be bound to sites would be helpful. Greg Guthrie Bell Labs Naperville, Ill (312)979-7303
mark (09/21/82)
There is no need to rename existing sites, although it is possible. Thus, while cbosgd could be found at d.osg.cb.btl.uucp, it could just as easily be known as cbosgd.osg.cb.btl.uucp, or even cbosgd.btl.uucp . Depending on how you think of things, the site name could be either cbosgd (the leftmost name) or the full path (cbosgd.btl.uucp). Sort of like deciding whether I work for "Bell Laboratories" or "Bell Laboratories, 6200 E. Broad St, Columbus, Ohio, 43213". They didn't rename the company when Zip Codes were invented.