[comp.sys.amiga.datacomm] Mail addresses...which one is correct?

guy@ns.network.com (Guy D'Andrea) (05/16/91)

I have received mail many times and sometimes I do a "r" for reply while in 
mail, I get the mail back.  It got to me, why can't I send the other way?

On a simular note, I received a message in mail and saved it for later.  When
I read it, it had different names for that person. (I tried them all and only
got back the message saying it can't be delivered.

Can anyone tell me how to decifer these? 
Like "someplace!somehow! guy@uunet.uu.net" or "ad897963-dads3@somewhere.here"?

-- 
 Guy Dandrea, Network Systems Corp.                       //                 
 guy@nsco.network.com #129.191.1.1                    \\ //                  
 7600 Boone Ave No, Mpls. MN 55428                     \X/                   
 1-800-328-9108  Fax:(612)424-1736   "Me and my Amiga...anything is possible?" 

ewilts@janus.mtroyal.ab.ca (Ed Wilts) (05/18/91)

In article <1991May16.131635.19878@ns.network.com>, guy@ns.network.com (Guy D'Andrea) writes:
> I have received mail many times and sometimes I do a "r" for reply while in 
> mail, I get the mail back.  It got to me, why can't I send the other way?

This obviously isn't the correct newsgroup for your question since the amiga
doesn't have a mail utility, but I'll give you a quicky answer that may get you
started.  One of the problems with large inter-connected networks is that it
quite easy to get mail going out; you don't have to be properly registered in
the various domains to make this happen, hence you can NOT trust the return
address.  The return may be bogus, may be valid, may be fraudulent, or may have
gone some through some form of "poor man's" gateways.  If both you and the are
properly registered in the same network (eg Internet, Netnorth, etc), then you
usually don't have a problem.

> Can anyone tell me how to decifer these? 
> Like "someplace!somehow! guy@uunet.uu.net" or "ad897963-dads3@somewhere.here"?
        ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
This addressing method is likely to get you in trouble in many mailers...

> -- 
>  Guy Dandrea, Network Systems Corp.                       //                 
>  guy@nsco.network.com #129.191.1.1                    \\ //                  
>  7600 Boone Ave No, Mpls. MN 55428                     \X/                   
>  1-800-328-9108  Fax:(612)424-1736   "Me and my Amiga...anything is possible?" 

-- 
        .../Ed     Preferrred:  Ed.Wilts@BSC.Galaxy.BCSystems.Gov.BC.CA
Ed Wilts            Alternate:  EdWilts@BCSC02.BITNET    (604) 389-3430
B.C. Systems Corp., 4000 Seymour Place, Victoria, B.C., Canada, V8X 4S8

zerkle@iris.ucdavis.edu (Dan Zerkle) (05/18/91)

In article <1991May16.131635.19878@ns.network.com> guy@ns.network.com (Guy D'Andrea) writes:
>I have received mail many times and sometimes I do a "r" for reply while in 
>mail, I get the mail back.  It got to me, why can't I send the other way?

You are probably using Berkeley mail on an Unix system.  Your problem
is that the computer is not always smart enough to figure out the
proper address of the person who sent you the mail.  When someone
sends you mail, he doesn't always send his complete address, so the
mail system has to try to turn the address around.  For various
assorted reasons, it often screws up, especially if the message has to
go through several "hops" before it gets to its destination.

>On a simular note, I received a message in mail and saved it for later.  When
>I read it, it had different names for that person. (I tried them all and only
>got back the message saying it can't be delivered.

Very often, there is more than one way to get mail to some
destination.

>Can anyone tell me how to decifer these? 
>Like "someplace!somehow! guy@uunet.uu.net" or "ad897963-dads3@somewhere.here"?

Well, I don't want to give you a complete tutorial on this.  Go look
in alt.sys.amiga.uucp for Matt Dillon's posting that explains lots of
stuff about how to address mail.  If you can't find it, ask someone to
post it.  Also, ask around your local area for people that send a lot
of mail.  They will know how to do it.

someplace!somehow!guy@uunet.uu.net
Send the mail through the Internet to a very popular machine named
uunet.uu.net.  Uunet will send it through some combination of machines
to a machine named "someplace."  Someplace will connect directly
through uucp (probably a modem call) to a machine named "somehow,"
then somehow will deliver the mail to a user named guy.

ad897963-dads@somewhere.here
Send mail (probably through the internet) to some machine named
"somewhere" which is in the "here" domain.  That machine will deliver
the mail to a user cursed with the username "ad897963-dads."

If mail comes back to you, that is called a "bounce."  It means there
was some problem in delivering it, usually a reference to an unknown
machine (host).  In this case, look at the "Received:" lines in the
original message to you to determine what path the incoming message
took.  Based on this, it is possible to reverse the path and send the
mail the other way (usually).  Ask someone at your site to demonstrate
this to you.

Of course, the mail networks are so large and complicated, there are
regularly problems with them.  Sometimes, it just plain isn't possible
to send mail to someone, due to faults.  Sometimes, it's just too
complex to figure out, often when you see a Usenet post with a .UUCP
in the mail address.  This is why people should attatch signatures to
their posts giving a good email address with the name of a fully
domained (dots in the name) site in it.

           Dan Zerkle  zerkle@iris.eecs.ucdavis.edu  (916) 754-0240
           Amiga...  Because life is too short for boring computers.

jms@vanth.UUCP (Jim Shaffer) (05/20/91)

In article <1991May17.135218.8338@janus.mtroyal.ab.ca> ewilts@janus.mtroyal.ab.ca (Ed Wilts) writes:
>In article <1991May16.131635.19878@ns.network.com>, guy@ns.network.com (Guy D'Andrea) writes:
>> I have received mail many times and sometimes I do a "r" for reply while in
>> mail, I get the mail back.  It got to me, why can't I send the other way?
>
>This obviously isn't the correct newsgroup for your question since the amiga
>doesn't have a mail utility,

Tell that to my A500.  (I agree about the newsgroups, though.)

--
*  From the disk of:  | jms@vanth.uucp		     | "You know I never knew
Jim Shaffer, Jr.      | amix.commodore.com!vanth!jms | that it could be so
37 Brook Street       | uunet!cbmvax!amix!vanth!jms  | strange..."
Montgomery, PA 17752  | 72750.2335@compuserve.com    |		     (R.E.M.)

rick@tmi.com (06/03/91)

In article <1991May17.135218.8338@janus.mtroyal.ab.ca>, ewilts@janus.mtroyal.ab.ca (Ed Wilts) writes:
> In article <1991May16.131635.19878@ns.network.com>, guy@ns.network.com (Guy D'Andrea) writes:
>> I have received mail many times and sometimes I do a "r" for reply while in 
>> mail, I get the mail back.  It got to me, why can't I send the other way?
> 
> This obviously isn't the correct newsgroup for your question since the amiga
> doesn't have a mail utility, [...]

Ah, but you're wrong, Laser Lips.  8-) The Amiga does indeed have a mail
utility, but it's not written by CBM.  I refer, of course, to Matt Dillon's
UUCP system, complete with UUCP, Netnews, _AND_ mail.  Works fine, lasts a
long time.

>> Can anyone tell me how to decifer these? 
>> Like "someplace!somehow! guy@uunet.uu.net" or "ad897963-dads3@somewhere.here"?
>         ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
> This addressing method is likely to get you in trouble in many mailers...

Yes, it can.  I'll explain.  A path (address) containing "!" characters (we
call them "bangs") describes a path from system to system that is used by the
uucp (Unix-to-Unix-CoPy) program.  The first path above says that the message,
somehow must get to "someplace" then to "somehow" and from there it goes to
uunet.uu.net and into the mailbox of some user named "guy".  This path is
called "mixed mode", since it uses the bang path and an Internet-style domain.
Most mailing programs have major problems using mixed mode addresses.

The second path above is merely an Internet-style domain address.  It assumes
that your software knows how to send a message to "somewhere.here" (it looks
it up in a map database and builds a bang path to get it from point A to
point B, but you never see that happen.  It's "magic".)  Once it gets
to "somewhere.here", it goes into the mailbox of user "ad897963-dads3" on
that system.

If you look at my .signature below, you'll see two different addresses, one
for the system here at the office (tmiuv0!rick) and one for the Unix box
(and eventually my A3000, that is the xyclone!sysop address).  The first line
of the address is the uucp bang path, which assumes that you know how to get
a message to the system "uunet".  The second line has the equivalent Internet
domain address.

This really belongs in the comp.mail group.  But, you knew that already.

> 
>> -- 
>>  Guy Dandrea, Network Systems Corp.                       //                 
>>  guy@nsco.network.com #129.191.1.1                    \\ //                  
>>  7600 Boone Ave No, Mpls. MN 55428                     \X/                   
>>  1-800-328-9108  Fax:(612)424-1736   "Me and my Amiga...anything is possible?" 
> 
> -- 
>         .../Ed     Preferrred:  Ed.Wilts@BSC.Galaxy.BCSystems.Gov.BC.CA
> Ed Wilts            Alternate:  EdWilts@BCSC02.BITNET    (604) 389-3430
> B.C. Systems Corp., 4000 Seymour Place, Victoria, B.C., Canada, V8X 4S8
 
.--------------------------------------------------------------------------.
|[- O] Rick Stevens                                                        |
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|  V                (rick@tmi.com)              (sysop@ssssc.com)          |
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|                                                                          |
|           "If it's stupid and it works, it ain't stupid!"                |
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