From: ahoekstr@cs.utwente.nl (Andre D. Hoekstra)
Subject: NIS/DNS/Mail naming
Followup-To: poster
Organization: Universiteit Twente, afd. WB/WA (NOT cs)
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 09:55:59 GMT


At our group we currently have a Sparc1, a Sparc1+ and a Sparc IPX.
Chances are that this number will be steadily increasing over the next
years. Another possibility is that more workstations from other vendors
(SiliconGraphics/HP, some already present) will be integrated with the
machines of our group. Ofcourse the usual bunch of PCs is on the network
as well (IPX as NFS fileserver).

We are part of the Universtiy of Twente in the Netherlands.

The DNS-zone for the university is utwente.nl
Our faculty is Mechanical Engineering (Werktuigbouwkunde), WB for short.
The DNS zone will be wb.utwente.nl

Our group is Mechanical Automation (WA for short).
Now, throw in our three Sparcs. We will be using NIS and chose domainname
wa.wb.utwente.nl, because 1) it's a subset for all wb-machines, hence
wb.utwente.nl is not Ok, 2) wa is beneath wb in the hierarchy, hence
we tack on wb.utwente.nl.
(BTW we are (as university) on the Internet, and our faculty has its
own subnet, which contains bridges, but not routers)

But now our Network Administrator (responsible for wb.utwente.nl) does
not allow us to use mail addresses like John.Doe@wa.wb.utwente.nl, but
only ones like John.Doe@wb.utwente.nl. The way he wants to implement it
is to give every member of WB with an account on some machine in the
department an mail alias on the central mail routing machine (for
wb.utwente.nl):
  John.Doe@wb.utwente.nl: johnd@sparc1

His argument is that the professors tend to change the name of the
research group so often, which in the past has led to undeliverable
mail. The central mail routing machine does not have DNS (Hence no MX
records) and kicks all its mail upstairs to the mail exchanger for
utwente.nl. If we want to implement DNS, we have to bypass the central
machine anyway, so why have Mail aliases for our users on the central
machine (did I explain the extra difficulties of adding/removing accounts
yet?).

Because I do not understand everything about mail routing/DNS and NIS
naming I cannot convince our Network Administrator. The only thing I
can throw at his feet is that he knows nothing about Unix (and still
has to administer the central machine, running HP-UX), and that he
knows only little of what's going on on the Internet. He also knows
little of DNS (hey, he's not even running it!) so every difficulty
he encounters is solved by the people responsible for utwente.nl,
who are not aware (yet) of subdomains in wb.utwente.nl.

What I need now is one or more from the list below:
- Lots of flames telling me I'm doing it all wrong and I can have
  wb.utwente.nl as last part of the mail-address, for users in the
  NIS-domain wa.wb.utwente.nl or some other pointers in how to get
  things running
- Good, convincing reasons why our Network Administrator is wrong, 
  so I can slap him around his ears with that
- Suggestions how to do it (implementing NIS/DNS)
- Suggestions why not implement either NIS or DNS or both (but they
  offer a lot in our case)

(I think the solution of our NA with the mail aliases is silly and
will break eventually;
When I'm gone (in about a year) there probably will be no system
administrator anymore, and maintenance will have to be done by a
volunteer who cannot spend all his time on administration, so I
need to leave a system which is easy to administrate, while for 
non-usual problems help can be called in from others at our
university)

Sorry for the long posting, but it's difficult for me to state
exactly what it is what I want, because I just don't understand
everything and the FM was not of much help in getting the big
picture in our situation....

I will greatly appreciate any comments you have, preferably sent to
me by e-mail.

aTdHvAaNnKcSe,

Andre Hoekstra
-- 
There is no reason for any individual to have a computer in    | Andre Hoekstra
their home. (Ken Olson, Ex-President Digital Equipment, 1977)  | Enschede -- NL