Newsgroups: bit.listserv.nodmgt-l
Date:         Mon, 25 Jan 1993 14:16:40 EST
From:         Herb <UPDATE@NAC.NETNORTH.CA>
Subject:      :internet tag errors
Comments: cc: Paul <molyski@uvvm.uvic.ca>, Mel <klassen@UVVM.bitnet>,
          Joe <jsparrow@uvvm.uvic.ca>

Hi, I have written UVIC re an 'error' message from VERNODES re the
 :internet tag (see below) and have received the following.
 Comments, suggestions, please.
Herb



=========================================================================
Date:   Mon, 25 Jan 1993 11:45:14 -0500
From:   Paul Molyski <MOLYSKI@UVVM.UVIC.CA>
Subject:      Re: node entry problem
To:     Herb <UPDATE@Nac.NetNorth.CA>
cc:     Joe Sparrow <JSPARROW@UVVM.UVic.CA>, Mel Klassen <KLASSEN@UVVM.bitnet>

                                                                        --
>>>> Both UVVMY and UVVM claim ':internet' host UVVM.UVIC.CA.

I've seen this message before and I don't see how it applies to us.

>Two  types of  misunderstandings  seem  to account  for  the majority  of
>errors. The  first one is  that if you have  two BITNET machines  (here I
>mean different  physical machines  - not aliases),  XYZ1 and  XYZ2, whose

First of all UVVM and UVVMY are not 2 different physical machines, they are
the same machine.

>users send  and receive mail via  the generic XYZ.EDU domain,  you should

We do not use our generic domain UVic.CA for mail.

>code ':internet.XYZ.EDU'  in both  entries. This is  not correct.  If you
>code a  ':internet.' tag,  you are defining  a one-to-one  equivalence of
>userids  for the  Internet  and  NJE name  and  telling  servers such  as

But this in fact correct for our site.

>LISTSERV that if  Joe@XYZ.EDU issues a GET command for  a binary file, it
>can be sent via NJE to Joe@XYZ1, for ANY possible value of 'Joe' which is
>not longer than 8 bytes. If you  have a campus mail system which shuffles
>mail  around  and sends  it  to  the  preferred  machine of  your  20,000
>registered users, it  must NOT be defined in the  ':internet.' tag unless

But we don't have such a mail system.

>ALL 20,000  users have an account  on the BITNET system  in question with
>the exact same  name. Servers just can't tell Joe@XYZ.EDU,  who also as a
>JOE@XYZ1 account, from  Jack@XYZ.EDU, who is only  reachable via Internet
>while JACK@XYZ1 doesn't exist or belongs to someone else.
>
>The  second  misunderstanding, assuming  a  BITNET  machine (typically  a
>VAXcluster) XYZ  with aliases XYZ1,  XYZ2 and XYZ3 and  Internet hostname
>XYZ.EDU,  is that  one  should code  the Internet  address  in all  three
>entries.  While it  is true  that you  do have  a one-to-one  equivalence
>between XYZ.EDU  and the various  XYZn, LISTSERV does not  do "transitive
>mapping". That is, if a user subscribes  to a list as XYZ1 and then sends
>a command as XYZ2, LISTSERV will not say "Ah, but I see that XYZ1 is also

That will not happen in our case.

>XYZ1.XYZ.EDU and XYZ.EDU,  hmm XYZ1.XYZ.EDU is not known  under any other
>name, but wait,  XYZ.EDU is also XYZ2,  so it must be  the same machine".
>LISTSERV does not  do anything recursive or anything  requiring more than
>two lookups. Nor do you want to  encourage users in your VAXcluster to be
>signed up to lists under the  individual machine names - what will happen
>when you replace  the whole cluster with two Alpha  servers next year? In
>that case  the proper  thing to  do is  to code  all addresses  under the
>cluster name, and under the cluster name only. So you would have:
>
>     :node.XYZ :internet.XYZ.EDU XYZ1.BITNET XYZ2.BITNET XYZ3.BITNET
>
>I  am appending  the list  of  incorrect entries.  Followup to  NODMGT-L.
>People who are planning to flame about the use of BITNET addresses in the
>':internet.'  tag should  read  the  list archives,  in  which they  will
>discover that there  is presently no other mechanism  for telling servers
>that nodes XYZ1 and XYZ2 are the same machine.
>
>>>> Both UVVMY and UVVM claim ':internet' host UVVM.UVIC.CA.

No user commands (or LISTSERV commands should ever come from UVVMY. It is
strictly a dummy node to allow us to run 2 different RSCSs on the same
physical machine. I think Eric did not allow for our type of situation
when the above note was written.
Comments: Gated by NETNEWS@AUVM.AMERICAN.EDU