From: kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy)
Subject: Re: Clearly NOT a FORGERY
Organization: Who, me???
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 1992 07:00:41 GMT

In article <1992Nov12.010902.24671@jetsun.weitek.COM> nadja@jetsun.weitek.COM (Nadja Adolf) writes:
>In article <1992Nov11.161634.7564@rotag.mi.org> kevin@rotag.mi.org (Kevin Darcy) writes:
>>In article <1992Nov11.003355.29646@jetsun.weitek.COM> nadja@jetsun.weitek.COM (Nadja Adolf) writes:
>
>>>Don't cast aspersions on drieux. He's not the one who doesn't see the 
>>>point in putting uucp connections on the map if they also run internet. 
>>>Current uucp rules still state that if it does uucp, it better be on the
>>>map. 
>
>>UUCP rules? Is that like "Usenet authorities"? Who's gonna enforce these
>>"UUCP rules"?
>
>>The purpose of having a machine in the UUCP maps is so that folks can get
>>mail to you via a short name as well as a long one, e.g. "rotag", as well 
>>as "rotag.mi.org". If one doesn't give a damn about being reachable via a
>>short name, then what incentive is there to be in the maps?
>
>Ha! If you aren't in the maps, you may not be reachable at all. 

The kind of host to which I'm referring would still be reachable using its
fully-qualified domain name (FQDN).

>Some smart mailers cut off uucp paths. 

I wouldn't call that a "smart" mailer. In fact, I'd probably get the other
sysadmin to fix his brain-dead software, if I ever saw that happening.
Additionally, if these "smart" mailers are Internet hosts, such a practice 
may very likely qualify as a violation of RFC 1123: with regard to the "local 
part" of a hybrid address (which is what the bangpath is considered, in 
Internet terms) gateways are supposed to interpret that "as necessary" to 
route the mail to its destination, and cutting off the path doesn't sound 
like it qualifies thereunder.

By comparison, do you know of any smart mailers who cut off FQDN's? If not, 
then the hosts in question are still reachable via their FQDN's, and don't 
*NEED* map entries. That was my point. With a little skullduggery on the part 
of my upstream feed, rotag.mi.org wouldn't need a map entry to get its mail 
either. But I prefer to maintain one anyway, for added reliability, and to be 
a good net.citizen. The point is, map entries are not CRITICAL for many folks' 
mail routing. So it hardly makes sense to flame people, like ncsu.edu, for 
having out-of-date map entries, or no map entries at all. What's their 
incentive to keep a complete set of UUCP map entries up to date?

>And the address you are describing (rotag.mi.org)
>is NOT a UUCP address. UUCP addresses are of the form node.uucp, or
>wolves.uucp. UUCP addresses are NOT the same as Internet, or ARPANET,
>or any other net - it's plain old-fashioned UNIX to UNIX Copy Protocol.

"Plain old-fashioned UUCP"? You mean like this:

Script started on Thu Nov 12 00:56:34 1992
/dev/ttyp0: Not owner
rotag% uux - -r heifetz.uucp\!rmail nadja@jetsun.weitek.com
bad system name: heifetz.uucp
uux failed ( 68 )
rotag% ^D
script done on Thu Nov 12 00:57:28 1992

Gee, I guess you were wrong about "<node>.uucp" being an address
comprehendable by "plain old-fashioned UUCP", huh? Surprise, surprise.

Trust me on this one, Nadja -- although both are valid addresses for the same
UUCP machine, a *lot* more mailers will be able to deliver mail reliably to 
"<user>@rotag.mi.org", than to "<user>@rotag.uucp".

>A message to a UUCP machine will frequently travel by Internet to the
>nearest UUCP gateway - and if you are on the UUCP maps, you can always
>send it via uunet.uu.net. And if you aren't, it may hop around, right
>back to the sender.

A gross oversimplification. First of all, if you're a UUCP machine, you could 
have all the map entries in the world, and STILL not be able to get mail that 
originates on Internet hosts, unless you have an MX record registered in the 
Internet DNS. Second of all, you need to carefully qualify the term "nearest", 
since pathalias costs and geographical distances have only a passing 
relationship to each other. Thirdly, "UUCP gateway" seems a rather grandiose 
term for what may be just some university lab machine sitting in a dark corner 
somewhere that just happens to have an outside phone line and a couple of 
BBS'es that call it once in a while to exchange mail. Fourthly, the attitude 
of "just send it to Uunet" is a rather irresponsible one, considering that 
Uunet gets NO cost recovery when relaying mail both to and from a non-
subscriber link or links. This is called "abuse of resources". Fifthly, it is 
not strictly necessary to be in the _public_ maps in order to receive mail 
from the Internet to a UUCP machine -- you just need to have the appropriate 
entries in the private paths database(s) of the machine or chain of machines 
between yours and the Internet. Lastly, it's rather naive to ALWAYS expect a 
bounce message when mail gets misrouted -- the brain-dead host that screwed up 
the routing in the first place often screws up the reverse routing of the 
bounce message too.

>There are some books on UUCP protocols. I suggest you read them.

Been there. Done that.

								- Kevin
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