HDTenEightyP/NetNews huggingface dataset:
From: alanb@Quality1.attmail.com
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: ATTMail to MCIMail and X.400 gateway(?)
Date: 28 Dec 1992 09:04:50 -0600
Organization: CS Dept, University of Texas at Austin
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

Greetings!

I am experiencing great difficulty in establishing e-mail communications with
a friend.  My friend's employer uses MCIMail and my Internet gateway is
through ATTMail.

My Internet address is "alanb@quality1.attmail.com" and my friend's Internet
address is in the form of "company/machine/logon%1234567@mcimail.com".

When my friend attempts to send me e-mail, he gets a bounce stating something
to the effect of "MCImail does not permit communications to ATTmail via the
Internet."

When I try sending e-mail, the problems are even worse.  My machine doesn't
support TCP-IP, so I've got to use a UUCP equivalent of his address.  If I use
the full pathname (company/machine/logon), the mail is bounced by the attmail
machine.  If I omit the pathname and just use the logon, I get the following
bounce from mmdf@MCIMail.com:

  The MCI Mial/INTERNET gateway System
  encountered the following violations:

  Delivery to MCI Mail from attmail.com
  via the Internet is not permitted.

I tried calling MCIMail for help.  They told me that we had to use an X.400
gateway in order to communicate via e-mail.  They gave me the following
information to use:

  c=us
  a=mci
  dda=ems=1234567
  dda=mbx=company/machine/logon

But, they wouldn't tell me where to find or how to use an X.400 gateway.  So,
we've hit a dead end.

Can anyone help me put together the missing pieces?  Any help would be greatly
appreciated!  Please e-mail all responses to "alanb@quality1.attmail.com" (I
don't have access to Usenet, so please use e-mail).

Thank you very much,


Alan

p.s. - "1234567" is not the real MCIMail address--it just represents a 7-digit
       MCIMail address.

Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,comp.mail.uucp
From: fenner@postscript.cs.psu.edu (Bill Fenner)
Subject: Re: Mixed format addresses
Organization: Penn State Computer Science
Date: Wed, 23 Dec 1992 21:35:55 GMT

In article <V1L9VB3w165w@willard.UUCP> dawson@willard.UUCP (Willard Dawson) writes:
|Could the MX record on a given site still be made to point to the
|true best path to the UUCP-connected site?

MX records point to hosts, not to paths.

|If the MX record for willard.UUCP were to indicate a path of
|gatech.edu!vdbsan!willard!%s, or something similar, would that not still
|route mail in the exact same way that UUNET would route mail otherwise?

The MX record would have to point to "gatech.edu".  This is where the
biggest problem arises - how do you come up with the proper Internet
host at which to point the MX record?  Note that, at least in psuvax1's
pathalias data, the route to willard is "gatech!vdbsan!willard!%s" --
no mention of any Internet sites in that path at all.  So you need to
process the maps again, looking for sites that look like they may be
Internet hosts, and then make their MX'er the closest Internet host.
This means, at least, a new pathalias-like program.

Now, the next problem:  you have to make sure that all of these machines
are actually on the Internet.  How do you know that
gatech	=gatech.edu is on the Internet, while
wcfpc   =growler.redbeard.com is not?  You can do a DNS lookup, but
there are a *lot* of records to look up... this will probably end up
putting a significant load on your system (significantly more than just
pathalias).

Ok, are we done yet?  Nope -- how do we know that the Internet site we chose
is set up properly to accept mail to .UUCP?  Just because a node is on the
Internet and is in the .UUCP pseudo-domain doesn't mean that it can route
between the two properly.  You're likely to get horribly mangled From: and
To: addresses if you just decide to pick a random site as your gateway.


A new flag in the pathalias data, noting that one is:
a) connected to the Internet
b) willing to gateway to the .UUCP pseudo-domain (maybe a radius factor --
psuvax1 might be willing to gateway to hosts less than 2 hops away, or
something)
would solve the second and third problem.  Then the only problem left
would be writing a graph-traversal program similar to pathalias but to
find the closest Internet site to each UUCP host.  If you want to
select the closest Internet gateway to each site, this turns out to be
a problem N times as big as the pathalias problem, where N is the
number of Internet gateways registered.  The pathalias data from any
particular site will not necessarily give the closest Internet
gateway.  Let's say, for example, that willard connects to psuvax1.
UUNET's path would still be gatech!vdbsan!willard, but the closest
Internet gateway would actually be psuvax1.

And, of course, the new flag would be slow to propogate into the maps, and
would have the expected problems (not getting updated, etc.).

  Bill
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,comp.unix.admin,news.admin.misc
From: chris@castlab.uucp (Christian)
Subject: Re: To kill a modem...
Organization: U of Wisconsin-Madison College of Engineering
Distribution: comp
Date: 28 Dec 92 10:08:25 CST

In article <1992Dec27.164648.28822@inso.pr.net.ch> raju@inso.pr.net.ch (Raju Varghese) writes:
>chris@castlab.uucp (Christian) writes:
>
>>Question for all you wise people-
>
>>Is there an easy way to hang up on a modem if there is more than x minutes of
>>idle time? I don't want to write a c program... it seems you could just have
>>cron do its thing every 15 minutes or so, and reset ttya if its idle > hour.
>>Any hints?
>
>My Practical Peripherals modem (which claims to be Hayes Ultra Smart modem
>9600 compatible) has a software switch (S30  to be precise) which can be
>used specifically for this purpose. The idle time can be set in tens of
>seconds. The max idle time is 255 x 10 seconds.
>
>Is this what you were inquiring about or, did I misunderstand the question?
>
>Raju  raju@inso.pr.net.ch

(Thumbing through technical manual of my Hayes Ultra 96), HOLY COW!
By god, that's exactly what I was looking for! Its perfect! Ok ok, I'm calm
now... really, this is great because I can do this directly in the modem and
not need to use a cron job (whoever it was that suggested untamo, thanks
too, but this looks like it is much easier.)

Thanks a bunch...


-Chris
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
From: tiakjung@iss.nus.sg (Chng Tiak Jung)
Subject: Lotus Notes
Summary: Internet to Lotus Notes
Keywords: Lotus Notes
Organization: Institute of Systems Science, NUS, Singapore
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 11:07:00 GMT

Does anyone know is there a way to send email from Internet to a Lotus
Notes user at Anderson Consulting?
Please reply through email - I don't read this newsgroup often.

--
Chng Tiak-Jung                               Internet: tiakjung@iss.nus.sg
Institute of Systems Science                           Phone: +65 772-6704
National University of Singapore                         FAX: +65 778-2571
Singapore 0511                       BITNET: ISSCTJ@NUSVM, CHNGTJ@NUSDISCS
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,mi.misc
From: nauen@wrair-emh1.army.mil
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: How to route mail?
Date: 21 Dec 92 23:09:02 GMT
Organization: UTexas Mail-to-News Gateway
NNTP-Posting-Host: cs.utexas.edu

Dave Hyde davehyde@tecnet1.jcte.jcs.mil writes

> Date: 17 Dec 1992 12:41:35 -0600
>
> Another net.illiterate question...no one at my end has been of any help. 
> I'm trying to get mail to a user at OTA.GOV   I'm on MILNET (at least
> that's what they tell me), I have no idea what he's on.  About the only
> thing I have for him is a username and IP address.  When I try to send
> stuff from here the mail bounces - We don't recognize OTA.  Is there some
> way I can route mail through someplace that can see both us and OTA? 
> As this is pretty specific info E-mail would help cut down traffic. 

I suspect that your host, like many in the .mil domain, has never 
installed software which can read name server records.  Address 
information is still being obtained from a HOSTS. table distributed
twice weekly from nic.ddn.mil.  For some reason the ota.gov domain has 
never registered even their primary host at NIC; therefore, it is not
in the table.  (Perhaps they don't want to hear from the military ;-^})

The long-term solution would be to update the software on your host, 
because the current situation affects all users trying to send mail 
to the great majority of (nonmilitary) hosts now in existence.  In the
meantime, you can probably solve your immediate problem by routing your
mail via one of the mail exchangers also designated for ota.gov.

For example, user%ota.gov@relay1.UU.NET

If you and/or others at your host will be communicating regularly with
ota.gov, your local staff should be able to identify it by an entry in 
a local host table prepended to the one from NIC.  (Until they get the
capability of reading domain names, that is.)

152.63.20.2     ota.gov

# DoD Internet Host Table
#  17-Dec-92
#  Version number 1201
-Address-       -Host name-
  (etc.)

Ric <nauen@wrair-emh1.army.mil>  <nauen%wrmain.decnet@detrick-emh1.army.mil>
           ^^^^^Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
        U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command
Xref: sparky comp.mail.misc:4181 comp.unix.admin:6850 comp.sys.sun.admin:9851
From: wrwalke@ddn-wms.nmi.com (William Walker)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,comp.unix.admin,comp.sys.sun.admin
Subject: Re: Microsoft Mail <-> SMTP mail
Date: 31 Dec 92 18:47:00 GMT
Followup-To: poster
Organization: Network Mgmt Inc., Fairfax, VA

In article <1992Dec28.161807.4159@i88.isc.com>, mikebo@i88.isc.com (Michael Borowiec) writes:
> HELP!
> Our PC Networking group has chosen Microsoft Mail for its wide-area
> network mail solution. As the UNIX administrator, I have been assigned
> the task of integrating Microsoft Mail and SMTP mail. Has anyone done
> this before? I've been told that, because MS-Mail uses a proprietary
> encryption scheme, my options are limited to using Microsoft's gateway
> product... does it work? How well? Are there other options?

In a former life (several years back) at PRC, we were a beta site
for Microsoft's SMTP gateway product.  Someone (who shall remain nameless
to protect family members) decided that the entire company should go 
appletalk on Mac's with microsoft mail as the mail system of choice.

i was working on the commercial side of the house with a product line
that had gone unix in '83.  we laughed at this proposition, realizing
that that which is not unix (for the most part) is DOS (purely number
of units sold, no flames please).  the MSMail products which were finally
released were quite good, and mail translations between SMTP and MSMail
were reasonable.  they even used uuencode for binary inclusions.

drop me a note if you have further questions...

> - Mike
> 

bill.

-- 

Bill Walker  -  Network Analyst  -  Network Management Inc.
bill@nmi.com                        11242 Waples Mill Rd
wrwalke@ddn-wms.ddn.mil             Fairfax, VA  22030
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc,comp.mail.elm,comp.misc
From: jfurr@nyx.cs.du.edu (JKF)
Subject: Help for setting up a mailing list
Followup-To: poster
Reply-To: jfurr@polaris.async.vt.edu
Organization: Nyx, Public Access Unix @ U. of Denver Math/CS dept.
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 92 15:11:42 GMT

My home account is on a 4.3 BSD UNIX system.  I'd like to set up a mailing
list for use by myself and about twenty other people to discuss various
stuff we want to discuss.  Yet, I have no idea how to set this up.  I have
participated in mailing lists where you mail all posts to a userid at a
site and they go out to everyone, and if you reply to a mailing-list
message, your reply automatically goes out to everyone on the list. I use
elm to read and send mail, and would appreciate it if I could set up
a mailing list that wouldn't cause problems for elm.  

Is special software required to implement this?  I'd appreciate being sent
info if anyone out there has it.  Getting another userid created to run
the list wouldn't be a problem, I suspect, but I need to know what to do. :|
From: stanley@skyking.OCE.ORST.EDU (John Stanley)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: Return-Receipt-To & forwarding...
Date: 2 Jan 1993 21:06:43 GMT
Organization: Oregon State University, College of Oceanography
NNTP-Posting-Host: skyking.oce.orst.edu

In article <davecb.726001056@yorku.ca> davecb@nexus.yorku.ca (David Collier-Brown) writes:
>  I tend to assume a normal operations secedule of backups when I
>discuss mailhubs.  

So what? Another red herring. Talk about mail, not backup schedules.

>  However, I'm discussing mail, not acts of god.  

Turning a system off is not an act of God. The same result would have
occurred had my mailhost been turned off as was the original recipient
system.

>  My operator restores the backup that cron took, and the mailer
>delivers the bounce message. Several days late.

Pay attention, Dave. Why should an operator restore a backup for a
system when the disk itself isn't damaged? Restoring from tape would
lose information -- everything that came in since the backup was done.
Or did you ignore the fact that it was a disk CONTROLLER and not a disk
that died?

Just what information do you think would make it onto a backup tape
between the time the system died and it being fixed? Mail that hadn't
yet been received certainly wouldn't make it to the backup tape. Or did
you ignore the fact that both of the recipient systems were already down
when the mail and bounce were sent? 

But, since you seem to be fixated on backups, here is a trivial example
of mail being lost, involving backups:

	Your cron program does a backup.
	Mail for one of your subsidiary systems comes in.
	That system is being backed up, sorry, can't deliver right now.
	Your system puts the mail into the store-and-forward queue.
	A "Dash-10" falls on your system.

Did the mail get to the recipient? No.
Did an error message get sent back? No.
Is that "reliable"? Hardly.

Newsgroups: comp.mail.headers,comp.mail.misc
From: davecb@nexus.yorku.ca (David Collier-Brown)
Subject: Re: Return and read receipts (was Re: Return-Receipt-To & forwarding...)
Organization: York University
Date: Sat, 2 Jan 1993 18:36:22 GMT



|In article <davecb.725911218@yorku.ca>,
| posted to comp.mail.headers,comp.mail.misc,
| davecb@nexus.yorku.ca (David Collier-Brown) wrote:
|>
|>  This assumes store-and forward, something which is getting
|>less and less poplular at time passes, and was never part of
|>the RFC world anyway. 

bruce@blilly.UUCP (Bruce Lilly) writes:
|As network topologies and sizes change, it is sometimes enlightening to review
|one's assumptions. To take another mail-related example, it used to be the
|case that a moderate number of "hops" (say two dozen) could be considered to
|be an indication of a mail loop.  [...]

Ah, good, some actual facts to discuss.

Yes, I've noticed that I've had to increase the threshold for
loop-detection because of sites as far away as New Zealand and Georgia
(in the former USR, not the U.S.), and tht does indicate more
store-and-forward connections on the periphery of the Internet, thus
supporting your position.

At the same time, I've been noticing a commensurate fall in the number
of hops to very distant sites (eg, Finland, Australia).

I interpret this as a ``two wave'' effect, with connectivity being
achieved initially via UUCP and other private-net store-and-forward
protocols, then upgrading to IP, giving ``direct'' connectivity.  I
see exactly that in the local Toronto area, with the proposal and
implementation of an IP Metropolitan Area Network...

I speculate that this is a universal phenomenon, and expect to be able
to turn down my hop-counter once the major discontinuous nets ether
join the Internet or otherwise reduce their tendancy to do
store-and-forward transport.  From comments by the victims of some of
the European networks, the Internet is gaining rapidly on the PTTs.
Certainly Canada's experience has been that x.400 and ISO
(conection-oriented) networking is less deliverable to real customers
than IP.

--dave (thanks for the light amoungst the heat) c-b
-- 
David Collier-Brown,  | davecb@CCS.YorkU.CA | lethe!dave
72 Abitibi Ave.,      | 
Willowdale, Ontario,  | York Postmaster and
CANADA. 416-223-8968  | occasional sendfail(8) consultant.
Newsgroups: comp.mail.headers
From: sdorner@qualcomm.com (Steve Dorner)
Subject: Re: Return and read receipts (was Re: Return-Receipt-To & forwarding...)
Followup-To: comp.mail.headers,comp.mail.misc
Organization: Qualcomm, Inc.
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 02:26:40 GMT

In article <1992Dec28.171751.25819@chance.gts.org>, john@chance.gts.org
(John R MacMillan) wrote:
> With return-receipt-to, a lack of response means nothing (your message
> may or may not have been delivered), and a positive response means
> there's a good chance your message was delivered, but it's my no means
> foolproof.

The positive response tells me that there is a path to and from my
addressee.  Yes, there may be bizarre gateway software that fools the
scheme; but I don't think that's all that common anymore, and it's becoming
less so.

> With read receipts the same scenario applies.  If you care, an
> automated response is not enough, and if you don't care, why bother?

That depends on what the purpose of the receipt is.  If the purpose is "If
you don't press the blue button in the next 30 seconds we're all going to
die," you're right.  However, if I want some degree of proof that my
question reached Marshall Rose, it's a different story.

> In a local authority, there's no need for a standard

This is quite entirely wrong, no IMHO about it.  :-)  Even in a local
authority, there is software that needs to interoperate, which means
standards are needed.

> probably want something much tighter than a standard could be, so that
> negative responses definitely meant something.

But if I can guarantee the integrity of my mailsystem at a given point in
time, then I have made negative responses mean something.  I think that's
doable 99.9% of the time in a small-to-medium-sized domain.  I at least
want the opportunity to try, which the lack of standards prevents me from
having.

I can certainly understand the objections.  However, people are using the
non-standard tools we now have (like Return-Receipt-To:), and they seem to
feel it's worthwhile.  Better to have a standard way of doing this, even if
we acknowledge we cannot yet perfectly implement it.
--
Steve Dorner, Qualcomm, Inc.
Newsgroups: comp.mail.headers,comp.mail.misc
From: tmetro@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu (Thomas Metro)
Subject: Re: Return-Receipt-To & Mailing lists
Organization: Venture Logic, Newton, MA
Date: Tue, 29 Dec 1992 07:57:30 GMT

Warner Losh writes:
> The biggest question about Return-Receipt-To: is what to do when a
> nieve user sends mail to a mailing list with this header in it.
This opens another can of worms.
There is a lot of automated software that can be broken by mailing lists.
What would be nice is an RFC for mailing lists.
Something that could describe the behavior of the list management
software (such as how it deals with "Return-Receipt-To:"), header
definitions (such as "Listname:" to identify the list(s) ), and some
facilities to ease the integration of mailing lists into news systems.

> It would be critical that mailing lists and such filter out 
> Return-Receipt-To:.  
The list management software should acknowledge the receipt of the message
by sending an appropriate notice, and then remove the
"Return-Receipt-To:" header before forwarding the message.

> Return-Receipt-To is a dangerous header as it stands now.  If its use
> is to be standardized, its meaning much change :-)
The temptation is there to try and use what already exists to some extent,
but there appears to be a lot of interest in something with more
functionality.

Perhaps the existing functionality of sendmail's "Return-Receipt-To:"
should be captured in an RFC, but then the idea should be extended to also
include a "Read-Receipt-To:" header (or equivalent) for the MUA. This new
header could then include added features (such as dealing with multiple
recipients).

As to the issue of whether "Return-Receipt-To:" has any value: yes, it
will be less meaningful until it is standardized and becomes ubiquitous.
But isn't that always the case with protocols?

What should happen when crossing a gateway, and there is no equivalent to
a "Return-Receipt-To:" or "Read-Receipt-To:" on the other side? Should the
gateway send an appropriate message?

 -Tom

tmetro@lynx.dac.northeastern.edu
From: dricejb@drilex.dri.mgh.com (Craig Jackson)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.headers
Subject: Re: Return-Receipt-To & forwarding...
Date: 3 Jan 93 00:43:40 GMT
Organization: DRI/McGraw-Hill, Lexington, MA
NNTP-Posting-Host: bbn.com

Here are some of my thoughts on this subject:

1. I consider the lack of a good receipt system to be a major limitation
to internet (small i) mail.

2. In snail mail, the intent of receipts is not to report that the mail
has actually been read by the intended human and comprehended.
It is instead an indication that the recipient or the 
recipient's authorized and identified agent has been made
aware of the message, and therefore the intended recipient *should have*
read it (or otherwise dealt with it).

In other words, these receipts say "We delivered this message at such-and-such
time, and so-and-so at the proper address signed for it,
so it isn't our fault if the intended recipient hasn't read it" or
"We delivered your mail to the proper address at such-and-such time, but
so-and-so refused it" or possibly "We tried to deliver your mail, but no one
could be found to accept or refuse it".

3. Most proprietary Email systems have a receipt system, with similar semantics
to the snail-mail receipts.  They also generally maintain more control
over the mail before final display than the average UNIX mail implementation,
so the receipts are fairly reliable.

4. The invasion of privacy of receipts is frequently mentioned.  However,
under the definition of (2) above, then the purpose of the receipt request is
to absolve the delivery system of responsibility and to place the onus
on the recipient.

By analogy, if an Email UA offers the opportunity for the recipient to
refuse to send the receipt back, it should also refuse to show the mail
to the recipient, and a delivery-refused indication should be returned.

5. Not all internet mail is handled in a single interactive SMTP hop.
Even Internet mail can still go through several hops via the deprecated-
but-not-eliminated mechanism of source routing, and via the tacitly-approved
"%" hack.  Therefore,  presence or absence of certain SMTP indications
does not necessarily indicate delivery to the final mail store, let alone
having been presented to the intended recipient.

6. Two other notes of the snail-mail analog:

a. One aspect of a snail-mail receipt is a signature.  A truly accurate
Email model would require a digital signature system.

b. Snail-mail receipts are nearly always extra-cost items.  I don't know
of any mechanism for modelling this in the internet environment.
-- 
Craig Jackson -- cjackson@mgh.com (Straight Internet)
dricejb@drilex.dri.mgh.com (uucp-forwarded)
{bbn,alliant,redsox}!drilex!{dricej,dricejb}