From: dawson@willard.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: Mixed format addresses
Date: Mon, 14 Dec 92 07:35:44 EST
Organization: Willard's House BBS, Atlanta, GA -- +1 (404) 664 8814

Again, I'm not for a minute claiming that DNS is bad, nor am I attempting
to tell you (that's the generic, plural you, BTW) that it doesn't have
some very nice properties.  I am trying to tell you of some problems I've
had due to failed mail.  Failure to find a route for delivery of mail,
when routes do indeed exist, point to limitations in the software.

I propose that a solution to routing mail could be arrived at that has
a higher degree of success than is currently the case with either DNS
or pathalias routing alone.

Blindly screaming "DNS has this, this, and that, so it must be better"
doesn't do much for me.  Comparisons against alternative routing techniques
are helpful.  It's a shame that the best we can seem to come up with for
such comparisons is pathalias.

zbig@wariat.org (Zbigniew J. Tyrlik) writes:

> > Easier for whom to update?  You (who are on the Internet)?  Those whose
> > only connection is by UUCP?  Why can we not have a system that is easy
> 
> Either you do not understand DNS, or are simply joking. For a site
> which is uucp only connected, and has a FQDN, it is enough to set
> it once forever... done.

Ok.  How, then is this different than registration in the UUCP mapping
project?  For each site for which you agree to forward mail, you must
re-edit your configuration file.  That corresponds exactly to the update
process for the UUCP maps, meaning that for each new connection, a forward-
ing site should send in one update.

So, perhaps that "update it once and forget it" idea doesn't count as an
advantage of DNS over pathalias routing.

> For a Internet based site, it is easier for me to update my own edition
> of DNS, and from this monet every quesry will get updated version.

Yes, it is nice that DNS gets propagated so quickly.  Did I ever say that
was bad?

> With pathalias - propagation time of maps is quite long, and we have had
> multiple occurences of maps > going to /dev/null.  Claiming that updating
> maps is easier is funny. 

I never claimed that updating the UUCP maps was easier, nor that it is
more effective, than updating name servers, for Internet connected sites.
My claim is that neither is as good as we could have.

> > What tells me that DNS is not so reliable as at first it might appear are
> > the example of incorrect routing I've seen... bounced email with "no such
> > host" or "no such domain" when it was damn well true that the domain or
> > host did exist, as did nameservers for them.  Mostly, these examples are
> > drawn from attempts to reply to email.
> 
> Usually it comes to the point that site unable to respond was
> configured totally wrong... like only local nameservers... 

Yes, and it happens with an amazing regularity.  That only said that you
still have to deal with operator error.  No system will be immune to it,
but you can attempt to minimize the effects of it.  Any smarts built into
either pathalias or MX forwarding, to aid admins in recovering from mis-
configured routes?  Hardly.  Of course, there are scripts to test the
validity of map files.  Perhaps there are similar for 

> you must be kidding, man ... priviledged few on Internet... 
> Are you aware that number of hosts on Internet is a magnitute
> bigger that hosts with uucp only connections ??? 

Are YOU aware of how many sites connect via UUCP?  Many more than actually
get registed in either mail forwarding system, I feel sure.  The advent of
cheap, readily available software to do UUCP means that you'll see MANY
more such sites.  Just because the Internet, with its much higher costs for
connections, is larger at this point in time, does not mean that it will
continue to be so indefinitely.

Of course, when ISDN gets tariffed for residential consumption, and all
the people with modems rush out and buy ISDN hardware, and after some
cheap TCP/IP over ISDN software gets out in the market, then you may see
people moving away from their cheap UUCP connections in wholesale numbers.

Yeah, right.  Look, I'm holding my breath.

> Sorry, Willard - your bias against Internet is quite interesting... 

What have I said to give you the impression I am biased against the Internet?


-- 
dawson@willard.UUCP (Willard Dawson)
gatech!vdbsan!willard!dawson
emory!uumind!willard!dawson
Willard's House BBS, Atlanta, GA -- +1 (404) 664 8814
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