From: lendl@cosy.sbg.ac.at  (Otmar Lendl)
Subject: Re: Registering a New Site
Keywords: maps uucp Internet
Organization: University of Salzburg
Date: Wed, 19 Aug 1992 23:02:06 GMT

In article <1992Aug19.202819.15120@dale.ksc.nasa.gov>  
obrooks@worf.hssc.ksc.nasa.gov (Oscar Brooks) writes:
> Do I need to register my machine if I am getting a NNTP News 
> feed over the internet?
No. (I assume you are registered in the DNS already.)
> The documentation implies registering is 
> only for UUCP type connections. If I do , can someone send me an
> example of the form for a NNTP News feed?

I'm in quite the same situation as you:
We get News using NNTP over the Internet. We do _not_ have any
UUCP-connections, therefore there is no need to register in
the UUCP-maps. (comp.mail.maps)

My main motive to register my site was to get included in
B. Reid's nice PostScript maps of Usenet. (We are the only Usenet-
site within 100 miles, so the dot at Salzburg is _missing_ ;-) )
As clearly stated in the regularly posted "notes about the
contents of this newsgroup", a registration 
in the UUCP-maps is necessary to be included in the maps. 
(This is IMHO no stupid bureaucratic restriction, for the 
maps are the source of the location information.)

To quote from spaf's 'What is Usenet ?':
>9. Usenet is not a UUCP network.
>
>    UUCP is a protocol (actually a "protocol suite," but that's a
>    technical quibble) for sending data over point-to-point
>    connections, typically using dialup modems.  Sites use UUCP to
>    carry many kinds of traffic, of which Usenet is only one.  And
>    UUCP is only one of the various transports carrying Usenet
>    traffic.

I do not have any statistics about what percentage of the Usenet
sites are registered in the UUCP-maps, but I assume that with the
growth of the Internet this number is falling. (When I tried to register
our site the Austrian map-coordinator claimed that most Internet
sites are not registered.) So the nice maps show only the
intersection of Usenet and UUCP-net. :-(

This is in my eyes not a satisfying situation. 

On June, 30th I sent a message to Brian Reid asking how to proceed
to get included in the maps but I haven't received any answer.

The for Usenet relevant data in the maps are IMHO the comments,
and not the pathalias data. One simple solution would be to
allow map-entries consisting of comments only. Internet/Bitnet/
<whatevernet>- sites could submit such entries to the UUCP-map-
project.

Another idea is to utilize the Domain-name-system of the Internet.
IMHO it's a pity that there is no LOCATION Resource-Record 
defined in the DNS (yet), it would be really nice doing a 
traceroute and see the hops light up on a global map.
Meanwhile one could use the TXT RR. Here is the description from
RFC 1035:
>3.3.14. TXT RDATA format
>
>     +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
>     /                   TXT-DATA                    /
>     +--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+--+
> 
> where:
> 
> TXT-DATA        One or more <character-string>s.
> 
> TXT RRs are used to hold descriptive text.  The semantics of the text
> depends on the domain where it is found.
> 
This looks like a perfectly legal and simple way to make the 
location information available for all Usenet sites with a FQDN.
In my case I'd add the following line to my named files:
cosy.sbg.ac.at.   IN   TXT   "47 49 N / 013 05 E city"

Comments ?

--
|Otmar Lendl (lendl@cosy.sbg.ac.at) | Student of CS & Math at Salzburg |
|Akademiestr. 15  A-5020 Salzburg   | University (Austria / Europe)    |
| Put the scrabble away Arthur, it won't save the human race !  Ford P.|