From: dawson@willard.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.bbs.waffle
Subject: Re: News/mail reader
Date: Fri, 20 Nov 92 21:33:03 EST
Organization: Willard's House BBS, Atlanta, GA -- +1 (404) 664 8814

vince@victrola.sea.wa.us (Vince Skahan) writes:

{ picking up the path back to the sender from the Path header }

> >Which is easy for informed, experienced news readers.
> 
> not necessarily.
> 
> 'real news' using 'real newsreaders' are generally configurable to
> either reverse the (very slow...very, VERY slow) path backwards to
> you, which assumes that nobody in between (can you say 'rutgers')
> militantly reroutes stuff.
> 
> or....
> 
> they permit you to say 'no way I will use bang paths...use SMTP style),
> which is what they probably should be set to do in most instances.
> reversing the bang path isn't necessarily the right thing.

But, if you look at the path header.. all the way to the end..

    siteN!siteN-1!...!site2!site1

You will be able to detect the sitename, and the site to which he connects
(for news, anyhow -- yes, I realize that that connection may not support
email).  Perhaps site1 is not in the maps or MX'ed, but somewhere along
that path, one of those sites will be.  You don't have to (as I'm sure
you already know) reverse the path, but only specify a complete bangpath
for the last bit of it.. starting from a known host.  Easy, for those with
experience.

> 
> >the outside to some local addresses (e.g., morpheus!dawson@bselab.bls.com)
> >works, but not to others.  This is somewhat out of my control, though I've
> >been offering tactful suggestions to the administrator of the system acting
> >as MX record holder and email forwarder, and we hope to have this situation
> >resolved in the very near future.
> 
> if you need that form of addresses, you need to stomp (not tactfully) your
> local MX forwarder or find another one. If they've agreed to be your MX
> forwarder, and they can't figure out how to do it, or aren't willing to 
> devote the time to do it right, they should be stomped HARD.  There's nothing
> worse then doing it half-assed. You can't depend on it...your downstream
> sites can't either...nobody who talks to any of you can trust it...gross
> situation.

It's not that the MX forwarding is fucked.. it's the god-awful SysVR4 attmail
software.  That package is good for UUCP-UUCP links, domain-domain links,
but is a bitch to configure for UUCP-domain links.  I have no experience in
configuring that package, and apparently neither does the sysadmin in whose
control this whole situation lies.

There is more at work here than simply chosing to UUCP with Joe Crock and
his great system.  There's big-co. politics, inter-departmental bullshit,
etc.; enough to make me want to find a different employer!!!

So, we can't simply choose anyone for our connection to the "outside"
world.  We can't do anything but make suggestions as to how the situation
might be fixed.  Is it any wonder that the whole email schlock has been
so fouled for so long!?

> 
> -- 
>      ---------- Vince Skahan --------- vince@victrola.sea.wa.us ----------
>   I just upgraded to Quicken-for-Windows v2.0 and it's so darn great I'll
>   never get rid of DOS...anybody got a Quicken-for-X11R5 ???


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