🚀 go-pugleaf

In <1607@rand.mel.cocam.oz.au> sjm@cocamrd.mel.cocam.oz.au (John Machin) writes:

| 	user@host.locality.su

| Unfortunately using this form caused the message to
| end up at Sydney University, and be flung back with an "unknown host/domain"
| message.

That must indicate that your mailer is simply dumping mail into ACSnet
with the destination address unchanged, which is rarely a sane thing to
do with other than mail destined for ACSnet (regardless of what MHSnet
may in theory be able to do).

| The Postmaster at my site has tried the form

| 	user%host.locality.su.@munnari
|                              ^
|                              Note extra dot

The extra dot is unnecessary there, but its also harmless, munnari
sends mail that ends in ".su" to the Soviet Union (or whatever hosts
in whatever countries still use the .su domain).  Such stuff is never
sent to Sydney University (it needs a ".oz.au" appended for that to happen).

| This attempt didn't get any "undeliverable" message back; unfortunately it
| got nothing back.

Maybe the user just didn't reply... or maybe the mail got stuck somewhere?

| What is the most reliable way of addressing such mail (without having to
| muck around with MX records and other arcane things)? I.e. what should I 
| put in the To: header?

| My guess is: user%host.locality.su@X

If your mailer won't do that kind of thing for you, then yes, that's
probably what you have to do - better is to get your mailer fixed to
know that outgoing mail to non-local destinations should be forwarded
to a relay site.  That way, if the value of X changes, only the mailer
needs to be updated, the users just keep using the addresses they're
used to.

|              where X is a site outside Australia which is more likely to 
|              think that su means Soviet Union than Sydney University.

You don't need to look for something outside Australia.   Any
AARnet site with a civilised mailer should do the right thing with
".su" mail (and any other international mail).

|              What is a good choice for X?

In your case, I'd probably suggest sol.deakin.oz.au, as they're your
MX site (ir: mail for you gets sent to them) so they should be close
to you (network-wise anyway), avoiding unnecessary traffic in some
cases (why someone with an address in Carlton is connected to Geelong
is something I don't really want to ask about).

kre