🚀 go-pugleaf

+---- In article <149@4gl.UUCP> Honzo Svasek writes:
|
|			How to address a Fido node!
|			===========================
|
|	I am working on a gateway Usenet <-> Fidonet, and like to know
|	what type of addressing this gateway should accept according
|	to the Usenet communitie.
+----

The unofficial standard already in use (by Bob Hartman, John Galvin, and
others) is to use the following address syntax:

    ...uucppath!uucpgateway!Fidogateway!NET!NODE!USER_NAME

Propogation from the Fido gateway to non-local nets *must* be up to
the sysop of the Fido gateway!  ie.  in Madison, WI, the sysop of
'circle' (aka 121/0) will only propogate mail to machines within
net 121.  He can not send email to other nets (long distance) unless
they make arrangements to poll him for their mail.

His address as currently implemented and functioning is:

    ...rutgers!uwvax!uwmacc!hobbes!circle!121!0!John_Galvin

This syntax leaves inter-net mail delivery up to the Fido gateway
admin; the uucp node hobbes never worries about it.  This gets a
bit unwieldy for people wanting to send email to Fido.  They must
remember the uucp path, the uucp name of the Fido node (circle),
the Fido net number of that node (121), and the node/name of the
recipient (0!John_Galvin).  It might be better for the Fidonet
gateways to be known to Usenet by their net numbers instead of a
fanciful name like 'circle'.  Thus the address would be:

    ...rutgers!uwvax!uwmacc!hobbes!121!0!John_Galvin

This leaves the inter-net mail delivery up to the admin of hobbes.
Mail delivery then would depend on the Unix gateway calling up the
receiving fidonet gateways when mail was waiting for them.

    ...rutgers!uwvax!uwmacc!hobbes!1!0!FidoNews
    ...rutgers!uwvax!uwmacc!hobbes!121!10!Joe_Blow
    ...rutgers!uwvax!uwmacc!hobbes!132!42!Georgette_Public

The problem, you see, is that FidoNet is not really a store-and-forward
network like Bitnet and Usenet/uucp.  The FidoNet is more of a wide area
network where each node can comunicate directly with any other node, albeit
with quite a bit of delay built into the system.  If there was some way of
setting up a node which would act as a clearinghouse for email, then every
node (or hub) could poll it for mail on a daily basis.  In this case, the 
address:

	uucppath!FIDO!121!0!John_Galvin

would work out for everyone.  Just as 'psuvax1' is the uucp <=> BITNET gateway,
'FIDO' could be the uucp <=> FidoNet gateway.

Alternitively, some uucp site could maintain the FIDO domain as a second level
domain under UUCP:

    John_Galvin@0.121.FIDO.UUCP

This site would have a database of those uucp sites which were acting as
uucp <=> FidoNet gateways, and route the email to the appropriate gateway.

    John_Galvin@0.121.FIDO.UUCP
	-- would become --
    John_Galvin%0.121.FIDO@hobbes.UUCP  (or some such)
    
Hope that this hasn't been too long... :-)  

BTW, the link between hobbes and circle is based on uuslave and a
set of utilities to integrate News and email into the _familier_
Fido message areas.  These utilities are almost ready for distribution,
send email to me if you are interested.


-- 
 John Plocher		UUCP: <backbone>!uwvax!uwmacc!hobbes!plocher
==============      Internet: plocher%hobbes.UUCP@uwvax.WISC.EDU
FidoNet: 121/0	      BITNET: uwvax!uwmacc!hobbes!plocher@psuvax1