🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <bu76bk.hhx@wang.com>, fitz@wang.com (Tom Fitzgerald) writes:
> vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com (Vernon Schryver) writes:
> 
> > A UUCP gateway necessarily must translate from whatever is happening on
> > the Internet to whatever is right in the connected UUCP world.
> > That necessarily means rewriting all addresses appropriately.  In some
> > UUCP worlds, only !-paths work.
> 
> I think the only world where this is still true is AT&T.  Everywhere else,
> probably 99% of the UUCP sites, now understand domain addresses.  And many
> of the sites that do require !-paths, (people running unmodified AT&T
> SysV.2, old Xenixes, etc.) don't honor Reply-To: for return addresses
> anyway, they use the From_ line.
> 
> Even for those few sites that only understand ! paths, you're not doing
> them a favor by rewriting domain addresses into !s unless you're a direct
> neighbor, because after one or two more hops, the original !-path has often
> been mutilated into something that is not only wrong, but can't even be
> hand-translated back into a working !-path.  At least an untouched
> @-address can be rewritten by hand into a !-path on non-domainist sites.

But of course you should not rewrite except based on what your direct
neighbor requires.  That's part of the definition of "gateway".


> > Years
> > ago, I found it necessary to to assume the other end does not do FQDN's
> > unless told otherwise.  More recently, it has been effective to assume
> > FQDN's are understood unless bounces are seen.
> 
> Very much so - and even if bounces are seen, it's worth checking with the
> owner of the affected site and letting him/her know about it first.  It's
> often easier to get someone to install smail 2.5 or something, than deal
> with the continual problems caused by rewriting domain addresses into
> !-paths.

That is one way.  There are other attitudes.  After a few years and
hundred UUCP neighbors, some people get tired of reforming the world,
and just let people do whatever they silliness they want within
limits.  Eventually you just pick a list of minimal requirements (e.g.
name in the maps or registered FQDN, >= 2400 b/s modem unless news
wanted, no more than a few bounces/week) and refuse connections unless
unless those requirements are met.


Vernon Schryver,  vjs@sgi.com