🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <75110378@bfmny0.BFM.COM> tneff@bfmny0.BFM.COM (Tom Neff) writes:
>What I don't like about the rewriting rule where
>
>       sitea!siteb!sitec!dom.ain!user
>
>becomes simply
>
>       user@dom.ain
>
>is the assumption that, on the other side of all those site[abc] nodes,
>"dom.ain" really means what we think it means!  Maybe "sitec" is a
>gateway to SiberiaNet and 'ti.com' really means Trans-Irkutsk Commune
>or something!
>
>In this sense RFC976 and rabid rerouting could make strange bedfellows.
>
>Does a dotted sitename automatically have to conform to the One True DNS
>or else forfeit legal mention in a UUCP path?

The messages under this title are getting more and more
bizarre. I write from somewhere where domain names are normal
and UUCP the exception. Basically, UUCP names rely on flat
naming scheme, and either world wide maps or explicit routes.
Domain based schemes rely on knowing where to throw stuff for
non-local names - the advantage being that if you see something
like inria.fr at least you know what country it is in. Given a
name like site.uucp it might as well be on the moon. This is
where domain addressing scores, and is why everyone should use
it. Of course, the new X400 has through another spanner in the
works, but everyone should use it. As far as "ti.com" being in
the Soviet Union - "com" is taken a commercial outfit (in the
USA or with a states parent), and the rest of us use country
abbreviations. Now, as far as being a standard this is very
much a de facto one - its in an RFC somewhere, but I'm not
aware of their validy under international law. However, people
do follow it, under the banner "if you don't it won't work". Of
course, there are problems where networks get connections, but
these just have to be solved - it is surely no worse than UUCP
abbiguities.

Back to the original point, when should sendmail munge these
headers. As someone has already said, it needs to to ensure
that the header is meaningful to the destination host. Faced
with a domain, it shouldn't do (in my opinion) if it knows the
destination host understands the domain addresses - no reason
why it necessarily shouldn't, even with UUCP mail being used.
However, if it is not sure, it is better to fix the headers.

John Forrest
Dept of Computation
UMIST.