🚀 go-pugleaf

tneff@bfmny0.UUCP (Tom Neff) writes:
>Ah'm just a simpul country lawyuh <snuffle>, but isn't the following true?
> * If I am site X, and site Y is a direct neighbor of mine whom I poll
>   daily or better (maybe better than anyone else if it's worse than daily),
>   but I see a piece of incoming mail of the form a!b!X!c!d!e!Y!f!g,
>   then it's reasonable for me to reroute it as a!b!X!Y!f!g.

Not necessarily.  Assuming I'm from site "a", I may have a perfectly legitimate
reason, which since you are not my direct neighbor, you probably wouldn't have
any way to know, for why I want the message to take that route.  If a!b!X!Y!f!g
is really the better path, than it's up to me to keep MY routing info current,
or to use a site that I trust to keep their info current as a rerouter.

If you argue that "Well, you have no way of knowing about my direct link to Y
because it's unpublished, therefore I'm doing you a favor", well do me a bigger
favor and publish the link.  Private links are common, but should be just that -
private.  If my mail were to fail on Y and I don't know how it got there, I will
be at a disadvantage on how to rectify the situation.

> * If my link to site Y is sick, then I ought to respect the longer path.

How will you know it's sick, and what current MTA has a "don't reroute if link
is sick" option?

> * If no site in the bang path is a direct neighbor of mine, then I ought
>   to consult pathalias for the link to the site named rightward of mine,
>   and leave the rest of it the hell alone.

That one sounds good.  In this case if I'm "a" you really are doing me a favor
since I've gone and generated a faulty path.  If this can be rerouted, then
great.  But if there is no problem with the path, it should be left alone.

> * In the first case mentioned above, if site Y does not know me by
>   name (i.e., the bang path is not reversible), then I ought to respect
>   the longer supplied path.  [I think this is where most mail bounces
>   these days, no?]

Just out of curiousity, why would you even bother with a one-way uucp link
used for mail purposes?  (I understand, and use, one-way anon uucp links for
file pick ups.)
------------- 
James B. O'Connor			jim@tiamat.fsc.com
Filtration Sciences Corporation		615/821-4022 x. 651

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