🚀 go-pugleaf

Dave Hyde davehyde@tecnet1.jcte.jcs.mil writes

> Date: 17 Dec 1992 12:41:35 -0600
>
> Another net.illiterate question...no one at my end has been of any help. 
> I'm trying to get mail to a user at OTA.GOV   I'm on MILNET (at least
> that's what they tell me), I have no idea what he's on.  About the only
> thing I have for him is a username and IP address.  When I try to send
> stuff from here the mail bounces - We don't recognize OTA.  Is there some
> way I can route mail through someplace that can see both us and OTA? 
> As this is pretty specific info E-mail would help cut down traffic. 

I suspect that your host, like many in the .mil domain, has never 
installed software which can read name server records.  Address 
information is still being obtained from a HOSTS. table distributed
twice weekly from nic.ddn.mil.  For some reason the ota.gov domain has 
never registered even their primary host at NIC; therefore, it is not
in the table.  (Perhaps they don't want to hear from the military ;-^})

The long-term solution would be to update the software on your host, 
because the current situation affects all users trying to send mail 
to the great majority of (nonmilitary) hosts now in existence.  In the
meantime, you can probably solve your immediate problem by routing your
mail via one of the mail exchangers also designated for ota.gov.

For example, user%ota.gov@relay1.UU.NET

If you and/or others at your host will be communicating regularly with
ota.gov, your local staff should be able to identify it by an entry in 
a local host table prepended to the one from NIC.  (Until they get the
capability of reading domain names, that is.)

152.63.20.2     ota.gov

# DoD Internet Host Table
#  17-Dec-92
#  Version number 1201
-Address-       -Host name-
  (etc.)

Ric <nauen@wrair-emh1.army.mil>  <nauen%wrmain.decnet@detrick-emh1.army.mil>
           ^^^^^Walter Reed Army Institute of Research
        U.S. Army Medical Research and Development Command