From: utzoo!decvax!ucbvax!ARPAVAX:UNKNOWN:G:wcwells Newsgroups: net.followup Title: UUCP Internet Addresses Article-I.D.: populi.342 Posted: Sun Sep 19 09:11:14 1982 Received: Tue Sep 21 03:44:09 1982 Proposal for UUCP Network & Internet Addresses Summary. I believe the UUCP network can improve the way it handles mail by establishing communications regions/areas. Here are my suggestions for UUCP addresses meeting the ARPA Internet standards. Discussion. The proposed adoption of the ARPA Internet formatted addresses by the UUCP community (cbosgd!mark Fri Aug 20 10:26:18 1982) presents a number of challenges. The format suggested by Mark Horton "user@host.uucp" requires the following to be implemented: 1. A central registry of UUCP host names. 2. No duplicate host names 3. Each host must have a complete and current list of UUCP host names (and associated relative path address). >From what I have read on the USENET over the last several months, there is no central registry for UUCP host names (through a few brave souls are trying to compile a master list of UUCP host names). We have already had one or more sites joining the UUCP network with a duplicate host name. We do need to establish a central registry (or regional registries) for UUCP host names if we are going to implement an Internet type addressing scheme. Micro computer (ie. floppy disk) hosts on UUCP have storage restrictions which are not present in ARPA Internet hosts. Maintaining a file of all host names (and their relative paths) is fine for large machines (with plenty of disk space) but is not feasible for small micros (with very limited floppy-disk space). The way I see it, we have two solutions to help small micros on the network, (a) establish mail service machines (with complete host table files) to serve small machines, and/or break the UUCP network into communication regions/areas so that the local machine only needs to know about hosts in its local communications area and how to send to other areas. Proposal. My first proposal is that we divide the UUCP community into regions and areas within regions. The advantages to dividing UUCP into regions are: 1. We can divide the labour to maintain the host lists (ie. regional host lists can be managed by one person, or several - one for each region). 2. Duplicate names are permitted (provided that they are unique within the local communications area.) 3. The size of host list files need to be maintained at any one site can be reduced. A host only needs to know about hosts in its local communications area and how to send to outside areas. 4. Outgoing and relayed messages can be stored by the region of destination (a smaller directory to be searched for mail!). 5. Gateways to and from other networks (eg. ARPANET could be established in the same region instead of half-way across the country. (No more need to send a message across the country to get it next door.) On the other hand, to establish a regional system, we would have to define communication regions and areas within regions. And establish regular routes for transmissions between regions and/or areas. (To some extent we are already defining routes between regions.) Communication Regions Some possiblities that I have thought of for regions are time zones, continents, and countries. I prefer times zones since they are directional in nature (east-west) and can be specified with one letter if we use military time zone designators. For example, Region Civilian Zone Number Military Proposed Name Time Zone (delta GMT) Time Zone Domain Name GMT 0 Z Z.UUCP Atlantic AST +4 Q Q.UUCP Eastern EST +5 R R.UUCP Central CST +6 S S.UUCP Mountain MST +7 T T.UUCP Pacific PST +8 U U.UUCP Communication Areas: For communication areas I believe we should use pre-established divisions such as political divisions, telephone area codes, or postal codes. My personal preference is to use a combination code with a two letter country code (standard military) and a two letter state or province code (standard postal), for example, 'CA.US' for California, USA, 'BC.CA' for British Columbia, Canada. Another possiblity, would be to have a combination country and telephone area code. For example, 'US415' for the 415 area code (San Francisco CA), 'CA604' for the 604 area code (British Columbia, Canada). The latter might be a better choice for UUCP since the UUCP network is primarily a telephone network. However, the latter would mean a larger look-up table for area to region expansion and requires the user to specify the telephone area code for hosts outside his local area. The former requires state codes be specified for out of state hosts. If you do not have a mail service program to look-up full host names, then I believe it is easier to remember the state a host is located in. Using political divisions I come up with the following communication areas for the Pacific (U.UUCP) region: Area UUCP Area UUCP Internet Domain British Columbia BC.CA BC.CA.U.UUCP California CA.US CA.US.U.UUCP NW Mexico NW.MX NW.MX.U.UUCP Oregon OR.US OR.US.U.UUCP Washington WA.US WA.US.U.UUCP Or using telephone area codes: Area Code UUCP Area UUCP Internet Domain 70 (NW Mexico) MX70 MX70.U.UUCP 206 US206 US206.U.UUCP 209 US209 US209.U.UUCP 213 US213 US213.U.UUCP 408 US408 US408.U.UUCP 415 US415 US415.U.UUCP 503 US503 US503.U.UUCP 509 US509 US509.U.UUCP 604 (BC Canada) CA604 CA604.U.UUCP 702 US702 US702.U.UUCP 707 US707 US707.U.UUCP 714 US714 US714.U.UUCP 805 US805 US805.U.UUCP 916 US916 US916.U.UUCP Take your chose. (Please send votes to ucbvax!g:wcwells, I will tally and post results. Send comments and new ideas to net.followup) Addresses specified by the user: It should be noted that we can make addressing easier for the user if we have mail programs that will expand the addresses as needed so that the user only has to specify a partial domain address, for example: g.wcwells@ucbvax (same state & country assumed) g.wcwells@ucbvax.ca (same country assumed) and g.wcwells@ucbvax.ca.us (UUCP area specified) will all expand to the Internet address: g.wcwells@ucbvax.ca.us.u.uucp or if we chose to go with area codes: g.wcwells@ucbvax (same area code assumed) and g.wcwells@ucbvax.us415 (UUCP area specified) will all expand to: g.wcwells@ucbvax.us415.u.uucp If our mailing programs have a complete list of host names then we can use the simplest form of the address, user@host and let the mail program expand the addresses. Of course, with duplicate host names you would have to include the area name to distinguish between hosts: user@host.area My second proposal is that we develop mail forwarding programs in such a way that we can provide mail address expansion services to micros when their messages pass through our larger minis. [Since this message is getting to be a long one, I will let someelse pick-up and run with this idea.] COMMENTS? Bill Wells Computing Services, University of California, Berkeley CA 94720, USA (415) 642-9801 ARPANET: G.wcwells@BERKELEY BITNET: WCWELLS at UCBUNIXG MARS: NNN0LBR NCA UUCPNET: ucbvax!g:wcwells