From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!npois!cbosg!cbosgd!mark
Newsgroups: net.followup
Title: Re: RFC-733, what is it?
Article-I.D.: cbosgd.2343
Posted: Wed Jun  9 00:13:39 1982
Received: Wed Jun  9 05:22:22 1982
References: eisx.156

RFC733 is indeed a standard for the format of mail headers used on
the arpanet.  Most other mail software adheres to this standard,
including Berkeley's Mail and Rand's MH systems.

RFC733 is currently being updated.  I have an old copy which I can
post to net.sources if there is demand.  Be warned that the document
is 30 pages long, hard to understand, and full of lots of obscure
information.  It does have lots of examples.

As I understand it, the major change being made to RFC733 is the
syntax for electronic mailing addresses.  The old syntax was
	USER@HOST
where "user" is a login name and "host" is the name or nickname of
a machine on the arpanet.  Obviously this does not apply to UUCP
addresses, which use ROUTE!USER.  The new syntax will be
	USER@DOMAIN
where DOMAIN is a heirarchy of names separated by periods, and USER
is any string meaningful to that domain.  Examples include
	old			new
	POSTEL@ISIF		POSTEL@F.ISI.ARPA
	cbosg!cbosgd!mark	mark@cbosgd.uucp
	m.r.horton (post)	m.r.horton@btl.phonenet
Note that the highest level (ARPA, uucp, phonenet) is an identifier
from a small set that every machine is supposed to recognize, and
as you work to the left the names get more and more specific.
This syntax has the property that a mailbox has the same name no
matter where the sender is located, much like a U.S. Mail address.
Upper/lower case doesn't matter in host names.  ARPA refers to the
arpanet and local nets attached to it.  phonenet is the part of CSNET
that works over dialup phone lines.

This syntax will be in use by the end of 1982.  UNIX software to deal
with it will be on 4.2BSD which will be out in December.  It appears
that most of the world is going to switch to this syntax as soon as
the arpanet does and the software is available.  In addition to the
ARPANET and CSNET, netnews is depending on this syntax to solve the
reply problem (as arpanet links get used, replies don't work anymore
with the current scheme) and it will become important to switch to
this syntax to use netnews.  Sites on uucp will have to switch over
or be left in the dust.

	Mark