Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 beta 3/9/83; site vaxine.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!vaxine!ptw
From: ptw@vaxine.UUCP (P. Tucker Withington)
Newsgroups: net.mail
Subject: Pathalias costing functions
Message-ID: <242@vaxine.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 7-Jul-83 12:01:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: vaxine.242
Posted: Thu Jul  7 12:01:36 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 7-Jul-83 18:55:28 EDT
Organization: Automatix Inc., Billerica, MA
Lines: 28


I believe there is a little confusion w.r.t. the pathalias costing functions
that may be causing mail to be mis-routed.  In particular, the meaning of
POLLED seems to be misunderstood; and it may not be understood that links can
and should have different costings in each direction.

My optimistic interpretation:

	DEMAND          You call the site when you need to
			You may also call when you don't need to (e.g.,
			"hourly")
	HOURLY          The site "polls" you, often
	EVENING,DAILY,WEEKLY,etc.
			The site "polls" you, less and less often
	POLLED          The site only calls you when it needs to, implying you
			have a very inefficient way back (i.e., random chance)
	DEAD            Snobol's chance on a LISPMachine of getting through

Thus if site "a" can call "b" on demand, but also does a "uucico -r1 b" every
hour because "b" can't dial out, "a" is (HOURLY) to "b" and "b" is (DEMAND) to
"a".  If "a" calls "c" on demand, and has no provision to "uucico -r1 c", "c"
is also (DEMAND) to "a", but "a" is at most (POLLED) to "c".

Unfortunately, POLLED is currently much closer to DAILY than it is to DEAD.
Maybe it should be redefined to DEAD/2?

			     P. Tucker Withington (ptw@vaxine.UUCP)
			     Automatix Inc. (617) 667-7900x2044