Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/5/84; site unicus.UUCP Path: utzoo!mnetor!yetti!unicus!emc From: emc@unicus.UUCP (Eric M. Carroll) Newsgroups: comp.mail.headers Subject: Re: Another reason to hate smail Message-ID: <467@unicus.UUCP> Date: Tue, 13-Jan-87 14:49:26 EST Article-I.D.: unicus.467 Posted: Tue Jan 13 14:49:26 1987 Date-Received: Wed, 14-Jan-87 20:37:04 EST References: <14239@amdcad.UUCP> <5484@ukma.ms.uky.csnet> Reply-To: emc@unicus.UUCP (Eric M. Carroll) Organization: Unicus Software Inc., Toronto, Ont. Lines: 36 david@ukma.ms.uky.csnet (David Herron, NPR Lover) writes: > > Now, when decwrl gets your message it has two choices of how to > route your message ... one is the MX record which sun is maintaining > for you (which causes the routing over the internet), and the other > is the uucp route. > > It's possible their sendmail configuration does not allow them to > take those two choices into consideration. I happen to quite like smail. David and Phil have pointed out a special case of a problem that smail does not address. The problem is that given an address (NOT a uucp-style explicit routing path) the address must be resolved into TWO things: a route and a *transport mechanism*. Right now, if you don't run sendmail, you are stuck. sendmail's way of resolving this problem with psuedo-domains (.ether, .tcp, .csnet, .uux, etc) is bogus, and quite frankly, still a mystery to me (we run sysV). Really what I need is a table that associates a domain to my prefered transport mechanism (ie resolve the physical network to be used), then does the routing lookup inside the associated connection graph for that physical network. That way, if a site or gateway is a member of more than one physical network, it can have a priority scheme of how to send things. I like the trend towards domaining very much, but due to its ARPA origins in a homogenous physical network, the difficulties of a multi-connection site were not fully resolved. smail simply reflects this fact, but in a uucp enviroment instead. PS: Any arpa sites with x.25 out there? ----------------------- Eric Carroll Unicus Corporation, Toronto Ont. {utzoo!utcs!yetti, seiemo!mnetor}!unicus!emc maybe soon: emc@unicus.com (Any ARPA sites with x.25 out there?)