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From: vixie@decwrl.dec.com (Paul Vixie)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp,news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: Be cautious about declaring yourself a gateway if on Internet
Message-ID: <799@bacchus.dec.com>
Date: 21 Sep 88 08:45:06 GMT
References: <2488@epimass.EPI.COM>
Sender: vixie@decwrl.dec.com
Organization: DEC Western Research Lab
Lines: 26

# There should be NO gateway listed to second-level Internet domains
# in cases where the top-level domain servers will get mail through just
# as fast.

While I agree that there are problems caused by it, this will make things
even worse.  Consider decwrl, known to pathalias as the gateway to .dec.com.
Consider vixie.sf.ca.us, which speaks directly to decwrl and also to uunet.
Consider mail send from paul@vixie.sf.ca.us to reid@decwrl.dec.com.  Without
the "decwrl  .dec.com" entry in decwrl's map entry, the mail would go to
uunet to get to decwrl, even though decwrl is a neighbor.  Same is true for
all .dec.com sites: decwrl really is the fastest way to get there for many
UUCP sites.

It can be solved by having all neighbors add "decwrl  .dec.com" to their
/usr/lib/mail/glue.local files, but this is both irritating and incomplete:
incomplete because the problem also exists for many non-neighbors, though
to a lesser degree.

So, again: I agree that there is a problem; this isn't the way to solve it.

The whole method of naming directly-connected Internet domains in pathalias
map entries needs rethinking.  I have no wonderful ideas, though.  Discussion?
-- 
Paul Vixie
Work:    vixie@decwrl.dec.com    decwrl!vixie    +1 415 853 6600
Play:    paul@vixie.sf.ca.us     vixie!paul      +1 415 864 7013