Xref: utzoo comp.mail.uucp:1918 news.sysadmin:984 Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!epiwrl!epimass!jbuck From: jbuck@epimass.EPI.COM (Joe Buck) Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp,news.sysadmin Subject: Be cautious about declaring yourself a gateway if on Internet Message-ID: <2488@epimass.EPI.COM> Date: 20 Sep 88 23:21:07 GMT Organization: Entropic Processing, Inc., Cupertino, CA Lines: 55 Sites using the pathalias data generate horrible paths to Stanford University, among other places. The reason is that Stanford is on the Internet, but one poorly-connected Stanford site is listed as the only gateway to .stanford.edu in the UUCP map data. Here is their entry: #N wso #S DEC VAX-11/780; 4.3 BSD UNIX #O Wilcox Solar Observatory, Stanford University #C Rick Bogart #E wso!rick #T +1 415 723 1296 #P CSSA, Stanford, CA 94305-4055 #L 37 24 35 N / 122 10 02 W #R Wilcox Solar Observatory at Stanford University; position +/- 2" #U #W wso!rick (Rick Bogart); Wed Jul 13 14:37:04 PDT 1988 # wso .stanford.edu wso= wso.stanford.edu wso mtxinu(DIRECT), ncar(DEMAND), noao(DEMAND) If this map entry were not there, a site that talks directly to uunet, when mailing to luser@foo.stanford.edu, would search, in sequence, for luser.stanford.edu (not found) .stanford.edu (not found) .edu (found, gateway is uunet) and would use the path uunet!foo.stanford.edu!luser and uunet would ship the message via the Internet to Stanford. Instead, horrible paths are generated. In my case, I get the path oliveb!ames!ncar!noao!wso!foo.stanford.edu!luser Gag! Awful. At minimum, the line wso .stanford.edu should be deleted from the map entry. Possibly the whole map entry should be deleted (at least after the half-price Trailblazers arrive! :-). 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. Let's keep the maps small and consider what the pathalias results will be when we add information. -- - Joe Buck, card-carrying ACLU liberal jbuck@epimass.epi.com, or uunet!epimass.epi.com!jbuck, or jbuck%epimass.epi.com@uunet.uu.net for old Arpa sites