Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!jhc
From: jhc@att.ATT.COM (Jonathan Hawbrook-Clark)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: problems with att multiple-machine approach?
Message-ID: <2300@att.ATT.COM>
Date: 25 Sep 88 02:07:34 GMT
References: <1988Sep23.105347.652@lsuc.uucp>
Reply-To: jhc@att.ATT.COM (Jonathan Hawbrook-Clark)
Organization: AT&T ISL Middletown NJ USA
Lines: 42

In article <1988Sep23.105347.652@lsuc.uucp> dave@lsuc.uucp (David Sherman) writes:
>My understanding of the "att" multi-machine setup is that
>each of the three machines (Ohio, New Jersey and Illinois)
>calls itself "att", and whoever happens to call you first
>will pick up any mail addressed to/through "att".  Fine.

Right so far.

>Now, what happens if your dialin isn't working for a few
>days, but your dialout is fine?  OK, you think.  You poll
>all the sites that you talk to, so anything pending will
>go through.  But what happens if you normally call the Ohio
>"att" for your mail, but there's a ton of mail waiting for
>you on the New Jersey "att"?  Will it ever reach you?
>Should you have to call all three "att" machines if your
>dialin is often busy or down? 
>The three don't share the same /usr/spool, do they?

No, they don't. And your underlying point is correct, any mail queued
up for you will never get delivered. But not because of the scenario
you suggest, although that is currently the case, but simply because
we do not trust that a machine calling in is actually who it says it
is. It is a trivial command to change a machine's nodename, and I
suspect that no-one would thank us if we delivered mail for 'lsuc' to
some schoolkid with a PC who happened to rename hir machine to that
and call us up. So, except in rare cases, we only deliver mail when
we make the call.

This does pose a minor problem with our netnews feeds; we are moving
towards a setup where mail received on, say, att-mt, for a site which
has a netnews feed from att-ih will magically get forwarded to the
appropriate att for delivery. This is primarily for cost reasons.

Hope this clears up some questions. This situation isn't perfect,
but we are putting security above convenience and cost. If anyone
has any truly wonderful ideas which would satisfy the various
criteria under which we work then we'd love to hear them.
-- 
Jonathan Clark		jonathan@mtune.att.com, attmail!jonathan
Any affiliation is given for identification purposes only.

The Englishman never enjoys himself except for some noble purpose.