Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!bbn!husc6!purdue!decwrl!vixie
From: vixie@decwrl.dec.com (Paul A Vixie)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: Some questions about pathalias and smail
Message-ID: 
Date: 5 Dec 88 11:09:18 GMT
References: <236@twwells.uucp>
Sender: news@decwrl.dec.com
Organization: DEC Western Research Lab
Lines: 47
In-reply-to: bill@twwells.uucp's message of 4 Dec 88 22:54:03 GMT

[Wells]
# I believe that the Internet has a chance to better route the message than
# I; I'd rather send my messages that go to the Internet to uflorida (or
# uunet, when I get my modem and get connected) than some further site.

The trick, then, is to keep a file around which contains your local "hints"
for pathalias.  Stuff you want pathalias to see but which is not in your map
entry and also not in the comp.mail.maps data.  I call this file "glue.local"
and I put into it things like:

->	dead sites which are still mentioned in lots of map entries: cbosgd
	and seismo are/were examples of this;
		dead {seismo}
		dead {cbosgd}

->	rerouters that I want to pretend are dead; I have a small list of
	these which I will publish in this group from time to time: rutgers
	is an example;
		dead {rutgers}

->	sites that bungle From: lines such that mail through them is often
	unreplyable: sun is an example;
		dead {sun}

->	remote links which I know about but which are not for use by the
	public: ubvax!vixie used to be an example;
		ubvax vixie(????)
		vixie ubvax(????)

->	internet wormholes like the one you are trying to use.
		uflorida .edu, .com, .mil, .net, .org

Note that using the internet as a carrier for non-internet traffic is frowned
upon -- though anybody with a domain name is "on the internet" for the purpose
of this rule.  So you could mark your uflorida wormhole as terminal, i.e.,
		uflorida <.edu>, <.com>, <.mil>, <.net>, <.org>
...it's really not going to change anything.

These probably _are_ overly discussed issues according to many, but I get a
lot of mail from sideline lurkers who are completely dazed by the complexity
of it all and I think that a public answer can do only good.

Good luck.
--
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