Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.csd.uwm.edu!gem.mps.ohio-state.edu!ginosko!uunet!wuarchive!texbell!texsun!playroom!pitstop!lwake From: lwake@pitstop.West.Sun.COM (Larry Wake) Newsgroups: news.newusers.questions Subject: Re: How do I find the domain of a friend? Keywords: comp.mail.maps Message-ID: <814@pitstop.West.Sun.COM> Date: 16 Aug 89 22:24:12 GMT References:<5446@inco.UUCP> <477@antares.UUCP> Reply-To: lwake@sun.com (Larry Wake) Distribution: usa Organization: Sun Microsystems, Inc., Mountain View, CA. Lines: 62 In article <477@antares.UUCP> dbilar@antares.UUCP (Dave Bilar) writes: >In article <5446@inco.UUCP> mack@inco.UUCP (Dave Mack) writes: >>In article raulmill@usc.edu (Raul) writes: >>>I have a friend who goes to another school (Cal State University, >>>Northridge) > >>From UUCP map u.usa.ca.1: >> #N csun.edu, csun >> #O California State University, Northridge (CSUN) >> #C Larry Wake >> #E postmaster@csun.edu >[...] > >A quick scan >of u.usa.ca.1[thru 10] for "csun" with your favorite editor is certainly >called for. If you search for your site's name, you may find a neighbor >site which is already connected to csun. Who knows? Who knows, indeed... Unless they haven't updated their map, you'll find that in fact the closest site to USC with a UUCP link to CSUN is USC itself. However, this is *not* the best way to go about sending mail if you're at a site that knows what it's about, such as USC. Use domain routing! As previous articles suggested, your best bet is to send to addresses in the form user@host.domain where "user" is their user ID or alias, "host" is the machine name or a name assigned to a group of machines, and "domain" is the domain name assigned to the site (csun.edu, in the case of CSUN). If your friend has user ID "jane" on host "afws" at CSUN, her address is: jane@afws.csun.edu In a perfect universe, you needn't worry about how it gets there; just sit back and admire the network in all its glory. In an imperfect universe, yell and scream until it becomes perfect. Eschew the "!" and all it implies, for in that direction lies madness. In fact, this is a particularly good example of Why Explicit Routing is Bad. If you indeed saw in the maps that usc connects to csun, and used the bangpath, your mail would queue up until the next time csun called usc (usc no longer ever initiates a UUCP call, even if outgoing mail is queued), which might be in twenty minutes, or it might be in a day or so. If instead you used the domain address, the message would be delivered over the Internet, usually within seconds. (Unless CERFnet/Los Nettos routing was munged, but that's certainly another story for another time.) BTW, to answer the original question "How do I find the domain of a friend?", the best answer is "have the friend ask their local user services group or system administrator." Until such things become automated and standardized, it doesn't make much sense to try to guess someone's mail address from the outside when it's likely that your friend can find out the answer much more quickly and accurately from the inside. Larry Wake No longer postmaster@csun.edu, but still keeping an eye on things from time to time.