Xref: utzoo news.misc:1404 news.config:583
Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!purdue!spaf
From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford)
Newsgroups: news.misc,news.config
Subject: The USENET Backbone (Updated: 8 May 1988)
Message-ID: <4020@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>
Date: 9 May 88 04:36:47 GMT
Expires: 18 Jun 88 04:36:47 GMT
Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ.
Lines: 102
Supersedes: <3745@medusa.cs.purdue.edu>


Original-from: Gene Spafford (spaf@cs.purdue.edu) & biep@cs.vu.nl (J. A. Durieux)
[Most recent change: 8 May 1988 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu]

A Usenet "backbone" site is one which exchanges every (non-local) news
article it receives with at least two other backbone sites; or which is
the main newsfeed for a particular geographical area (e.g., Australia)
or special news gateway (e.g., inet) and exchanges news with at least
one other backbone site.  This exchange is done (theoretically) with
minimum delay.  Thus, any article submitted to a backbone site is
supposed to propagate to all other backbone sites within a very short
time period. (Under actual conditions, your mileage may vary.)  To be
labelled as part of the "backbone," a site must also:
    * be of sufficient capacity to handle the load of news;
    * be of sufficient capacity and connectivity to handle the load
      of mail generated by replies to news articles and as submissions
      to mailing lists and moderated groups sent through the backbone;
    * be running a recent version of the news software, and keep
      up-to-date with new releases and patches;
    * provide a stable news and mail relay service, preferably including
      a mailer understanding domains and domain-based addressing;
    * be staffed by experienced, responsible, capable staff who
      will maintain news and mail, and quickly respond to problem
      reports and requests for assistance;
    * wish to be advertised as a backbone site, thus taking part in
      discussions and debate as well as becoming a target for abuse
      from the net-at-large;
    * evidence some measure of financial and/or political stability
      so as to be able to remain as a backbone site for the
      indefinite future.
Site admins wishing their site included in this posting should
document the above points in mail to "backbone-request@rutgers.edu".

Each backbone site normally feeds some number of well-connected
secondary sites, most of which are not "leaf" (terminal) nodes.
These secondary sites feed the news out to other distribution and leaf
nodes, and so on.

For optimal news distribution, each site should establish an "L" type
link with a site closely connected to a backbone site. This will help
ensure that any articles submitted from that site get propagated to the
whole net with a minimum of delay.  Sites should *not* request a news
feed from a backbone site unless they are willing to feed at least five
or six (or more) other, non-terminal sites.

Note that some backbone links (viz., ALL--munnari, mnetor--uunet,
uw-beaver--ubc-cs, uunet--mcvax) do not carry all newsgroups,
usually meaning "talk" and some "rec" groups, but sometimes also
including "soc", "sci", "news", "misc", and "comp" newsgroups.  The
European component of Usenet receives a limited number of groups from
outside Europe, as well as having a number of active "eunet"
newsgroups, and exchanges all those articles via X.25 links.

To send mail to the administrators of all the backbone sites, address
your mail to "backbone@rutgers.edu".  If you wish to send mail to the
administrator of a particular site, consult the uucp map for the name
and address of the appropriate individual(s).  (In Europe uucp map
entries are obtained through the national backbone's "netdir"
service).


  /---------------\           ncar......nbires-------\   munnari...vuwcomp
 /                 \          |   \                   \   :
/          linus----husc6     |    \                   uunet....mnetor---utzoo
|         / |       /  | \    |     \                 /   :                |
| (decvax)  |       |  | ukma |      \---ames----amdahl  mcvax---(europe)  |
|           |       |  |  | \ | (rutgers) |  \        \    :               |
|           |       |  |  | | |        |  |   \        :   :               |
|           |       |  |  | | |        ucsd--ucbvax    :   :               |
\      philabs---cmcl2 |  | | |                  |     : kddlab          utgpu
 \                 \   |  | gatech----purdue---decwrl  :   :               |
  \                 \  |  |  /  |             /      \ :   :  (clyde)---watmath
   \                 \ |  | /   |            /         hplabs
 mit-eddie-----------rutgers---mcnc---decvax                  
     :               /   |  \        /   |  \ 
 uw-beaver     (ucsd)    |   bellcore    |   tektronix
/     :                  |  /    |       |       /
|   ubc-cs  (watmath)--clyde  ulysses  (linus)  /     The BACKBONE as of
\      \                 |                     /      8 May 1988
 \   alberta------------att                   /
  \                                          /        --- = full link
   \----------------------------------------/         ... = restricted link

This is the European backbone (mcvax feeds all of them):

            tut   enea   diku   unido   hafro   	tut -> Finland
             |      \     |     /	  |		enea -> Sweden
             |       \    |    /	  |		diku -> Denmark
             |        \   |   /		  |		unido -> W. Germany
             |         \  |  /		  |		inria -> France
    inria----+----------mcvax-------------+       	mcvax -> Netherlands
             |         /  |  \	          |		cernvax -> Switzerland
             |        /   |   \	          |		ukc -> Great Britain
             |       /    |    \          |		prlb2 -> Belgium
             |      /     |     \         |		i2unix -> Italy
	   tuvie  ukc    prlb2   i2unix  cernvax	tuvie -> Austria
							hafro -> Iceland

-- 
Gene Spafford
NSF/Purdue/U of Florida  Software Engineering Research Center,
Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-2004
Internet:  spaf@cs.purdue.edu	uucp:	...!{decwrl,gatech,ucbvax}!purdue!spaf