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