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- Frequently Asked Questions (FAQS);faqs.366
-
-
-
- weights
- Contact: weights-request@mickey.disney.com (Michael Sullivan)
-
- Purpose: The discussion of all aspects of using weights in
- exercise. Includes bodybuilding (competetive and
- non-competetive), sport-related weight training, "stay in shape"
- weight training; basically anything to do with lifting weights.
-
- wetleather
- Contact: wetleather-request@frigg.isc-br.com (automated LISTSERV)
- -or- carlp@mail.isc-br.com (Carl Paukstis)
-
- Purpose: The wetleather list is for discussion, chatter, ride
- reports, socializing, and announcements of upcoming motorcycle
- events in the Greater Pacific Northwest. The definition of that
- geographic term is flexible, but is generally taken to include
- the Cascadia subduction zone and all areas within a one-day ride
- from it, which naturally includes southwestern Canada. Anyone is
- free to subscribe, and topic limitations are not enforced. The
- list is not moderated, but is intended for socialization among
- the area riders - NOT to supplant rec.motorcycles.
-
- Automated subscription information: send a single-line mail
- message to:
- wetleather-request@frigg.isc-br.com consisting only of:
- subscribe WETLEATHER Butch Q. Biker (Or your own name; boring)
-
- Mail-geek tip: We're running LISTSERV 5.5, and wetleather-
- request is just aliased to "listserv", so those familiar with
- LISTSERV services may use any of the usual commands. Both
- reflected and digest subscription modes are available, along
- with a small set of archive files.
-
- wheel-to-wheel
- Contact: wheeltowheel-request@abingdon.Eng.Sun.COM (Andy Banta)
-
- Purpose: For people interested in participation in auto racing
- as driver, worker or crew. People interested in all types of
- wheel-to-wheel racing are welcome, but the majority of the
- discussion centers on road courses.
-
- whitewater
- Contact: rsk@gynko.circ.upenn.edu (Rich Kulawiec)
-
- Purpose: To discuss WhiteWater sports, experiences, and
- information. Includes kayak and canoeing enthusiasts. Please note
- that this mailing list is partially bidirectionally gatewayed to
- the USENET group rec.boats.paddle. Whitewater specific postings
- are culled and sent to the mailing list, and mailing list traffic
- is sent to the newsgroup. This mailing list is moderated and is
- probably only useful to those who do not receive rec.boats.paddle,
- or are only interested in the whitewater traffic in that group.
-
- wildnet
- Contact: zaphod!pnwc!wildnet-request@access.usask.ca --or--
- wildnet-request@access.usask.ca (Eric Woodsworth)
-
- Purpose: This list is concerned with computing and statistics in
- fisheries and wildlife biology. Relevant topics include G.I.S.,
- ecological modelling, software, etc.
-
- windsurfing
- Contact: windsurfing-request@gcm.com
- ...uunet!gcm!windsurfing-request
-
- Purpose: The windsurfing mailing list provides a discussion forum
- for boardsailing enthusiasts all over the world. While
- non-windsurfers are welcome to join, the primary purpose is to
- enhance the enjoyment of our sport by discussing windsurfing
- related topics such as equipment, technique, sailing spots,
- weather, competition, etc. We welcome you to join and
- share your windsurfing experiences and thoughts. The list is
- unmoderated.
-
- Word-Mac
- Contact: mmacword@loki.une.edu.au (Roger Debreceny)
- To subscribe, mail to listserv@loki.une.edu.au with the text
- "subscribe word-mac firstname surname" in the body of the email.
-
- Purpose: Word-Mac is a mailing list dedicated to serving users of
- the Microsoft Word package in its various versions. It has regular
- mailings of questions and answers on the use of the package and
- also mails postings on Word that have been made to Usenet groups
- such as comp.sys.mac.apps ... an FAQ list is also under development.
-
- wxsat
- Contact: wxsat-request@ssg.com (Richard B. Emerson)
-
- Purpose: This list serves two functions. The primary function is
- the distribution of NOAA status and prediction bulletins for the
- GOES and polar weather satellites. This data is the same data
- available via SCIENCEnet NOAA.SAT bulletin board area. The mail
- list also acts as a reflector for subscribers' comments and
- discussion of matters related to weather satellites, ground
- stations, and associated topics.
-
- x-ada
- Contact: x-ada-request@expo.lcs.mit.edu
-
- Purpose: to discuss the interfaces and bindings for an
- Ada interface to the X window system.
-
- XGKS
- Contact: xgks-request@unidata.ucar.edu (Steve Emmerson)
-
- Purpose: A mailing-list for the maintenance, enhancement, and
- evolution of the XGKS package, created by the University of
- Illinois under contract with IBM and distributed as part of X11R4.
- The XGKS package is a full 2C GKS implementation and allows GKS
- applications to operate in an X Window System environment.
-
- xopen-testing
- Contact: xopen-testing-request@uel.co.uk (Andrew Josey)
-
- Purpose: This list provides a forum for discussion of issues
- related to testing operating systems for conformance to the X/OPEN
- Portability Guide (XPG), including Issue 3 (XPG3) and later.
-
- The scope of this newsletter is the discussion of items associated
- with the testing of the X/Open Portability Guide - including but
- not limited to test suite technology (X/Open's VSX and other third
- party test suites for the XPG), latest news on X/Open Branding and
- other related issues. These issues can include problems related to
- test suites in general, testability of various features of the
- XPG, and portability of the test suites.
-
- xpress-list
- Contact: xpress-list-request@grot.starconn.com (Brian Smithson)
-
- Purpose: Discussion forum for users or potential users of the
- X*Press X*Change information service. X*Change is an information
- service for personal computers, delivered over some cable
- television systems in the US and Canada. Topics include general
- information, support of non-PC/Mac platforms, data formats,
- novel applications, etc.
-
- XVT
- Contact: tim@qed.cts.com (Tim Capps)
- Interested parties should send mail with 'HELP XVTDEV' as the body
- of the letter to: listserv@qed.cts.com.
-
- Purpose: XVT is a multi-platform window environment development tool.
-
- yello
- Contact: yello-request@polyslo.calpoly.edu (Cliff Tuel)
-
- Purpose: The Yello Mailing List is a forum for discussing anything
- about the group Yello, or any solo works by the band's members.
- An extensive discography is available, as are several other files
- of interest.
-
- Yes/ABWH
- Contact: v111pbxx@ubvms.cc.buffalo.edu (Cathy Leak)
-
- Purpose: The progressive rock group Yes and its many offspring
- (especially the current branch of Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman and
- Howe). We do a little of everything: news, reviews, trivia, etc.
-
- Yiddish
- Contact: dave@lsuc.on.ca -or- lsuc!dave (Dave Sherman)
-
- Purpose: articles, jokes, etc. in transliterated Yiddish, and
- discussion of Yiddish language and culture (in English). Some
- familiarity with the language is required to understand most of
- the messages.
-
- YSN
- Contact: ysn-adm@zoyd.ee.washington.edu (John Sahr)
-
- Purpose: Activism on employment issues for scientists just
- beginning their careers. The Young Scientists' Network
- attempts to inform the press, the public, and government
- officials that there is no shortage of scientists; we hope
- to find traditional and non-tradiotional employment for
- scientists. Stories about the Young Scientists' Network
- have appeared in Science, Physics Today, and on National
- Public Radio; we've met with officials from the National
- Science Foundation and other agencies.
-
- Z-cars
- Contact: z-car-request@dixie.com (John De Armond)
-
- Purpose:The Z-car mailing list operates for the benefit of those
- interested in Datsun/Nissan Z cars. The interest base is
- primarily for the original Z, though all discussion regarding the
- Z line of cars is welcome.
-
- zeppelin
- Contact: zeppelin-l@cornell.edu
-
- Purpose: For fans of the rock group Led Zeppelin.
- For further information about this list, send email to
- listserv@cornell.edu with
- info zeppelin-l
- as the body of the message.
-
- ZForum
- Contact: zforum-request@comlab.ox.ac.uk (Jonathan Bowen)
-
- Purpose: ZForum is intended to handle messages concerned with the
- formal specification notation Z. Z, based on set theory and first
- order predicate logic, has been developed at the Programming
- Research Group (PRG) at Oxford University for well over a decade.
- It is now used by industry as part of the software (and hardware)
- development process in both the UK and the US. It is currently
- undergoing standardization. ZForum provides a convenient forum
- for messages and queries concerned with recent developments and
- the use of Z. ZForum is gatewayed to the USENET newsgroup
- comp.specification.z.
- Xref: bloom-picayune.mit.edu news.lists:2142 news.admin:25961 news.answers:3568
- Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!usc!rpi!gatech!purdue!spaf
- From: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU (Gene Spafford)
- Newsgroups: news.lists,news.admin,news.answers
- Subject: How to Construct the Mailpaths File
- Message-ID: <spaf-mailpaths_719471711@cs.purdue.edu>
- Date: 19 Oct 92 05:15:13 GMT
- Expires: 18 Dec 92 17:15:11 GMT
- Followup-To: news.admin
- Organization: Dept. of Computer Sciences, Purdue Univ.
- Lines: 129
- Approved: spaf@cs.purdue.EDU
- Supersedes: <spaf-mailpaths_716962663@cs.purdue.edu>
-
- Archive-name: mailpaths/part1
- Original-author: Gene Spafford (spaf@cs.purdue.edu)
- Last-change: 5 May 1992 by spaf@cs.purdue.edu (Gene Spafford)
-
- News 2.11 has been designed to make it simpler to submit articles to
- moderated newsgroups and to reply via mail to posted articles. For
- these functions to work, the file "mailpaths" must exist in the news
- library and contain current information. This file describes the
- syntax of the contents of the file and how to construct it for your site.
-
- Syntax
- ------
- All lines in the file consist of a keyword followed by whitespace,
- followed by a printf-style format string which is used to encode a mail
- address. The format string should be constructed so that there is a
- single "%s" in the field, and other information necessary to construct
- a valid address to the appropriate site (see below).
-
- The keyword field consists of either the word "internet", the word
- "backbone", or some newsgroup pattern. These are examined by the
- software to determine which format-string to use. Note that the FIRST
- appropriate line matched is the one used -- thus, the "backbone"
- keyword line should be placed last in the line if regional or local
- moderated groups are supported.
-
- Also note that the match software quits if it runs out of newsgroup
- pattern, and if the pattern present matches the newsgroup. Thus,
- having the entries:
- comp.foo foo@nowhere.edu
- comp.foo.bar bar@someplace.org
- would always send mail to the moderator of "comp.foo" and not to the
- moderator of "comp.foo.bar", no matter which of the two newsgroups was
- specified! For proper operation, you would need to list them thusly:
- comp.foo.bar bar@someplace.org
- comp.foo foo@nowhere.edu
-
- Addresses that end up with both "!" and "@" symbols in the resulting
- address get converted so that only "!" symbols appear in the final
- address. An address of the form "foo!bar!baz@barf" will get converted
- to "foo!bar!barf!baz" and then mailed. This should work properly, for
- "dumb" mailers but you should test it to make sure; "smart" mailers
- should have the format fields encoded as a simple "%s". Note that *any*
- address with more than a single "@" in it is illegal.
-
- Submissions to moderated groups
- -------------------------------
- When you attempt to post to a moderated newsgroup (indicated by the
- letter "m" in the 4th field of the "active" file for that group),
- the action of "inews" is to mail the submission to the moderator.
- This is done by searching through "mailpaths" file for a keyword
- matching the newgroup being posted to, or, by default, the keyword
- "backbone". Matching occurs as in the "sys" file -- thus,
- "world" and "all" will also match everything, while "news" or
- "news.all" will only match articles posted in the "news" category.
- This feature can be used to support local moderated groups.
-
- Once a line has been matched, the name of the moderated group is
- transformed into an address. This is done by first turning all the
- imbedded periods within the newsgroup name into hyphens (e.g.,
- "news.lists" becomes "news-lists") because many mailers mishandle
- addresses with periods in the username (periods are supposed to be
- delimiters only in the host/domain part of RFC822 addresses, but some
- mailers "overreact"). Next, the transformed group name is encoded into
- an address using the format-string present on the line matched from
- "mailpaths" and the article is mailed. Thus, a posting to "news.lists"
- from a site with the line
- backbone emory!gatech!%s
- in the mailpaths file would have the article mailed to
- "emory!gatech!news-lists". Likewise, a line like
- backbone %s@gatech.edu
- would result in the article being mailed to "news-lists@gatech.edu".
- To make the mechanism for moderated postings simpler, a subset of the
- best-connected sites (plus some others) have committed to keeping a complete
- up-to-date set of mail aliases for the moderated groups. Therefore, to
- build this line in your "mailpaths" file, you need only construct
- an address to get the mail to one of these sites. In turn, once the
- submission reaches that site, it will be forwarded on to the
- appropriate moderator's mailbox.
-
- The sites currently maintaining these lists are given in the following
- list. Pick the one that is "closest" to your site and use it in your
- "backbone" format string:
-
- ames.arc.nasa.gov beaver.cs.washington.edu cis.ohio-state.edu
- decuac.dec.com decwrl.dec.com eddie.mit.edu
- kddlab.kddlabs.co.jp linus.b.mitre.org math.waterloo.edu
- mcnc.org ncar.ucar.edu rutgers.edu
- tektronix.tek.com ucbvax.berkeley.edu ucsd.edu
- uflorida.cis.ufl.edu uunet.uu.net wrdis01.af.mil
-
-
- Internet Mail
- -------------
- If you define the "INTERNET" flag when you build 2.11 news, the
- software will use the internet-style "From:" header when addressing
- replies mailed to postings. If your mailer does not have this capability,
- you can still (possibly) achieve the same thing by defining the
- "internet" line in your "mailpaths" file to forward such mail to
- a host that does have a mailer which understands internet-style addresses.
-
- The format of this line is very similar to the "backbone" line. As an
- example, consider:
- internet emory!gatech!mcnc!%s
- Thus, if "INTERNET" was defined when this version of news was built,
- any reply to a news article would not travel along the "Path:", but
- would instead be sent to "mcnc" for interpretation and remailing.
- For example, to reply to this article, the mail would be sent to
- "emory!gatech!mcnc!spaf@cs.purdue.edu" ->
- "emory!gatech!mcnc!cs.purdue.edu!spaf"
-
- Note: This is being provided as a service to sites which do not
- have routing mailers or which have difficulty replying to articles.
- It is *NOT* intended for everyone to pass mail to other sites to send.
- Excessive use of this feature may result in severe problems for
- the sites doing the relaying, so please simply define this field to
- be "%s" if your mailer understands domain-style (internet-style)
- addressing.
-
- The following sites will accept internet-format mail for forwarding:
-
- beaver.cs.washington.edu decuac.dec.com kddlab.kddlabs.co.jp
- math.waterloo.edu mcnc.org ucsd.edu
- uunet.uu.net
-
- --
- Gene Spafford
- Software Engineering Research Center & Dept. of Computer Sciences
- Purdue University, W. Lafayette IN 47907-1398
- Internet: spaf@cs.purdue.edu phone: (317) 494-7825
- Xref: bloom-picayune.mit.edu news.admin.misc:1034 comp.mail.misc:10828 news.answers:4594
- Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!enterpoop.mit.edu!news.media.mit.edu!micro-heart-of-gold.mit.edu!wupost!uunet!uunet.ca!ecicrl!clewis
- From: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis)
- Newsgroups: news.admin.misc,comp.mail.misc,news.answers,comp.answers
- Subject: UNIX Email Software Survey FAQ
- Summary: How to set up Email on UNIX systems.
- Keywords: mail software survey UNIX FAQ
- Message-ID: <mailfaq_724396890@ecicrl>
- Date: 15 Dec 92 05:21:48 GMT
- Expires: 12 Jan 93 05:21:30 GMT
- Reply-To: mailfaq@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Mail FAQ commentary reception)
- Followup-To: news.admin.misc
- Organization: Elegant Communications Inc., Ottawa, Canada
- Lines: 1400
- Approved: news-answers-request@mit.edu
- Supersedes: <mailfaq_723187288@ecicrl>
-
- Archive-name: mail-setup/part1
- Last-modified: Wed Dec 9 02:54:32 EST 1992
-
- UNIX EMail Software - a Survey
- Chris Lewis
- clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca
- [and a host of others - thanks]
-
- Changes are marked with a preceding "|". You can skip to them
- by typing g^| in (most) newsreaders.
-
- Changes this issue:
- New MTA - "ream". Updated for new release of smail 3, its
- archive sites, and deleted paragraph about load limiting -
- smail 3 does it okay now.
-
- Note: this FAQ has been formatted as a digest. Many newsreaders
- can skip to each of the major subsections by pressing ^G.
-
- Please direct comments or questions to mailfaq@ferret.ocunix.on.ca -
- note Reply-to: line - automatic if you reply to this article.
-
- --------
- Subject: Introduction
-
- Configuring electronic mail systems can be quite a complicated
- subject. Often far more complicated than, say, setting up
- a USENET news feed. This is because, unlike news, email is
- expected to traverse multiple types of networks using their own
- protocol, whereas, USENET news tends to be a single protocol
- supported by hook or by crook on different networks.
-
- This document is intended for system administrators who need to
- know how to set up their UNIX systems for email communication with
- the outside world. It is intended for the email-naive SA
- who gets more than a little confused by the acronyms, RFC's and
- plethora of software.
-
- This is intended to be a general survey of the software available,
- so I won't spend too much time on some of the details. Most of
- the available software comes with documentation that can
- explain things much better than I can.
-
- Additional detail can be obtained from several sources, such as:
-
- Quarterman, John S.: "The Matrix -- Computer Networks
- and Conferencing Systems Worldwide", Digital Press 1990,
- (Order No. EY-C176E-DP), ISBN 1-55558-033-5.
-
- Adams, Rick and Frey, Donnalyn: !%@:: A Directory of Mail
- Addressing and Networks, 2nd Ed., O'Reilly & Associates 1990,
- ISBN 0-937175-15-3.
-
- Kehoe, Brendan P.: Zen and the Art of the Internet: A
- Beginner's Guide, Second Edition, Prentice Hall 1992,
- ISBN 0-13-010778-6. Edition 1 is available via FTP on
- cs.widener.edu in the tar file zen-1.0.tar.Z. [I think]
-
- Krol, Ed: The Whole Internet: User's Guide & Catalog.
- First edition, O'Reilly & Associates Sept. 1992.
- ISBN: 1-56592-025-2. Very good introduction to
- the Internet, history, facilities, uses, services,
- etc. I learned a lot.
-
- Albitz, Paul & Liu, Cricket: DNS and BIND, First edition,
- O'Reilly & Associates, October 1992. ISBN: 0-56592-010-4.
- Describes in great detail everything from what a domain
- is, to how to install and configure BIND. A *MUST* for
- people setting up large networks, or connecting
- machines to the Internet. It has become mandatory reading
- for network administrators in a large corporation for
- good reason.
-
- Further, this is primarily oriented towards UNIX email systems.
- This is unfortunate, because it would be nice to have a general
- document covering email in all of its forms. However, each
- operating system tends to have radically different email mechanisms,
- so it would be difficult to do justice to any other environment.
- It seems more useful to cover one environment well here, and have
- companion documents for other environments. Speaking of which,
- why hasn't anybody else stepped in to do FAQs on other environments?
- Like DOS, Mac etc.
-
- And finally, this document is not intended to be pedantically
- correct. Knowledgeable readers will know that I'm glossing
- over a lot of detail, and absolute precision has been balanced
- against readability and effectiveness in helping people get
- going.
-
- --------
- Subject: Layout
-
- This FAQ is laid out in the following sections:
-
- + An overview of how mail systems go together.
-
- + A glossary of the important terms to know.
-
- + A list of general do's and don'ts of mail systems.
-
- + Configuration Issues
-
- + Several suggested mail configurations.
-
- + General overviews of specific software.
-
- --------
- Subject: Electronic mail - A General Overview of Structure
-
- Electronic mail generally consists of three basic pieces:
-
- 1) The link level transport - which could be
- UUCP, TCP/IP, or a host of others. We'll call
- this the "transport medium" (TM)
-
- 2) the "Mail Transport Agent" (MTA) which is responsible for
- transporting mail from source to destination, possibly
- transforming protocols, addresses, and routing the mail.
-
- The MTA often has several components:
- - Routing mechanisms
- - Local delivery agent (LDA)
- - Remote delivery agent
- Many MTA's have all of these components, but some
- do not. In other cases, it is possible to replace
- certain components for increased functionality.
-
- 3) The "User Agent" (UA) is the user interface -
- the software that the user uses to read his mail,
- sort things around in folders, and send mail.
- Sometimes called "Mail User Agent" (MUA).
-
- --------
- Subject: Glossary
-
- Rather than alphabetic, this glossary tends to group terms
- referring to similar functionality together.
-
- Transport Medium:
-
- UUCP (Unix to Unix Copy Program):
- Back in the mists of time, UNIX systems communicated only
- over RS232 serial lines, usually over modems. UUCP is a
- suite of programs developed back in the early 70's to
- provide this communications link. All that UUCP does is
- transfer files from one system to another. There is an
- additional mechanism where one system can direct the
- destination system to run a file through a specific program.
- Electronic mail in UUCP is simply requesting the destination
- machine to run "mail" on a data file.
-
- UUCP communicates by means of "protocols", the most common
- being "g", a method for transmission of data over telephone
- lines and ensuring that the data is not corrupted. There
- are several other protocols, none universally available,
- and most oriented towards communication media other than
- telephone voice lines (such as dialup X.25, PAD X.25, or
- LAN connects).
-
- UUCP operates over fixed system-to-system links, so sending
- mail from one system to another often has to traverse
- other intermediate systems.
-
- TCP/IP (Transmission Control Protocol/Internet Protocol):
- TCP/IP is a protocol that allows any system on a network to
- talk "directly" to any other, by passing packets of
- information back and forth. TCP/IP (and its later relative
- OSI) is usually used over networks built on top of Ethernet,
- Token-Ring, Starlan and other LANS.
-
- SMTP:
- Or, "Simple Mail Transfer Protocol", is the communications
- protocol used most commonly over TCP/IP links in UNIX
- environments for mail. SMTP usually operates directly between
- the source and destination machines, so intermediate machines
- don't get involved (except for gateways, see below). SMTP
- is usually part of the MTA.
-
- SLIP (Serial Line Internet Protocol):
- SLIP is an implementation of TCP/IP designed for use over
- RS232 serial lines (ie: modems). The other difference is
- that some SLIP implementations have the ability to "dial the
- phone" to make a connection for a specific transfer, whereas
- LAN TCP/IP is physically continuously connected. You'd also
- need TCP/IP to run a SMTP mail connection.
-
- PPP (Point-to-Point Protocol):
- A successor to SLIP.
-
- X.25/X.29:
- X.25 is a packet switched data network which is usually
- half-duplex. In this context, it's really an alternative
- to dialup over voice telephone lines with modems. X.25
- is available in several "flavours", either direct X.25
- trunk connects over leased lines, through "PAD" interfaces,
- or by ordinary dialup modem access to X.25 "ports".
-
- To be useable in the context of mail transfers, you also
- have to use a file transfer protocol/mechanism of some
- sort on top of X.25. The most common being UUCP "f" protocol
- (through PADS or dialup), or "x" with direct X.25 connects.
-
- Whether you use X.25 or phones plus modems depends on a number
- of factors - usually the determining factor is cost. In North
- America, high speed modems (eg: 9600 baud and above) over telephone
- lines tends to be less expensive. However, Europe's really
- wierd phone system structure usually makes X.25 more cost-effective,
- and therefore, X.25 use in UNIX mail systems is much more common
- in Europe than North America.
-
- X.29 is the command set used to configure and establish
- X.25 connections when you're using asynchronous connections
- to a PAD.
-
- Networks:
-
- Internet:
- An "internet" is a network comprised of computers that talk
- to each other using TCP/IP, and usually SMTP for mail.
-
- The "Internet" is a vast network of hundreds of thousands of
- machines using SMTP protocol mail, communicating with
- each other over relatively high speed lines. But not all
- "internets" are connected to *the* Internet.
-
- The Internet grew out of a US government funded project in
- inter-computer communications that grew into an enormous network
- of systems.
-
- One of the principle characteristics of this network is that
- machines are addressed by domain names which identify the
- destination, rather than addresses that are constructed out
- of the route from machine-to-machine-to-machine.
-
- UUCP Network:
- The UUCP network is that set of machines that talk to each other
- via UUCP. Sending mail through this network requires that the sender
- know the network topology of UUCP links, and specify a path from one
- machine to the next. (There are, of course, ways around this.
- See the section on "do's and don'ts".)
-
- Mail addresses:
-
- Addresses:
- An email address is a method of specifying a given person on
- a specific machine. There are scads of conventions, usually
- determined by the presence of "@"'s, "!"'s and other special
- characters in the name. An address usually consists of
- two parts: a userid/name and a machine specification.
-
- A Domain address usually looks like:
- userid@domain-address
- Whereas a UUCP address usually looks like:
- siteA!siteB!siteC!userid
-
- Domain Addresses:
- Domains are a way of uniquely specifying a destination.
- Much like a postal address, a domain specifies a set of
- progressively more restrictive "domains" of the potential
- address space. It would perhaps be illustrative to give an
- example:
-
- clewis@ferret.marketing.fooinc.com
-
- You read these things right to left: "com" means the
- commercial domain. "fooinc" is the name of an organization
- within the commercial domain. "Marketing" is the name of a
- suborganization within fooinc, and ferret gives the name of
- a machine (usually). Domains can have any number of levels.
-
- The top level domain (com in the above example) has many
- possible values. In the United States, "com", "mil", "edu",
- and "gov" are fairly standard. Elsewhere, the top level
- domain tends to be a country code, the second level tends to
- be a province or state, OR a classification like "edu" or "ac"
- for academic (such as ac.jp, go.jp, ac.uk, edu.au, etc)
- and the third an organization. But, for example, there are
- many .com and .edu sites in Canada and other countries.
-
- FQDN
- A fully-qualified-domain-name (FQDN) has a entry for each
- level of the domain, from individual machine to top-level
- domain. In many cases, an organization has implemented an
- organizational "gateway" at a higher level of domain, so
- that people from outside don't have to specify FQDN's to get
- to a specific person. In the above example, for instance,
- "fooinc.com" may be sufficient to get to anyone inside
- fooinc, and "ferret.marketing" may not be necessary.
-