NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #3/NN_1993_3.iso/spool/comp/mail/uucp/2614

Internet Message Format | 1993-01-22 | 3.2 KB

Path: sparky!uunet!gatech!concert!duke!wolves!news
From: [e-mail] (The Wolfe of the Den)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: More problems with the UUCP maps
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Date: 22 Jan 93 15:27:56 GMT
References: <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]> <[e-mail]>
Organization: Wolves Den UNIX
Lines: 60

[e-mail] (Stephen C. Trier) writes:
>[e-mail] (Peter Busser) writes:
>>The underlying assumption you made is that every mail package returns bounces
>>when it can't find the addressed user. Are there any statistics that support
>>this assumption?
>
>Experience, I'd say.  I'd consider a UUCP package that doesn't return
>bounces to be broken.
>
>What possible reason could one have for _not_ bouncing messages to non-
>existent users?
>
>The only package I know of that doesn't issue bounces is UUPC.  Its ports
>to other systems may share this deficiency.  The reason is either that it
>is a "single user package" or that it is not worth the effort to implement.

    Well, since UUCP *per se* is NOT a mailer, but a simple file
transfer protocol for point-to-point dial up connections, UUCP has no
business trying to be a mailer *per se*

    Now, most UUCP packages *should* have the capability to respond
to the sender when a uucp request gets hung in the queue and doesn't get
dispatched in a reasonable length of time.   In this case, the UUCP
cleanup daemon looks to see if it is a mail message, and tries to inform
the original sender as well as the local administration.

>I'm not aware of any Unix UUCP mailers that will not issue bounces, but
>all the folks around here seem to run sendmail, smail2.5 or smail3.x, all
>of which generate correct bounces.
>
>A more likely explanation is that there are enough path-manglers and flawed
>rabid rerouters out there that the messages got lost on the way there and
>the bounces on the way back.

    You forget also that a UUCP link is not necessarily
bi-directional!   Generally, if a site polls another, messages going in
both directions can be exchanged, but there are ways to break the
symmetry, and there may not be a mailer on the reverse link that
understands uucp syntax.

    Additionally, there are some sites that allow anonymous UUCP
connects with "rmail" privledge, which would allow any site to dump mail
bound for some site into the stream, but there would be no reverse
channel.

    This can be quite frustrating too.  Someone may dump mail into
your site via the anon uucp connect, and then wonders why you don't
answer their email request. :-(

    As another example, the recent flak over the link between
zuma.UUCP and antatolia was set up so that zuma could dump news into the
net, but not have a useable reverse channel.  This "convenient"
arrangement allows Serdar Argic to propagandize the net while not being
subject to any form of peer or social pressure for doing so.  (And this
arrangement also violates the existing Usenet/NetNews RFC's.)
--
Usenet Net News Administrator @ The Wolves Den  (G. Wolfe Woodbury)
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