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- Path: sparky!uunet!caen!rphroy!cfctech!kevin
- From: kevin@cfctech.cfc.com (Kevin Darcy)
- Newsgroups: comp.mail.uucp
- Subject: Re: Internet <--> UUCP gateway
- Message-ID: <1992Aug13.222953.24812@cfctech.cfc.com>
- Date: 13 Aug 92 22:29:53 GMT
- References: <1992Aug05.043403.394@ecst.csuchico.edu> <1992Aug8.014028.16205@cfctech.cfc.com> <1615bbINNbsn@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr>
- Organization: Chrysler Financial Corp., Southfield, MI
- Lines: 77
-
- In article <1615bbINNbsn@grasp1.univ-lyon1.fr> Christophe.Wolfhugel@univ-lyon1.fr (Christophe Wolfhugel) writes:
- >kevin@cfctech.cfc.com (Kevin Darcy) writes:
- >> THE UUCP MAPS DO *NOT*, IN AND OF THEMSELVES, REFLECT OPTIMAL
- >> MAIL PATHS OVER THE INTERNET!!!
- >> [sample deleted, but it reflects really good the situation].
- >
- >But now that top-level domains seem to be more and more aliased in the
- >UUCP maps, all those semi-bread-dead hosts (ie who are UUCP and
- >use a smart host for the domain addresses they don't know about)
- >will use the pathalias generated route for *any* destination if the
- >admins do not themselves remove the pertinent information from the
- >maps before running pathalias... (I sometimes get UUCP routed mail
- >3 or 4 days after being sent, instead of the usual 1-2 hours when the
- >sender used its smart host).
- >
- >This leads to the eternal question: should domain mail always
- >be sent to an Internet smart host for relaying (in some rare situations
- >it's cheaper and faster not to go on the Internet and back to
- >UUCP). But, curiosity, are there lots of sites who are more than
- >say 2 or 3 hops away from their Internet relay (see below)? Also lots of
- >them just rely on 1 or 2 UUCP connections... I mean for a typical site
- >(such as a XXX-only UUCP customer) there is no real interest
- >to parse domain information from the maps as routing will always be
- >better when there is no explicit route at the relay node.
-
- Are you assuming that all MX forwarders keep up-to-date and accurate paths?
- That has not been my observation. At least if I process a full set of maps
- myself, I can be fairly certain that messages will get to their remote
- destinations EVENTUALLY. Without pathalias, it's just "punt and pray".
-
- Besides, what about unqualified addresses? My nearest relay doesn't run
- pathalias, so that'd be a GUARANTEED extra hop for it to forward to someone
- else for pathalias address-resolution. If I can supply the bang-path myself,
- that extra hop is eliminated. Many relays will barf on unqualified addresses,
- too, or, even worse, will remedially tack on their OWN domain, resulting in
- mutant addresses ("cfctech.PoDunk.Edu", anyone?). UUCP sites downstream from
- such relays are practically FORCED to either run pathalias to resolve such
- addresses, or to "qualify" all UUCP addresses by tacking on the infamous,
- risky ".UUCP" (scary stuff).
-
- >I would tend to suggest admins to describe well their neighborhood and
- >prefer using a smart host for relaying domain adresses rather than
- >information from the map (I do not agree with you Kevin, I consider
- >MX routing as more reliable as UUCP maps just because lots of entries
- >are not updated to accurate information).
-
- It would be nice if some sort of utility was run periodically on Internet
- hosts which would double-check and/or supplement the UUCP map data with DNS-
- derived information. If the map data were more complete and accurate, I
- believe pathalias would be a much more useful tool. Integrating the hosts.txt
- data with the UUCP maps (as we do here) results in dramatic path-
- optimizations, but real live DNS data would be superior by an order of
- magnitude...
-
- >
- > [interesting table showing connectivity of hosts in the UUCP maps]
- >
- > [...]
- >
- >I considered as "internet sites" hosts (name = host.foo.bar) where
- >the given FQDN has an A record in the DNS. This is an approximation but
- >works pretty well. It would have been better to consider an Internet
- >sites those having an MX pointing in their own domain or an A record.
-
- Hmmmm... I don't agree that just because a host's MX points within its own
- domain that it should be considered an "Internet host" for these purposes.
- What about the fairly-common case of a large UUCP network sitting behind a
- corporate/organizational gateway? The only _bona fide_ Internet host there
- is the gateway, but I think with your criteria you'd end up counting all of
- the UUCP hosts behind it too.
-
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- kevin@cfctech.cfc.com | Kevin Darcy, Unix Systems Administrator
- ...sharkey!cfctech!kevin | Technical Services (CFC)
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