As per Relevance of the word services, we have this rfc below:
Network Working Group A.
Request for Comments: 1168 A.
J.
C.E.
USC/
July 1990
INTERMAIL AND COMMERCIAL MAIL RELAY
STATUS OF THIS
This RFC discusses the history and evolution of the Intermail
Commercial mail systems. The problems encountered in operating
store-and-forward mail relay between commercial systems such
Telemail, MCI Mail and Dialcom are also discussed. This RFC
information for the Internet community, and does not specify
standard. Distribution of this memo is unlimited
The evolution of large electronic mail systems testifies to
increasing importance of electronic mail as a means of
and coordination throughout the scientific research community
This paper is a summary of the development of, and a status
on, an experiment in protocol interoperation between mail systems
different design. USC/Information Sciences Institute (ISI) began
on this experiment in 1981 and over the years has provided
evolving demonstration service for users to exchange mail between
Internet and a few commercial mail systems
Recently other organizations have begun to provide similar services
demonstrating the ongoing need for interoperation of the Internet
the commercial mail systems. We believe that ISI's pioneering
in this area has promoted this expansion of service
These systems include the Internet mail system, the US
Telemail system, the MCI Mail system, and the Dialcom systems. All
the systems were designed to operate autonomously, with no
mechanism to allow users of one system to send electronic mail
users on another system
The Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay (CMR) services described
this paper were developed to provide a means for sending mail
the Internet and these commercial mail systems
Westine, DeSchon, Postel & Ward [Page 1]
RFC 1168 Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay Services July 1990
The Internet is an interconnected system of networks using the
mail protocol, which includes the ARPANET, MILNET, NSFNET, and
700 other networks; mail relays allow the exchange of mail
BITNET, CSNET, and the UUCP networks as well. To the users,
Internet looks like one large mail system with at least 100,000
computers and at least 400,000 users. Figure 1 illustrates the
of a message sent by a user on one Internet host to a user on
Internet host. For more details on the Internet and
networks (see Appendix A).
As commercial mail systems came into popular use, it became
that a mail link between the Internet and the commercial mail
was necessary (see Appendix B). More and more commercial
research entities needed to communicate with the Internet
community, and many of these organizations (for one reason
another) were inappropriate candidates for Internet sites.
Intermail and CMR services allow these groups to communicate
Internet users by purchasing electronic mail services from
companies
Intermail is an experimental mail forwarding system that allows
to send electronic mail across mail system boundaries. The use
Intermail is nearly transparent, in that users on each system
able to use their usual mail programs to prepare, send, and
messages. No modifications to any of the mail programs on any of
systems are required. However, users must put some extra
information at the beginning of the body of their messages
<<< Figure 1 - Internet to Internet Mail >>>
The earliest version of Intermail was developed in 1981, by
Postel, Danny Cohen, Lee Richardson, and Joel Goldberg [1]. It ran
the TOPS-20 operating system and was used to forward VLSI
specifications for the MOSIS project between the ARPANET and
Telemail system. The original addressing model used in this
was called "Source Route Forwarding". It was developed to
situations in which a message might travel multiple hops
reaching its destination
Later, in 1983, Annette DeSchon converted Intermail into a
general-purpose mail-forwarding system, supporting forwarding
the Internet mail system and three commercial mail systems: Telemail
MCI Mail, and Dialcom [3,4].
Westine, DeSchon, Postel & Ward [Page 2]
RFC 1168 Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay Services July 1990
As it became apparent that the level of generality of Source
Forwarding was not needed, and as Intermail gained acceptance
users, an easier approach to addressing was developed. The
addressing model is called "Simple Forwarding". This form
addressing, like Source Route Forwarding, appears at the beginning
the text of each message. It can be used to include various
mail header fields in addition to the standard "To" and "Cc"
fields. This format also allows the use of special address formats
such as U.S. postal addresses and TELEX addresses, which
supported by the MCI Mail system. The Intermail system
partially automated error handling. Error messages were created
the Intermail program and were then either approved or corrected by
human postmaster
Figure 2 illustrates the pathways between the user mailboxes in
commercial mail systems and the user mailboxes in the Internet
the Intermail accounts and program modules. Figure 3 shows
Intermail processing in more detail
<<< Figure 2 - Commercial Mail to Intermail >>>
<<< Figure 3 - Intermail Processing >>>
COMMERCIAL MAIL
In 1988, the Commercial Mail Relay (CMR) was developed to run on
dedicated UNIX system, replacing the TOPS-20-based Intermail system
The CMR is a store-and-forward mail link between the Internet and
commercial systems, Telemail and Dialcom. The only
forwarding performed by the TOPS-20 Intermail system is in support
the MCI Mail system. (This is planned for conversion to the CMR.)
The CMR supports relay-style addressing in the "Internet
commercial system" direction, as well as Simple Forwarding in
directions. One advantage of relay-style addressing is that
from different commercial systems can appear on Internet
lists. Another advantage is that the reply features of most
user applications can be used by Internet users to respond to
that originated on a commercial system. Unfortunately, since we
not have access to the address-parsing software on the
systems, it is not possible for users of the commercial systems
enter addresses directly into the message header, and they
continue to use Simple Forwarding
The CMR supports automated error handling, which enables the
to provide faster turnaround on messages containing
errors, and requires much less intervention from a human postmaster
Westine, DeSchon, Postel & Ward [Page 3]
RFC 1168 Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay Services July 1990
DESCRIPTION OF THE CMR
The Multi-channel Memo Distribution Facility (MMDF) is used as
system mail software because of its notion of separating the
queue into separate channels [5]. This makes it easy to dedicate
channel/queue combination to each commercial system. Internet
comes in over the standard SMTP port, and the system parses
destination address, queuing the message in the proper
queue. A tag can be added to outgoing traffic so that replies can
made without any special processing at the destination site
The CMR uses a relay mailbox on each commercial system.
users send mail to this mailbox with a Simple Forwarding Header (SFH
at the head of their message text. Each channel, in addition
sending outgoing mail into the commercial system, reads all
in the relay mailbox and places them in a spool file in the CMR
computer
The processing of the spool file is performed by a single daemon.
parses each commercial system message header to find the sender
subject, then it searches for and processes the SFH. The
contains the destination Internet addresses. Figure 4a
the path of mail from the Internet to the commercial sytems.
4b illustrates the path from the commercial systrems to the Internet
Note: MCI Mail is not yet implemented
The CMR employs a simple accounting mechanism: a shell script
the number of times a string marker occurs in the MMDF logs. At
end of the month, another script uses an "awk" program to total
number of messages sent and received with each commercial system.
Commercial Mail Relay is being developed by Craig E. Ward.
Westine served as the Postmaster for both Intermail and the CMR
March 1989. Currently, our Action Office serves as Postmaster
Questions may be sent to "Intermail-Request@ISI.EDU".
<<< Figure 4a - The Internet to Commercial Systems >>>
<<< Figure 4b - Commercial Systems to the Internet >>>
COMMERCIAL SYSTEMS
The CMR provides mail relay service between the Internet and
commercial electronic mail systems: the US Sprint Telemail
and the Dialcom system. A CMR connection to MCI Mail is
development. MCI Mail is currently served by the TOPS-20
system. See Appendix C for recent traffic data
Westine, DeSchon, Postel & Ward [Page 4]
RFC 1168 Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay Services July 1990
Telemail is an international commercial service. Some of
Telemail systems served by the CMR include MAIL/USA, NASAMAIL/USA
and GSFC/USA. Some government agencies, such as NASA and
Environmental Protection Agency, have dedicated Telemail systems
Companies also exist that purchase bulk services from Telemail
resell the service to individuals. Omnet's Sciencenet is a
popular example of this type of service
Dialcom is a commercial service similar to Telemail in that it
facilities for allowing groups to purchase tailored services,
some government agencies (such as the National Science Foundation
the U.S. Department of Agriculture) have special group-access plans
The IEEE Computer Society also has a dedicated group service,
IEEE Compmail, which is open to members of the IEEE Computer Society
MCI Mail is operated by MCI and is marketed to large companies
well as individual users
Specific examples of the users of Intermail and the CMR are
follows
1) Scientists in Oceanography, Astronomy, Geology, and
use Intermail and the CMR to communicate with colleagues. Many
these scientists have accounts on "Sciencenet", which is
part of a Telemail system administered by Omnet
(2) The IEEE Computer Society's publication editors use the
system "Compmail" to manage the papers being prepared for
numerous publications. Many of the authors are in
departments with access to the Internet. Intermail and the
support a significant exchange of large messages
manuscripts
(3) NASA uses Telemail systems for its own work and has
exchanges through its own relay service, as well as Intermail and
CMR, for communicating with university scientists on the Internet
Other developments to interoperate between the Internet
Commercial mail systems are
(1) The Merit gateway to Sprintmail and IEEE
(2) The CNRI gateway to MCI
(3) The Ohio State University gateway to Compuserve, and
(4) NASA-Ames gateway to
Westine, DeSchon, Postel & Ward [Page 5]
RFC 1168 Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay Services July 1990
ACCEPTABLE USE POLICY FOR INTERMAIL AND THE
The Internet is composed of many networks sponsored by
organizations. However, all the Internet's long-haul networks
provided by U.S. government agencies. Each of these agencies
the use of the facilities it provides in some way. In general,
statement by an agency about how its facilities may be used is
an "Acceptable Use Policy".
The various agencies involved in the Internet are currently
their Acceptable Use Policy statements. Most of these are in
form and have not been released as official agency statements as yet
None of these policies are currently available as online documents
In the least restrictive case, all bona fide researchers
scholars, public and private, from the United States and
countries (unless denied access by national policy) are
access
The Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay (CMR) systems at ISI
resources provided by the Defense Advanced Research Projects
(DARPA) for computing and communication. Use of these resources
be limited to DARPA-sponsored work or other approved
business (or must otherwise meet the acceptable use policy of DARPA),
only
However, DARPA, as a member of the Federal Research
Coordinating Committee (FRICC), has agreed to the FRICC draft
for communication networks, which provides in part that: "The
agencies of the FRICC agree to carry all traffic that meets
Acceptable Use Policy of the originating member agency".
Thus, e-mail messages (i.e., "traffic") that meet the Acceptable
Policy of an agency and pass through some facility of that
(i.e., "the originating member") on the way to Intermail or CMR
allowed
The current member agencies of the FRICC are DARPA, NSF, DOE, NASA
and NIH
BITNET and UUCP (and other) networks are interconnected to
Internet via mail relays. It is the responsibility of the
of these mail relays to ensure that the e-mail messages ("traffic")
that enter the Internet via their mail relays meet the Acceptable
Policy of the member agency providing the Internet access
Westine, DeSchon, Postel & Ward [Page 6]
RFC 1168 Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay Services July 1990
In addition, we cannot allow CMR or Intermail to be used simply as
bridge between two commercial systems, even though CMR has
technical capability. At least one end of the communication must
related to FRICC acceptable use
DETAILS OF CMR SYSTEM
The CMR host computer is Internet host INTERMAIL.ISI.
(128.9.2.203). The users of the commercials system are required
know the proper gateways between the Internet and other networks
as BITNET, CSNET, or UUCP. Users on networks interconnected to
Internet likewise need to know how to reach the Internet to send
through INTERMAIL.ISI.EDU to a commercial system
The relay connection to Telemail is through their host TELEMAIL/USA
The general syntax for Telemail addresses
"[USER/ORGANIZATION]HOST/COUNTRY", making the full address for
relay mailbox
[INTERMAIL/USCISI]TELEMAIL/
Users across the entire Telemail service can send mail to
address. Users on the TELEMAIL host need only send to INTERMAIL
Internet users can use the basic Telemail format, append
"%TELEMAIL" to it, and mail to the resulting address as if it
existed on INTERMAIL.ISI.EDU, e.g.:
[CWARD/USCISI]TELEMAIL/USA%TELEMAIL@INTERMAIL.ISI.
Note that the CMR system will accept anything before the "%TELEMAIL",
that is, the CMR does not validate Telemail addresses
transmitting them to Telemail
The CMR handles Dialcom mail delivery in a similar way, but
system has what might be called "virtual hosts". Groups can be
up with an alias system to allow easier intra-group access.
example, both NSF and USDA share the same Dialcom host (157); but
while both groups send relay messages to Intermail, their
fully qualified Dialcom mailboxes are different. For example, NSF'
mailbox is NSF153, and USDA's mailbox is AGS9999.
Mail going in either direction may use an embedded Simple
Header. An SFH must be the first part of the message text.
starts with a "Forward:" field followed by a "To:" field. "Cc:",
"Subject:", and other fields may follow the "To:" fields. The SFH
terminated by a blank line
Westine, DeSchon, Postel & Ward [Page 7]
RFC 1168 Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay Services July 1990
This is a template of an SFH
Forward: Destination-
To: User@host1, User@host2,
User2@host
Cc: User@host
Subject: This subject supercedes the subject in the host net
Dialcom syntax is "Host-ID:User-ID", for example, 134:ABC1234.
format will work from any Dialcom host; but users in the same
as ABC would be able to use the user name, for example, JSMITH
Using the SFH format, mail to a Dialcom system could be sent
follows
To: Intermail@ISI.
Subject: Test
Forward:
To: 134:ABC1234
Here is the text of the message
Proper destination network names include ARPA, Telemail, Compmail
NSF-Mail, and USDA-Mail
It is possible for a user to make mistakes at many points in
process. Errors are handled as automatically as possible by the CMR
Many errors are caught in the standard Internet mail traffic,
users receive the usual error messages from the system.
with incorrect commercial system addresses or faulty SFHs are
automatically returned to sender. Messages that the software
handle are sent to the CMR's user-service mailbox, Intermail
Request@ISI.EDU. This mailbox has been set up to take care of
problems and to be a central distribution point for
instructions
Several problems arise from the store-and-forward nature of the CMR
One of the biggest is that almost all of the commercial systems
a machine-to-machine interface -- the CMR software must mimic a
user of the commercial system. Another problem is that the
and a commercial system have different forms (or syntax)
electronic mail addresses. A major goal of the CMR project is
make the link between networks as transparent as possible,
Internet users to use off-the-shelf mail programs. Making
Westine, DeSchon, Postel & Ward [Page 8]
RFC 1168 Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay Services July 1990
address formats fit the Internet standard is a major task [2].
Compatibility with Internet addressing standards is also a concern
The commercial accounts are not able to take advantage of
transparency features of the Domain Name System (DNS) (see
D); and some commercial addresses are incompatible with the
syntax--this requires Internet users to continue using the
methods
Another general problem to be solved is to reduce the amount of
needed to maintain the system. Because most commercial systems
our software to mimic a human user, automatic error detection
handling are quite complex. The Intermail system requires
intervention in processing failed mail. A goal of the CMR is
fully automate these processes
A related problem facing the CMR, as well as its
Intermail, is the frequency with which commercial systems
their software. The changes are usually minor and do not bother
human users; however, the CMR depends on being able to
certain strings. To avoid the necessity of rebuilding the whole
when these strings change, most of the string markers are stored
ASCII files that are read at run time
The translation of commercial system addresses has created a new
of problems, most of which are caused by the use of "special
characters by the commercial systems
Telemail uses square brackets ("[" and "]") around user names.
these characters are not special by Internet standards when found
the local part of an address, many (perhaps most) Internet
refuse to accept these characters unless they are quoted. MMDF
modified locally to correct this
The square bracket problem is even worse for users of IBM
machines, many of which are used on BITNET. The square bracket
not a printable character on many BITNET IBM hosts, and all kinds
strange addresses can result from its use
The colon is another example. Dialcom uses it as the
between host and mailbox. However, the colon is a special
in the Internet mail standard [2]. Users can avoid this problem
using the SFH and placing the Dialcom address at the beginning of
message text. Although the CMR can accept addresses with colons
many Internet hosts and relays are unable to accept addresses
contain colons. Mail with colons in the address fields is
rejected by Internet hosts and is returned to the Intermail-
mailbox for error processing. This can cause significant delays
Westine, DeSchon, Postel & Ward [Page 9]
RFC 1168 Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay Services July 1990
Problems have also been caused by confusion about which hosts
mail relays between the Internet and other systems compatible
the Internet mail standard [2]. (e.g., BITNET, UUCP, and CSNET).
When the CMR was implemented, a decision was made that the CMR
not keep track of these mail relays. When a relay is changed, as
BITNET mail relays were in 1988, mail may be rejected because
host either no longer exists or refuses the mail
The mail relay problem is a subset of the larger problem
communicating information about new features and changes to the
community. Virtually none of the users of the CMR are local.
are hidden behind the veil of the commercial system. (Dealing
commercial system customer support people has proven to
frustrating -- few of them seem to understand the concept
machine-to-machine exchanges.) Enhancements to commercial
that necessitate minor changes can disrupt some CMR users for days
Another problem that has not been adequately solved is validation
commercial system addresses and processing of failed
system mail. The Telemail system will not validate a user/
combination until after the full text of the message has
transmitted. If a long message is sent to an invalid address, it
be very expensive in terms of wasted time and connect charges
Telemail also gives inadequate information when the host is
but the user name is not. The failed mail notice received
Telemail is of little use to either a human reader or the
software. The only information that Telemail returns is the
ID number -- it provides no subject, and no text to distinguish
message from the numerous others that pass through the mailbox
Dialcom does a better job of validating addresses. If an address
not recognized, the system immediately prompts for a correction.
simple will delete the invalid address from the list
The commercial systems are geared for paying customers to send
receive mail to other paying customers. They are not equipped
handle reverse billing, or "collect calls." ISI is currently
for connect time needed to transmit and receive mail to and
other Internet sites. A possible solution to this problem would
to extend the CMR. to include accounting and billing procedures
would pass the costs of CMR to its users
What had been GTE Telemail became Sprint SprintMail, Telenet
Sprintnet, and the host TELEMAIL/USA became SM66/USA
In April 1990, Sprint installed its X.400 implementation. For
time being, the old-style Interconnect syntax will work. The
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RFC 1168 Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay Services July 1990
telemail channel and the Simple Forwarding Header (SFH) processor
were modified to accept either format in the SprintMail "From" field
Sprint uses the following syntax for X.400:
(O:USCISI,UN:INTERMAIL,TS:SM66)
The SFH processor will "translate" this into
/O=USCISI/UN=INTERMAIL/TS=SM66/%
The channel program will reverse the process. In the translation
parentheses become slashes, colons become equal signs and
become slashes and vice versa
Unfortunately, the translation algorithm is not foolproof.
Sprint/Internet relay did not use the same field names and values
those in SprintMail. Consequently, a CMR translated address can
be sent unmodified to Sprint's relay, Sprint.COM, and Sprint.
processed addresses cannot be sent unmodified to the CMR
From experimentation, the modifications necessary to a CMR
address to make it acceptable to Sprint.COM are (1) take the "non
standard" X.400 fields of "UN" and "TS" and prepend "DD." to them
(2) add the country field and code (C:US) and (3) add the
administrative domain name (ADMD:Telemail). The above example
become
/O=USCISI/DD.UN=INTERMAIL/DD.TS=SM66/ADMD=TELEMAIL/C=US/@Sprint.
The country code must be changed from "US" to "USA." The CMR
name must also be appended: "%TELEMAIL."
The situation is further complicated by Sprint's decision to
relay mail to and from its own administrative domain. Other X.400
ADMDs may be added in the future if payment problems can be overcome
SprintMail encoded Internet addresses are not parsed correctly by
SFH processor, but that should not be a major problem -- who on
Internet is going to send to the commercial side of the relay
When the NSF decided to terminate NSFMAIL, it became clear that
CMR Project needed a way to get news out to the commercial users
The CMR channel programs now are able to append a news file to
end of messages going into the commercial networks.
transmitting a message, each channel checks for a news file with
channel name and if present, sends it
Westine, DeSchon, Postel & Ward [Page 11]
RFC 1168 Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay Services July 1990
The biggest costs of the CMR are the connect times to the
X.25 network and the commercial machines. Making the CMR
faster is the current number one problem
Three strategies are being pursued
- Improve the implementation of the current
- Change the method to take advantage of changes in the
- Upgrade the modems and increase the number of phone
For a list of known problems or bugs in the CMR software, see
Appendix of the program logic manual [6].
FUTURE
No software project is ever completed, and the CMR is no exception
There are many possible extensions, some more difficult than others
One addition that will be made to the CMR is a channel
interacting with MCI Mail. MCI Mail is one of the original TOPS-20
commercial systems that were serviced by Intermail; the CMR will
to replace this function before all of the TOPS-20 machines
removed from service on the Internet
The adaptability of the CMR is such that adding new
systems should not be a major problem. Additional commercial
under consideration include General Electric's GENIE, Western Union'
EasyLink, and Compuserve
One possible addition to the CMR system could be maintenance of
list of gateways. This would allow commercial system users
incorporate the native address formats of other networks into
SFHs. An advantage of this would be that users could simply tell
CMR to forward a message to BITNET, for example, and the CMR
find the gateway and properly format the address for that gateway
To increase the ease of use to Internet users, the system might
each commercial system as an Internet host and create DNS
records for them. This would allow users to send mail to a non
Internet user at an Internet-style domain name
Another improvement would be the possibility of accepting X.400-
addressing. The current system rejects them
Westine, DeSchon, Postel & Ward [Page 12]
RFC 1168 Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay Services July 1990
In order to further reduce the hazards of string changes in
commercial system software, an AI component could be added to
commercial system interfaces. Such an AI component might be able
"figure out" what marker a new prompt represents and to remember it
ACCESS
For instructions on how to use Intermail and CMR contact Intermail
Request@ISI.EDU
[1] Cohen, D., "A Suggestion for Internet Message Forwarding
MOSIS", IEN-180, USC/Information Sciences Institute, March 1981.
[2] Crocker, D., "Standard for the Format of ARPA Internet
Messages", RFC-822, University of Delaware, August 1982.
[3] DeSchon, A. L., "MCI Mail/ARPA Mail Forwarding", USC/
Sciences Institute, ISI Research Report, RR-84-141, August 1984.
[4] DeSchon, A. L., "INTERMAIL, An Experimental Mail
System", USC/Information Sciences Institute, ISI
Report, RR-85-158, September 1985.
[5] Kingston, D., "MMDF II: A Technical Review", Usenix Conference
Salt Lake City, August 1984.
[6] Ward, C. E., "The Commercial Mail Relay Project: Intermail
UNIX", USC/Information Sciences Institute, 1988.
Westine, DeSchon, Postel & Ward [Page 13]
RFC 1168 Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay Services July 1990
APPENDIX
The Internet and Connected
The Internet is a network of networks interconnected by gateways
routers. The common element is the TCP/IP protocol suite.
Internet now includes approximately 800 networks and 100,000
computers. The Internet is made up of local area networks
research institutes and university campuses, regional networks,
long-haul networks. These resources are supported by the
organizations and by several US goverment agencies (including DARPA
NSF, NASA, DOE, and NIH). The long-haul networks in the
are the ARPANET, the MILNET, the NSFNET Backbone, the NASA
Internet (NSI), and the DOE Energy Science Network (ESNET).
Other systems using TCP/IP or other protocols may be networks
networks or "internets" with a lower case "i". The capital "I
Internet is the one described above
There are other networks with (semi-) compatible electronic
systems. These include BITNET (and EARN and NETNORTH), UUCP (
EUNET), CSNET, ACSNET, and JANET. Users of electronic mail may
necessarily be aware of the boundaries between these systems and
Internet
The Domain Name System (DNS) is a mechanism used in the Internet
translating names of host computers into addresses. The DNS
allows host computers not directly on the Internet to have
names in the same style
BITNET (Because It's Time NETwork
BITNET has about 2,500 host computers, primarily at universities,
many countries. It is managed by EDUCOM, which
administrative support and information services. There are
main constituents of the network: BITNET in the United States
Mexico, NETNORTH in Canada, and EARN in Europe. There are
AsiaNet, in Japan, and connections in South America. Gateways
between BITNET and the Internet. The most common gateway used
CUNYVM.CUNY.EDU
CSNET (The Computer + Science Network
CSNET has 180 member organizations, primarily computer
research laboratories at universities and research institutes
including international affiliates in more than a dozen countries
CSNET has adopted DNS-style names for all its host computers. It
administered by the University Corporation for Atmospheric
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RFC 1168 Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay Services July 1990
(UCAR) and provides administrative support and information
via the CSNET Information Center (CIC) at Bolt Beranek and
(BBN). The gateway between CSNET and the Internet is RELAY.CS.NET
Note: CSNET and BITNET have officially merged into a
organization as of October 1, 1989.
UUCP (UNIX to UNIX Copy
UUCP is a protocol, a set of files, and a set of commands for
data files from one UNIX machine to another. These procedures
widely used to implement a hop-by-hop electronic mail system.
simple mechanism allows any UNIX host computer to join the system
arranging a connection (dial-up or permanent) with any UNIX
already in the system. In the basic UUCP system, mail is
routed by the sending user through a path of connected hosts to
destination. Currently, there are databases of
information (UUCP maps) and programs (pathalias) that aid
determining routes. There is some use of DNS-style names by
hosts. EUNET is a UUCP-based network in Europe, and JUNET is
similar net in Japan. These international branches of UUCP use DNS
style names as well. There are many hosts that may relay
between UUCP and the Internet. One prominent gateway
UUNET.UU.NET
JANET (Joint Academic NETwork
JANET is the primary academic network in the United Kingdom,
about 1,000 computers at about 100 universities and
institutes. JANET has a domain name system similar to that of
Internet, but the order of the domain name parts is opposite (
the top-level domain on the left). The protocols used in JANET
the UK "Coloured Books". The primary gateway between JANET and
Internet is NSFNET-RELAY.AC.UK
ACSNET (Australian Computer Science Network
ACSNET is the principal electronic mail system for the
science and academic research community in Australia,
about 300 sites. It works similarly to UUCP. ACSNET has a
naming syntax similar to that for Internet domains. The
between ACSNET and the Internet are MUNNARI.OZ.AU and UUNET.UU.NET
APPENDIX
<<< Mail Systems Map >>>
Westine, DeSchon, Postel & Ward [Page 15]
RFC 1168 Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay Services July 1990
APPENDIX
March 1990 sent read
Telemail 1291 768 2059
MCI Mail 56 44 100
Compmail 634 306 940
NSF-Mail 370 243 613
CGnet 171 82 253
USDA Mail 6 1 7
BellSouth 6 10 16
Other 0 0 0
Total 2534 1454 3988
Days in Month 31
Messages per Day 128.65
April 1990 sent read
Telemail 1363 696 2059
MCI Mail 40 39 79
Compmail 771 329 1100
CGnet 361 191 552
USDA Mail 28 31 59
BellSouth 98 73 17
Other 0 0 0
Total 2661 1361 4022
Days in Month 30
Messages per Day 134.07
May 1990 sent read
Telemail 1007 561 1568
MCI Mail 23 12 35
Compmail 815 359 1174
CGnet 406 210 616
USDA Mail 12 5 17
BellSouth 167 93 260
Other 0 0 0
Total 2430 1240 3670
Days in Month 31
Messages per Day 118.39
Westine, DeSchon, Postel & Ward [Page 16]
RFC 1168 Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay Services July 1990
APPENDIX
The Domain Name
The Domain Name System (DNS) provides for the translation
host names and addresses. Within the Internet, this
translating from a name, such as "ABC.ISI.EDU", to an IP address
as "128.9.0.123". The DNS is a set of protocols and databases.
protocols define the syntax and semantics for a query language to
questions about information located by DNS-style names. The
are distributed and replicated. There is no dependence on a
central server, and each part of the database is provided in at
two servers
In addition to translating names to addresses for hosts that are
the Internet, the DNS provides for registering DNS-style names
other hosts reachable (via electronic mail) through gateways or
relays. The records for such name registration point to an
host (one with an IP address) that acts as a mail forwarder for
registered host. For example, the Australian host "YARRA.OZ.AU"
registered in the DNS with a pointer to the mail
"UUNET.UU.NET". This gives electronic mail users a uniform
addressing syntax and avoids making them aware of the
network boundaries
Westine, DeSchon, Postel & Ward [Page 17]
RFC 1168 Intermail and Commercial Mail Relay Services July 1990
SECURITY
Security issues are not discussed in this memo
AUTHORS'
Ann
USC/Information Sciences
4676 Admiralty
Marina del Rey, CA 90292-6695
Phone: (213) 822-1511
EMail: Westine@ISI.
Annette
USC/Information Sciences
4676 Admiralty
Marina del Rey, CA 90292-6695
Phone: (213) 822-1511
EMail: DeSchon@ISI.
Jon
USC/Information Sciences
4676 Admiralty
Marina del Rey, CA 90292-6695
Phone: (213) 822-1511
EMail: Postel@ISI.
Craig E.
USC/Information Sciences
4676 Admiralty
Marina del Rey, CA 90292-6695
Phone: (213) 822-1511
EMail: Ward@ISI.
Westine, DeSchon, Postel & Ward [Page 18]
if you see any problems within the linking, don't worry be happy,
this is version 0.1 of the Relevance System and you gotta expect some crappy subroutines sometimes,
just be content we did not write this in Java, which would have made this "bigger and better" HAHAHHA.
RFC documents can be found at I.E.T.F.
Relevance System Copyright © 2002 Spectrum WorldResearch
other technical nosh by ServerMasters Corporation
collaboration of BobX
