On Sat, 16 Nov 1996 15:07:18 -0500 Mike Holloway <[log in to unmask]>
said:
>I've received confirmation that addresses from MSN, AOL, Netcom,
>Pipeline, and others are not receiving posts,
Now that we have a list of domains exhibiting the problem, we can start
actually looking into it. First off, none of the domains in question
participate in the DISTRIBUTE backbone. They are handled in the same way
as totally.unknown.domain.com. For most servers, this means the messages
are delivered through the local mail server. Many BITNET sites however
use the INTERBIT service, which allows them to offload all this mail onto
another machine and not have to worry about the (significant) resource
usage cost of the IBM SMTP implementation. WUVMD is one of these sites.
Nowadays INTERBIT is run at L-Soft (PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM). This is why
your mail comes via LSOFT.COM. A site that uses INTERBIT incorporates the
recipients into the regular DISTRIBUTE flow, aiming them at L-Soft's
server. The path between WUVMD and that server is WUVMD -> MIZZOU1 ->
UICBIT2 -> UGA -> PSUVM -> L-Soft. The BITNET link between UICBIT2 and
UGA is currently down with 744 files queued. Your messages are probably
part of that queue.
To sum up:
- WUVMD is offloading its deliveries to another system to save resources.
This is why the mail is not delivered directly to AOL, Netcom, etc.
- Historically, the twin P/370 core systems at UIC have been the slowest
two nodes in the core. Backlogs were frequent and did not always clear
before the weekend. I am not surprised that you have had turnaround
problems. This is a moot point now since UIC is leaving BITNET.
- For whatever reason, there now appears to be a problem between UICBIT2
and UGA, and there is a good chance that your files are there.
There are several possible solutions to your problem:
- WUVMD could deliver its own mail locally, instead of forwarding it to
L-Soft for free delivery.
- WUVMD could relocate its BITNET link so that it is not behind the
UICBIT systems. Since they are going away soon, this will have to be
done anyway.
- WUVMD could switch to the TCP/IP version of LISTSERV so that it doesn't
need to depend on the UICBIT systems.
The DISTRIBUTE backbone is built around a core of fast, reliable sites
(NOT the same sites as the BITNET core). BITNET servers reach this core
through BITNET, and if the connection is unreliable, the service is
unreliable. In general a satellite DISTRIBUTE site that has poor or
unreliable connectivity to the core of the backbone is going to
experience poor performance. Solution 1 is to stop using INTERBIT and
DISTRIBUTE and deliver everything locally (which costs money), solution 2
is to fix the connection.
Eric
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