On Thu, 15 Sep 1994 17:26:09 PDT john riehl <[log in to unmask]> said:
 
>Ahem, now,  after lots of fussing,  I have figured out  that the service
>names file is now overriding domain names. How do I stop it?
 
You  don't want  to stop  it from  overriding DOMAIN  NAMES, you  want to
override it.
 
>I want mail to  various internet sites to go to  MY SMTP, dammit. *flame
>on* I  am not young enough  to wait for mail  from my local lists  to go
>upstream to be distributed.
 
*flame on* This question is being  asked every month on this list. People
who know  the answer grow tired  of answering the same  question over and
over again.  That's what  archives are  for. As for  your boss's  boss, I
suggest reminding him  that he decided it wasn't necessary  to pay L-Soft
for support. This  means I can't help  you, and it also  means your flame
isn't justified since the lack of help is working as designed :-)
 
>As a side  comment, just think how much increased  traffic this is going
>to put on the core nodes & sites that are interbit gateways, in cases of
>systems like ours that were sending things locally.
 
All right. First, INTERBIT traffic doesn't normally cross the core. It is
not  a core  problem per  se, but  an INTERBIT  problem. If  the INTERBIT
network  were more  extensive, the  core  wouldn't get  involved at  all.
Unfortunately in some regions it isn't  extensive enough and this goes to
core nodes. I am not in charge of managing INTERBIT, the core, or BITNET.
I am running my own INTERBIT on  a cheap workstation, and this works very
well. Others could do the same  if they wanted. The INTERBIT load doesn't
have to hit the core, and it doesn't have to run on expensive mainframes.
This being said,  if you have a well-maintained  and well-configured SMTP
service on your VM system (which unfortunately many sites do NOT have, as
the configuration defaults  are not suitable), there is  indeed no reason
to go  via INTERBIT. You  could modify the  tables to route  all INTERBIT
mail to USCVM, as explained in the archives.
 
>And please dont make the comment that  we should have an entry in domain
>names (service  names), because it would  not fix the problem  and would
>cause other problems when we drop out of bitnet.
 
You should indeed have an entry in SERVICE NAMES (not DOMAIN NAMES), such
as (to take the example of another core site):
 
   :nick.VT.EDU :service1.DISTRIBUTE LISTSERV.VT.EDU
 
LISTSERV.VT.EDU definitely isn't a BITNET node.
 
  Eric