>                                                       Let's take a large DIST
>job with a lot of recipients in  BITNET and NetNorth. If the job originates at
>a BITNET node (i.e.,  where the normal DOMAIN NAMES is  being used), DIST will
>make *all* the path calculations at  the originating node; this means that all
>addresses ending with  .CA will be handled  by the server at  the .CA gateway,
>instead of being further exploded there.
 
    Yes,  but  this  is  exactly  what  the  NetNorth  Consortium  has
requested: that all mail to the  .CA domain go through CANADA01.  They
have put forth a number of  reasons for this over the years, including
a legal  one (Canadian law  forbids the transmission  of intranational
data over international lines (you can't send from Montreal to Toronto
via  Chicago)), but  basically, it's  their network  and they  set the
standards for its use.
 
    LISTSERV  honors their  decision by  not using  paths that  aren't
documented.  DOMAIN NAMES  says that all ".CA" domains are  on the far
side  of CANADA01,  and that's  where LISTSERV  routes the  DIST work.
LISTSERV@CANADA01 is on  the backbone, so NetNorth is  doing what they
can to cooperate with the rest of  us.  If the Consortium had its way,
I beleive  they would route all  Canadian mail, even files  that don't
use domain  names, via CANADA01, but  that is beyond their  ability to
control, at least for now.
 
    Running Canadian  sites with  CADOMAIN NAMES  does what  they want
also:  it causes  mail for  Canadian nodes  to be  sent directly,  and
others via their gateways listed in  DOMAIN NAMES (CADOMAIN NAMES is a
superset of DOMAIN NAMES).
 
    To put it in IBMese terms, "Working As Designed."
 
Ross Patterson
Rutgers University