On Tue, 21 Apr 1992 07:49:53, Kathryn Wright <LIBKAT@INDST> wrote: >Remember when I asked about Internetted mail from INDYCMS being routed to >UICVM for distribution to INDST? Well, now it's not UICVM in its Internet >capacity - it's Princeton. What's going on? This looks ridiculous. > I sent a 'REVIEW LIBRARY' command to [log in to unmask] Your subscription is listed as: [log in to unmask] Kathryn S Wright A few other subscribers are: [log in to unmask] Elizabeth Chisato Uyeki [log in to unmask] Linda L Messersmith [log in to unmask] David Lewis [log in to unmask] C M Kelley but they are not relevant to this discussion, except to say that explicit (and, IMHO, unnecessary) routings like these impair the efficiency of LISTSERV (and the network-in-general) in delivering the mail. Then, I sent a 'SHOW ALIAS INDST' command to 'LISTSERV@INDYCMS', and got the response: Node INDST has no known alias. So, I sent a 'SHOW NODE INDST' command to LISTSERV, and got: Information from the VERS9205 BITEARN NODES file: :lastup.REP 19910628 someone@INDST :machine.IBM 4361 :nodedesc.Indiana State University Computer Center :p_cedwards.Champe Edwards;CCHAMPE@INDST;+1 812 237.2961 :p_fmcwilli.Floyd McWilliams;CCFLOYD@INDST;+1 812 237.3370 :p_tann.Toulson Rose Ann;CCCRAT@INDST;+1 812 237.2928 :routtab.RSCS (NETSERV,CCHAMPE@INDST) :servers1.MAILER@INDST(MAIL,PU,M,BSMTP,p_tann) :system.VM/SP :techinfo.p_cedwards :useradm.p_cedwards :userinfo.p_fmcwilli Notice that there is no ':internet.INDST.INDSTATE.EDU' tag defined. Therefore, LISTSERV has no way of determining that the nodeINDST.INDSTATE.EDU is (directly) accessible by the BITNET link from INDYCMS to INDST. When LISTSERV@INDYCMS uses the mail-distribution technique which is defined for this specific list, i.e., 'Mail-via= Dist', it takes one copy of the posting, merges it with a partial list of subscribers, i.e., all the "up-stream" (closer to UICVM) IDs, and sends one "job" to LISTSERV@UICVM and asks it to distribute the posting. LISTSERV@UICVM distributes the posting to each of the nearby BITNET nodes. Then, since LISTSERV@UICVM also doesn't know the equivalence between the BITNET and the Internet names for INDST, it ships a copy of the posting, and a smaller subset of the subcriber-IDs, to LISTSERV@PUCC for further processing. It's obvious that PUCC runs one of the BITNET-to-Internet gateways, so it sends the posting (over Internet) to INDST. Why did LISTSERV@INDYCMS choose to send a "job" to LISTSERV@UICVM, and why did LISTSERV@UICVM choose to send a "job" to LISTSERV@PUCC? The answer is that LISTSERV examines the nodes of all the IDs in the sublist, and then selects one of the "LISTSERV backbone peers" as being the "most- efficient" for this specific set of subscribers -- even if some of the routings are non-optimal, the overall routing **is** optimal. So, what can you do to help? The most important thing is to arm-twist the gurus at INDST (names are shown above), and convince them to add that ':internet.VALUE' tag to the BITNET node-definition for INDST. Then, after LISTSERV@INDYCMS receives the updated node-entry (at the beginning of each month), it will recognize that the most-efficient route from INDYCMS to INDST.INDSTATE.EDU is over the BITNET link to INDST. Until then, remove your Internet ID from the list, and add your BITNET ID.