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