Can not mail off-site, RTFM not much help

Tim Evans tkevans at fallst.UUCP
Mon Nov 20 06:51:11 AEST 1989


In article <801 at dsacg2.UUCP>, nam2254 at dsacg2.UUCP (Tom Ohmer) writes:
> I tried to mail to Henry Spencer at the University of Toronto Zoology Dept.  
> The mail program here did not like any of the three addresses I used.  
> I tried:   uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry   from Henry's .sig

Okay, 'uunet' is a major "backbone" site in the network.  You are on your own
to get from your system to there, from whence your mail will wing its way on.
How do you find out how to get to 'uunet'?  First, find out to what neighbor
systems your site is directly connected, then find out a path via one of them
to 'uunet'.  If you're getting news on your site, you're probably getting
the newsgroup 'comp.mail.maps' to which are posted "maps" of the UUCP network
arranged by U.S. State, Canadian Province, and other Nations of the world.
Hopefully, someone on your site saves all these and you can look up the
address you want from them.  A possible location on your system is directory
/usr/local/maps (or something similar).

If you're even luckier, your system administrator is running a program called
"pathalias" which gulps down all these maps and generates a database of
routes to every site in the maps from yours.  Try looking for the file
/usr/lib/uucp/paths.

If none of this stuff is available on your system, ask your system
administrator to put it up.

> 	   henry at zoo.toronto.edu       "      "      " 
> 	   henry at utzoo.uucp            "      "    header From: line 

These are "Internet-style" addresses and you need some form of "smart"
mail router running on your system.  Look for 'sendmail' (on BSD systems)
or 'smail' (on most systems).

To repeat something I mentioned earlier, if your site is getting netnews,
some or all of this stuff is probably already in place.  Try asking your
system administrator for help.  (If YOU are the sysadmin, then you need
to do some studying.  Start with the two companion "Nutshell" handbooks:
_Using UUCP and USENET_ and _Managing UUCP and USENET_.  Also, there's
another book entitled _UNIX Communications_.)

Good luck!
-- 
UUCP:		{rutgers|ames|uunet}!mimsy!woodb!fallst!tkevans
INTERNET:	tkevans at wb3ffv.ampr.org
OTHER:		attmail!fallst!tkevans
Tim Evans	2201 Brookhaven Ct, Fallston, MD 21047  (301) 965-3286



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