[26619] in North American Network Operators' Group
Re: Selection of Appropriate Local SMTP Relay
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (D'Arcy J.M. Cain)
Mon Jan 10 14:28:56 2000
Message-Id: <m127kPU-000AUUC@druid.net>
From: darcy@druid.net (D'Arcy J.M. Cain)
In-Reply-To: <20000110140149.6333.qmail@xuxa.iecc.com> from "John R. Levine" at "Jan 10, 2000 09:01:49 am"
To: johnl@iecc.com (John R. Levine)
Date: Mon, 10 Jan 2000 14:23:24 -0500 (EST)
Cc: jabley@patho.gen.nz, nanog@merit.edu
Reply-To: nanog@merit.edu
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Thus spake John R. Levine
> That's much too complicated. What we need are some well-known IP
> addresses, analogous to well-known ports, that are not routable on the
> global Internet, but that are assigned to standard services within
> each network, e.g.:
>
> 10.255.255.1 - DNS server
> 10.255.255.2 - SMTP server
> 10.255.255.3 - SOCKS server
> 10.255.255.4 - Web proxy
>
> (Probably it's not a good idea to use network 10 here, better to
> reclaim a /24 from the swamp or allocate a fresh one.)
>
> Now you set up your mail client to use 10.255.255.2 for SMTP, and wherever
> you're connected, it'll be the local SMTP server.
>
> >Advantages
>
> 0. Works with all existing mail clients, no code changes needed, just a
> one-time configuration. Once this is widely accepted, MTAs would
> ship with it as the factory default.
>
> Some people have suggested something similar with a well-known-service
> pseudo-TLD that each network's DNS servers would serve up with the
> appropriate values for that network, e.g.
>
> smtp.wks
> socks.wks
> webproxy.wks
>
> I like that less because, as previously noted, lots of people never
> change their DNS config when they switch ISPs or roam, so they'd get
> the info for the wrong network. Better to use IPs which you know will
> be routed by the routers for the network to which you are actually
> connected.
Why not both? Instead of a private TLD, make a real one (wks.merit.edu?)
and assign the numbers there. That way it doesn't matter who your DNS
server is.
--
D'Arcy J.M. Cain <darcy@{druid|vex}.net> | Democracy is three wolves
http://www.druid.net/darcy/ | and a sheep voting on
+1 416 425 1212 (DoD#0082) (eNTP) | what's for dinner.
