[673] in Zephyr_Bugs
Re: Making non-kerberized zephyr servers talk to eachother
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Derek Atkins)
Tue Aug 1 19:09:02 1995
To: Kevin Radke <radke@cpre1.ee.iastate.edu>
Cc: zephyr-bugs@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: Your message of Tue, 01 Aug 95 17:44:00 -0500.
<9508012244.AA19404@MIT.EDU>
Date: Tue, 01 Aug 95 19:08:55 EDT
From: Derek Atkins <warlord@MIT.EDU>
> I'm still not totally sure why in "can't" work though.
> (I probably have a twisted view of how it works)
Probably. The problem is that the servers really do not understand
the concept of a realm. A realm is a self-sufficient set of servers
and clients, and currently there is really no supported way to go
between realms.
A zephyr server needs to know to whom it should send messages. This
is accomplished by subscribing to messages. Even personal messages
must be on the subscription list. Since there is no concept of remote
realms, the user "warlord@ATHENA.MIT.EDU" is just as valid at MIT as
it is at ISU. So if you send a zwrite to the above address at the ISU
zephyr servers, it looks it up in its subscription list to see it any
user by that name has subscribed, and if so it will forward the
message.
> Suppose I "zwrite kmradke@zephyr-1.iastate.edu" from my local zone with
> it's own server.
> Shouldn't my local server forward this message to the other server which
> would then send to that user? The opposite would also be true, I could
> "zwrite radke@dslspool.ee.iastate.edu" from my other account, etc...
How is the server supposed to know what zephyr server to send it to?
How is it supposed to know that it is a server and not a local user
with a weird name? In the future, you are correct -- Zephyr 2.1 will
support this feature, and it will know to forward messages to remote
realms in the manner you specified (although you would have to specify
kmradke@IASTATE.EDU, not kmradke@zephyr-1.iastate.edu).
For the opposite to be true, the ISU zephyr servers would have to know
how to forward messages, and again the current zephyr code does not
support the method of operation. As I've said, Zephyr 2.1 should
support this.
> I assume that is where the "unauthentic" message should come in.
> (Meaning, I got a message for this user but I have no clue if it came
> from where it says it came from)
I'm unclear how Greg proposes to solve this problem. Perhaps it
can come in as unauthentic; I would think that that would be the
best option.
> I don't really care about subscribing from the campus server, just being
> able to send messages to that server.
So you dont care about any instances or classes? Then if greg allows
unauthentic personal between mutually untrusted servers (unable to
authenticate) then that should solve your problem. Wait for Zephyr
2.1.
> I can set zhm to the campus server and send messages all I want (which
> happen to be unauthentic), but the only way to send messages back would
> be to set zhm on a campus machine to point to our zephyr server.
Not quite. The only way to receive messages, now, is to set your zhm
to the campus server, and then use kerberos to authenticate to the
campus server, and subscribe to personal messages on the campus
server. Setting zhm on a campus machine to point to your server will
allow users on that machien to zephyr you, but then they lose the
ability to send to the campus servers. There is no _supported_ way to
zephyr to multiple realms at the same time, and there is no way, if
you are not using kerberos, to subscribe to a zephyr realm that is
using kerberos.
-derek
PS: For zephyr questions, you probably should be on the zephyr@mit.edu
mailing list. Send mail to zephyr-request@mit.edu to be added. Let's
move any further discussion over there.
