==Phrack Inc.== Volume Three, Issue 30, File #5 of 12 ()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()() () () () The DECWRL Mail Gateway () () () () by Dedicated Link () () () () September 20, 1989 () () () ()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()()() INTRODUCTION DECWRL is a mail gateway computer operated by Digital's Western Research Laboratory in Palo Alto, California. Its purpose is to support the interchange of electronic mail between Digital and the "outside world." DECWRL is connected to Digital's Easynet, and also to a number of different outside electronic mail networks. Digital users can send outside mail by sending to DECWRL::"outside-address", and digital users can also receive mail by having your correspondents route it through DECWRL. The details of incoming mail are more complex, and are discussed below. It is vitally important that Digital employees be good citizens of the networks to which we are connected. They depend on the integrity of our user community to ensure that tighter controls over the use of the gateway are not required. The most important rule is "no chain letters," but there are other rules depending on whether the connected network that you are using is commercial or non-commercial. The current traffic volume (September 1989) is about 10,000 mail messages per day and about 3,000 USENET messages per day. Gatewayed mail traffic has doubled every year since 1983. DECWRL is currently a Vax 8530 computer with 48 megabytes of main memory, 2500 megabytes of disk space, 8 9600-baud (Telebit) modem ports, and various network connections. They will shortly be upgrading to a Vax 8650 system. They run Ultrix 3.0 as the base operating system. ADMINISTRATION The gateway has engineering staff, but no administrative or clerical staff. They work hard to keep it running, but they do not have the resources to answer telephone queries or provide tutorials in its use. They post periodic status reports to the USENET newsgroup dec.general. Various helpful people usually copy these reports to the VAXNOTES "gateways" conference within a day or two. HOW TO SEND MAIL DECWRL is connected to quite a number of different mail networks. If you were logged on directly to it, you could type addresses directly, e.g. To: strange!foreign!address. But since you are not logged on directly to the gateway, you must send mail so that when it arrives at the gateway, it will be sent as if that address had been typed locally. * Sending from VMS If you are a VMS user, you should use NMAIL, because VMS mail does not know how to requeue and retry mail when the network is congested or disconnected. From VMS, address your mail like this: To: nm%DECWRL::"strange!foreign!address" The quote characters (") are important, to make sure that VMS doesn't try to interpret strange!foreign!address itself. If you are typing such an address inside a mail program, it will work as advertised. If you are using DCL and typing directly to the command line, you should beware that DCL likes to remove quotes, so you will have to enclose the entire address in quotes, and then put two quotes in every place that one quote should appear in the address: $ mail test.msg "nm%DECWRL::""foreign!addr""" /subj="hello" Note the three quotes in a row after foreign!addr. The first two of them are doubled to produce a single quote in the address, and the third ends the address itself (balancing the quote in front of the nm%). Here are some typical outgoing mail addresses as used from a VMS system: To: nm%DECWRL::"lll-winkin!netsys!phrack" To: nm%DECWRL::"postmaster@msp.pnet.sc.edu" To: nm%DECWRL::"netsys!phrack@uunet.uu.net" To: nm%DECWRL::"phrackserv@CUNYVM.bitnet" To: nm%DECWRL::"Chris.Jones@f654.n987.z1.fidonet.org" * Sending from Ultrix If your Ultrix system has been configured for it, then you can, from your Ultrix system, just send directly to the foreign address, and the mail software will take care of all of the gateway routing for you. Most Ultrix systems in Corporate Research and in the Palo Alto cluster are configured this way. To find out whether your Ultrix system has been so configured, just try it and see what happens. If it doesn't work, you will receive notification almost instantly. NOTE: The Ultrix mail system is extremely flexible; it is almost completely configurable by the customer. While this is valuable to customers, it makes it very difficult to write global instructions for the use of Ultrix mailers, because it is possible that the local changes have produced something quite unlike the vendor-delivered mailer. One of the popular changes is to tinker with the meaning of quote characters (") in Ultrix addresses. Some systems consider that these two addresses are the same: site1!site2!user@host.dec.com and "site1!site2!user"@host.dec.com while others are configured so that one form will work and the other will not. All of these examples use the quotes. If you have trouble getting the examples to work, please try them again without the quotes. Perhaps your Ultrix system is interpreting the quotes differently. If your Ultrix system has an IP link to Palo Alto (type "/etc/ping decwrl.dec.com" to find out if it does), then you can route your mail to the gateway via IP. This has the advantage that your Ultrix mail headers will reach the gateway directly, instead of being translated into DECNET mail headers and then back into Ultrix at the other end. Do this as follows: To: "alien!address"@decwrl.dec.com The quotes are necessary only if the alien address contains a ! character, but they don't hurt if you use them unnecessarily. If the alien address contains an "@" character, you will need to change it into a "%" character. For example, to send via IP to joe@widget.org, you should address the mail To: "joe%widget.org"@decwrl.dec.com If your Ultrix system has only a DECNET link to Palo Alto, then you should address mail in much the same way that VMS users do, save that you should not put the nm% in front of the address: To: DECWRL::"strange!foreign!address" Here are some typical outgoing mail addresses as used from an Ultrix system that has IP access. Ultrix systems without IP access should use the same syntax as VMS users, except that the nm% at the front of the address should not be used. To: "lll-winken!netsys!phrack"@decwrl.dec.com To: "postmaster%msp.pnet.sc.edu"@decwrl.dec.com To: "phrackserv%CUNYVM.bitnet"@decwrl.dec.com To: "netsys!phrack%uunet.uu.net"@decwrl.dec.com To: "Chris.Jones@f654.n987.z1.fidonet.org"@decwrl.dec.com DETAILS OF USING OTHER NETWORKS All of the world's computer networks are connected together, more or less, so it is hard to draw exact boundaries between them. Precisely where the Internet ends and UUCP begins is a matter of interpretation. For purposes of sending mail, though, it is convenient to divide the network universe into these categories: Easynet Digital's internal DECNET network. Characterized by addresses of the form NODE::USER. Easynet can be used for commercial purposes. Internet A collection of networks including the old ARPAnet, the NSFnet, the CSnet, and others. Most international research, development, and educational organizations are connected in some fashion to the Internet. Characterized by addresses of the form user@site.subdomain.domain. The Internet itself cannot be used for commercial purposes. UUCP A very primitive network with no management, built with auto-dialers phoning one computer from another. Characterized by addresses of the form place1!place2!user. The UUCP network can be used for commercial purposes provided that none of the sites through which the message is routed objects to that. USENET Not a network at all, but a layer of software built on top of UUCP and Internet. BITNET An IBM-based network linking primarily educational sites. Digital users can send to BITNET as if it were part of Internet, but BITNET users need special instructions for reversing the process. BITNET cannot be used for commercial purposes. Fidonet A network of personal computers. I am unsure of the status of using Fidonet for commercial purposes, nor am I sure of its efficacy. DOMAINS AND DOMAIN ADDRESSING There is a particular network called "the Internet;" it is somewhat related to what used to be "the ARPAnet." The Internet style of addressing is flexible enough that people use it for addressing other networks as well, with the result that it is quite difficult to look at an address and tell just what network it is likely to traverse. But the phrase "Internet address" does not mean "mail address of some computer on the Internet" but rather "mail address in the style used by the Internet." Terminology is even further confused because the word "address" means one thing to people who build networks a...
kopia23