Subject: Re(4): stripped-down client configuration (Address, MX RRs, A RR-only?)

From: Brad Knowles <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 1 Feb 1999 10:02:04 +0100

On Sun, Jan 31, 1999, Robert Elz <[email-masked]> wrote:

>I do not expect MUA authors (stupid or not) to routinely do MX type
>delivery, in fact, in general, I much prefer that they do not.
>
>What I want is for them to not pretend that they are 821bis compliant
>however.
>
>That's the distinction.

    That's fine, too.  I just want to make sure that no one even
contemplates asking them to attempt to be 821bis compliant.

>No, it is better someone else (even if it is just us in a different room).

    I can support that, too.  I can certainly see the argument behind
keeping DRUMS focussed on what it's really supposed to be doing.  I just
want to make sure that we are very explicit in what we are/are not asking
of MTA authors versus MUA authors.  If we're going to explicitly put MUA
authors into a separate category, that we do so in an open and unambigous
manner.

-- 
  These are my opinions -- not to be taken as official Skynet policy
 ____________________________________________________________________
|o| Brad Knowles, <[email-masked]>            Belgacom Skynet NV/SA |o|
|o| Systems Architect, News/mail/FTP Admin   Rue Col. Bourg, 124   |o|
|o| Phone/Fax: +32-2-706.11.11/12.49         B-1140 Brussels       |o|
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                The Sky is no longer the limit

---

From: "D. J. Bernstein" <[email-masked]>
Date: 1 Feb 1999 17:07:03 -0000

Low-powered MUAs aren't the only issue here.

Consider, for example, an MTA behind a firewall, configured to send all
outgoing mail through a particular gateway by name or IP address. Does
it make sense to say that this is a violation of the SMTP protocol?

---Dan

---

From: Philip Hazel <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 2 Feb 1999 11:07:31 +0000 (BST)

> it make sense to say that this is a violation of the SMTP protocol?

I think Dan has a point here. Two completely different standards are 
being conflated into one document:

(1) SMTP is the Internet protocol for transferring messages from one
host to another.

(2) There are also rules that a client must use when deciding which 
server to send a message to.

The document is specifying both of these. Whatever we actually do with 
it, IMHO people will do two things:

  (a) They will call it "the SMTP specification" even though it specifies 
  other things as well. They will talk about "using SMTP" for transferring 
  between hosts that never go near the DNS or use MX records. There is no 
  future in trying to label such use as "not strictly SMTP".
  
  (b) They will follow the rules (2) only in cases where the client host 
  doesn't have local knowledge built into it.

My own view is that the rules (2) should be qualified by some such
phrases as "in the absence of local routing knowledge" and "for hosts
connected to the Internet". After all, if two hosts that are connected
only to each other use the protocol to exchange mail, do we really want
to say "you are not using SMTP"?

-- 
Philip Hazel            University of Cambridge Computing Service,
[email-masked]      Cambridge, England. Phone: +44 1223 334714.