RFC 1711 (rfc1711) - Page 2 of 19

Classifications in E-mail Routing

RFC 1711           Classifications in E-mail Routing        October 1994


   10.  Realisations                                                14
   10.1.      Internet mail                                         14
   10.2.      UUCP                                                  15
   10.3.      EARN                                                  15
   10.4.      GO-MHS                                                15
   10.5.      ADMD infrastructure                                   15
   10.6.      Long Bud                                              16
   10.7.      X42D                                                  16
   11.  Conclusion                                                  16
   12.  Abbreviations                                               17
   13.  References                                                  17
   14.  Security Considerations                                     19
   15.  Author's Address                                            19

1.    Naming, addressing and routing

   A name uniquely identifies a network object (without loss of
   generality, we will assume the 'object' is a person).

   Once a person's name is known, it can be used as a key to determine
   his address.

   An address uniquely defines where the person is located. It can
   normally be divided into a domain related part (e.g., the RFC 822
   domainpart or in X.400 an ADMD or OU attribute) and a local or user
   related part (e.g., the RFC 822 localpart or in X.400 a DDA or
   Surname attribute). The domain related part of an address typically
   consists of several components, which normally have a certain
   hierarchical order. These domain levels can be used for routing
   purposes, as we will see later.

   Once a person's address is known, it can be used as a key to
   determine a route to that person's location.

   We will use the following definition of an e-mail route:

       e-mail route           a path between two leaves in a
                              directed Message Transfer System
                              (MTS) graph that a message travels
                              for one originator/recipient pair.
                              (see Figure 1)

   Note that, in this definition, the User Agents (UAs) are not part of
   the route themselves. Thus if a message is redirected at the UA
   level, a new route is established from the redirecting UA to the UA
   the message is redirected to.





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