RFC 1465 (rfc1465) - Page 1 of 31
Routing Coordination for X
Alternative Format: Original Text Document
Network Working Group U. Eppenberger
Request for Comments: 1465 SWITCH
May 1993
Routing Coordination for X.400 MHS Services
Within a Multi Protocol / Multi Network Environment
Table Format V3 for Static Routing
Status of this Memo
This memo defines an Experimental Protocol for the Internet
community. Discussion and suggestions for improvement are requested.
Please refer to the current edition of the "IAB Official Protocol
Standards" for the standardization state and status of this protocol.
Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
1. Introduction
The usage of the X.400 Message Handling System (MHS) is growing
rapidly, especially in the commercial world but much interest can
also be found in the academic and research community. New networks
and new addresses come into use each and every day. The underlying
technology for different X.400 networks can vary depending on the
transport network and the X.400 MHS implementations used. As a large
number of X.400 implementations now support multiple stacks, this
offers the chance of implementing a world wide message handling
service using the same electronic mail standard and, therefore,
without the need of gateways with service reduction and without the
restriction to a single common transport network. This, however,
leads to several problems for the MHS manager, two of which are:
- Where do I route new X.400 addresses and
- How do I connect to a MHS domain that uses an underlying
technology that I do not support.
This document proposes short term solutions to these problems. It
proposes a strategy for maintaining and distributing routing
information and shows how messages can travel over different networks
by using multi stack MTAs as relays. Document formats and
coordination procedures bridge the gap until an X.500 directory
service is ready to store the needed connectivity and routing
information. The format has been designed to allow the information
to be stored in an X.500 directory service while managers without
directory service access may still use a table based approach.
The routing structure proposed can be applied to a global MHS service
Eppenberger