RFC 1465 (rfc1465) - Page 1 of 31

Routing Coordination for X

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