RFC 805 (rfc805) - Page 1 of 6

Computer mail meeting notes

Network Working Group                                          J. Postel
Request for Comments:  805                                           ISI
                                                         8 February 1982



                      Computer Mail Meeting Notes




Introduction

   A meeting was held on the 11th of January 1982 at USC Information
   Sciences Institute to discuss addressing issues in computer mail.
   The attendees are listed at the end of this memo.  The major
   conclusion reached at the meeting is to extend the
   "username@hostname" mailbox format to "ain", where
   the domain itself can be further structured.

Overview

   The meeting opened with a brief discussion of the objectives of the
   meeting and a review of the agenda.

      The meeting was called to discuss a few specific issues in text
      mail systems for the ARPA Internet.  In particular, issues of
      addressing are of major concern as we develop an internet in which
      mail relaying is a common occurance.  We need to discuss
      alternatives in the design of the mail system to provide high
      utility at reasonable cost.  One scheme suggested is to create
      "mail domains" which are another level of addressing.  The ad hoc
      scheme of source routing, while effective for some cases, is seen
      to lead to some problems.  A key test of addressing schemes is the
      procedure for sending copies of a reply to a message to the people
      who received copies of the original message.  The key reference
      documents for the meeting were RFCs 788, 799, and 801.

   Jon Postel gave a brief review of the NCP-to-TCP transition plan (RFC
   801).  The emphasis was on mail, the internet host table, and the
   role of a Host Name Server.

   The major part of the meeting was devoted to a wide ranging
   discussion of the general mailbox identification problem.  In
   particular, the notion of a hierarchial structure of name domains was
   discussed, and the issues associated with name servers were discussed
   including the types of information name servers should provide.

Name Domains

   One of the interesting ideas that emerged from this discussion was
   that the "user@host" model of a mailbox identifier should, in


Postel