RFC 915 (rfc915) - Page 1 of 11

Network mail path service

Network Working Group                                       Marc A. Elvy
Request for Comments: 915                             Harvard University
                                                             Rudy Nedved
                                              Carnegie-Mellon University
                                                           December 1984

                       NETWORK MAIL PATH SERVICE


STATUS OF THIS MEMO

   This RFC proposes a new service for the ARPA-Internet community and
   requests discussion and suggestions for improvements.  Distribution
   of this memo is unlimited.

INTRODUCTION

   The network mail path service fills the current need of people to
   determine mailbox addresses for hosts that are not part of the
   ARPA-Internet but can be reached by one or more relay hosts that have
   Unix To Unix Copy (UUCP) mail, CSNET mail, MAILNET mail, BITNET mail,
   etc.

   Anyone can use the service if they have TCP/TELNET to one of the
   hosts with a mail path server.

DISCUSSION

   Currently many hosts that are not connected to the ARPA-Internet
   network can send mail to and receive mail from the ARPA-Internet
   community.  The ARPA-Internet community sends mail using mailbox
   addresses of the form "user@host" or "local-part@domain" [1, 5].  In
   an effort to provide service to hosts not connected directly to the
   ARPA-Internet, mail maintainers have used the feature that the
   "local-part" of the mailbox address is locally interpreted to imbed
   specially encoded mail routing or relaying information.  These
   encoded mailbox addresses have a variety of forms and have become
   common practice. For example:

      demco%ucb-ean.cdn%A

      "Rudy.Nedved%LNET"@MIT-MULTICS.ARPA

      ihnp4!cmucsg!A

      A

      nedved%A

   It is important that people be able to communicate, but it is clear
   from the rampant confusion and frustration that something must be


Elvy & Nedved