From ncr-sd!hp-sdd!ucsdhub!ucsd!ucbvax!decwrl!vixie Mon Aug 29 12:47:14 PDT 1988

In article <118@jetson.UPMA.MD.US> john@jetson.UPMA.MD.US (John Owens) writes:
# > 4. UUNet.  I believe that your domain name has to end in .uu.net for this,
# Nope.  My forwarder is uunet; they're happy to forward for any domain
# name you can get registered.  I hear they might even deal with the NIC
# for you, but I'm not sure.

Since Rick Adams took the time to explain this to me in recent e-mail, I
think I owe him and the net some further explaination about UUNet.

Uunet is willing to be your MX, which means that mail sent to your domain
from the Internet will be sent to Uunet, who will in turn UUCP it to you.
You need to be a Uunet subscriber for this, and I agree with John that
this is a good deal.

Uunet is _also_ willing to be your NS.  This means that when some random
Internet sendmail daemon tried to find an MX record for your FOO.COM
domain, the core name servers will say: go ask Uunet.uu.net about it.
As I understand it, the core name servers mostly just have NS records
pointing to non-core name servers.

Either way, you need three things done:
(1)	you need an NS record in the core servers
(2)	you need an MX record in the server where your NS points to
(3)	you need the machine named as your MX to be able to reach you on UUCP

Number (1) is done by SRI-NIC, and someone has to fill out a simple form and
send it to them to make this happen.  The NIC doesn't charge for this, but
it's not clear to me that just anyone can ask for new .COM/etc domain names.

Once number (1) is done, you have to deal with whoever runs the name server
that your core NS record points to in order to get (2) done; then you have
to deal with whoever your MX points to in order to get (3) done.

The UUCP Project handles the NIC formalities for (1) and has a name server
somewhere (Rutgers?) for (2).  You're on your own for (3), and many people
use Uunet for this if they don't have local Internet connections.  The UUCP
Project charges $150 a year for helping you with (1).

Uunet will handle the NIC formalities for (1), and can do (2) and (3) as well,
all as part of your basic subscriber fees.  A helluva deal.

The .US domain has got (1) handled, and they'll do (2) for you on their own
name server (at ISI.EDU, I think).  No special effort is needed by them for
(1), since they only need one core NS record -- all the domain names they
handle end in .US, and that can be done with a single wild-card NS record
which is already in place.

I think I've got all that right.  Rick or Geoff, please correct me if I'm
still screwed up on any of this; I'd especially like to know if "just anybody"
can ask the NIC to register a new .COM NS record or whether you need a
special tattoo on your wrist.
-- 
Paul Vixie
Digital Equipment Corporation	Work:  vixie@dec.com	Play:  paul@vixie.UUCP
Western Research Laboratory	 uunet!decwrl!vixie	   uunet!vixie!paul
Palo Alto, California, USA	  +1 415 853 6600	   +1 415 864 7013