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North American Network Operators Group Date Prev | Date Next | Date Index | Thread Index | Author Index | Historical Re: Selection of Appropriate Local SMTP Relay
Thus spake John R. Levine > That's much too complicated. What we need are some well-known IP > addresses, analogous to well-known ports, that are not routable on the > global Internet, but that are assigned to standard services within > each network, e.g.: > > 10.255.255.1 - DNS server > 10.255.255.2 - SMTP server > 10.255.255.3 - SOCKS server > 10.255.255.4 - Web proxy > > (Probably it's not a good idea to use network 10 here, better to > reclaim a /24 from the swamp or allocate a fresh one.) > > Now you set up your mail client to use 10.255.255.2 for SMTP, and wherever > you're connected, it'll be the local SMTP server. > > >Advantages > > 0. Works with all existing mail clients, no code changes needed, just a > one-time configuration. Once this is widely accepted, MTAs would > ship with it as the factory default. > > Some people have suggested something similar with a well-known-service > pseudo-TLD that each network's DNS servers would serve up with the > appropriate values for that network, e.g. > > smtp.wks > socks.wks > webproxy.wks > > I like that less because, as previously noted, lots of people never > change their DNS config when they switch ISPs or roam, so they'd get > the info for the wrong network. Better to use IPs which you know will > be routed by the routers for the network to which you are actually > connected. Why not both? Instead of a private TLD, make a real one (wks.merit.edu?) and assign the numbers there. That way it doesn't matter who your DNS server is. -- D'Arcy J.M. Cain <[email protected]{druid|vex}.net> | Democracy is three wolves http://www.druid.net/darcy/ | and a sheep voting on +1 416 425 1212 (DoD#0082) (eNTP) | what's for dinner.
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