Network Working Group S. Barber
Internet Draft The UUCP Mapping Project
December 2000
The Conclusion of the UUCP Mapping Project
draft-barber-uucp-project-conclusion-05.txt
Status of this Memo
This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with
all provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.
Internet-Drafts are working documents of the Internet Engineering
Task Force (IETF), its areas, and its working groups. Note that
other groups may also distribute working documents as Internet-
Drafts.
Internet-Drafts are draft documents valid for a maximum of six months
and may be updated, replaced, or obsoleted by other documents at any
time. It is inappropriate to use Internet- Drafts as reference
material or to cite them other than as "work in progress."
The list of current Internet-Drafts can be accessed at
http://www.ietf.org/ietf/1id-abstracts.txt
The list of Internet-Draft Shadow Directories can be accessed at
http://www.ietf.org/shadow.html.
Motivation for This Memo
The UUCP Mapping Project started in the early 1980s as a means to
facilitate the exchange of electronic mail among sites using the UUCP
store-and-forward transport mechanism. This UUCP software, originally
part of the UNIX operating system became available on a variety of
operating systems and platforms, from large mainframe to small home
PC's. This was done by creating a single database of systems
connected to each other via UUCP and then using path building
software (such as pathalias) to determine the optimal path from one
system to another. Email addresses using this system incorporated the
use of the path as part of the address.
With the evolution of the Internet into mainstream use, the use of
UUCP for the exchange of electronic mail has been significantly
reduced. Today, UUCP is primarily used to link systems that are not
on the Internet to a nearby system that is connected. By use of mail
exchange resource records in the domain name system, these off-net
Barber [Page 1]
INTERNET DRAFT December 2000
systems can use the now-standard Internet email address format.
Concluding the Project
Due to the fact that the maps are no longer widely used, the
volunteers that make up the project have decided it is time to close
down. The shutdown of the project will take three steps.
The first step was the freezing of the system database. This took
place during the month of August 2000. No further changes to the
system database have been accepted.
The second step was be the last postings of the system database to
the newsgroup comp.mail.maps. A final posting was made during the
month of September 2000.
The final step was the removal of the newsgroup comp.mail.maps as a
valid newsgroup. This was done during the month of November 2000.
IETF Documents that Reference the Project or the Maps
RFC 915 describes a mail path service and specifically references
pathalias and indirectly the maps maintained by the project.
Following the conclusion of the project, the data returned by these
servers will no longer be updated based on data maintained by the
UUCP Project.
RFC 976 references the UUCP Project. The centralized registration
operation referenced in this RFC has been concluded.
RFC 1168 describes the database aspect of the UUCP Project and makes
specific reference to pathalias, EUNET and JUNET.
RFC 1480 make note that Internet US Domain registration is not
affiliated with the registration of UUCP Map entries. It also
contains an example of a sample UUCP Map entry as an illustration of
an inappropriate registration for the US Domain.
RFC 1588 makes reference to the UUCP Maps as something that could be
returned by NETFIND.
RFC 1876 makes reference to the UUCP Maps, though it suggests that
the DNS could be used to contain the location information available
in the maps.
Acknowledgements
A number of individuals have been instrumental in making the UUCP
Barber [Page 2]
INTERNET DRAFT December 2000
Project successful. Principle among them are Steve Bellovin and Peter
Honeyman, the creators of pathalias which is the most popular
software available for building paths from the system database. In
RFC 976, Mark R. Horton established the ground rules for the format
of email messages exchanged via UUCP.
In 1984, the USENIX Association provided the initial funding the
launch the UUCP Project initially led by Karen Summers-Horton. The
project originally distributed software and provided domain name
registration services in addition to the mapping project. Mark R.
Horton ran the project starting in 1985 until the registration and
software distribution functions were shutdown in 1988.
Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, provided facilities for
the project for many years. Mel Pleasant was the manager of the
project before I succeeded him.
There have been many volunteers who have contributed time (and money,
in some cases) to the project. Here is the list I have been able to
create. I apologize to anyone who may have been left off. It was most
certainly an accident.
Tohru Asami Dave Davey
Jesse Asher Robert Elz
Piet Beertema Paul Graham
Bill Blue Ed Hew
John Bossert Hokey
Scott Bradner Nike Horton
Kent Brodie C. Bryan Ivey
Malcolm Carlock Jeff Janock
Lee Damon Berry Kercheval
Richard E. Depew Rob Kolstad
Erik E. Fair Bob Leffler
Ken Herron K. Richard Magill
Haesoon Cho Mikel Manitius
Barber [Page 3]
INTERNET DRAFT December 2000
Doug McCallum Mike Wexler
Mark Moraes Rayan Zachariassen
Steve Morenberg Eric Ziegast
Jim Murray David Paul Zimmerman
Mike O'Connor
Todd Ogasawara
John Owens
Bob Page
Sanjay H. Pathak
John Quarterman
Rob Robertson
Tim Rosmus
Partono Rudiarto
David Schmidt
Larry Snyder
Gene Spafford
Aris Stathakis
Kris R. Stephens
Karen Summers-Horton
Gil Tene
Tim Thompson
Jeff Wabik
Peter Wan
Lauren Weinstein
Barber [Page 4]
INTERNET DRAFT December 2000
Security Considerations
It is possible that email could be lost or misdelivered by those that
continue to make use of the UUCP Mapping Project map data. One of the
reasons for the publication of this memo is to highlight the fact
that the data is no longer useful and alternative mechanisms must be
employed to improve the possibility that the mail will be delievered
correctly.
Author's Address:
Stan Barber
The UUCP Mapping Project
P.O. Box 300481
Houston, Texas 77230-0481
sob@uucp.org
Barber [Page 5]