Message-Id: <199709231407.KAA22417@jekyll.piermont.com>
To: Alan Barrett <apb@iafrica.com>
cc: drums@cs.utk.edu
Subject: Re: TURN and disconnected SMTP with dynamic IP addresses 
In-reply-to: Your message of "Tue, 23 Sep 1997 09:43:25 +0200."
             <Pine.NEB.3.95.970923092208.264w-100000@apb.iafrica.com> 
Reply-To: perry@piermont.com
Date: Tue, 23 Sep 1997 10:07:18 -0400
From: "Perry E. Metzger" <perry@piermont.com>


Alan Barrett writes:
> Many people use BSMTP as a mailbag format.  Some years ago, I used to make
> much use of BSMTP over UUCP over TCP, and BSMTP over a horrible kludge
> that included kermit. 
> 
> It seems to me that BSMTP over UUCP over TCP solves the "mail to
> intermittently connected host with dynamic address" problem quite nicely
> (if the UUCP authentication is considered adequate).

I'd say that in a modern era, BSMTP over FTP or SSH or some such would
work just as well. No need for UUCP. (Ironically, of course, FTP was
the original ARPA mail transport protocol...)

> AFAIK, BSMTP has never been documented properly.  Documenting and
> standardising BSMTP should be pretty easy. 

It is sort of documented in a hidden spot in RFC976. It probably
should get real documentation. Given that BSMTP is existing practice
and previously documented practice, it *might* be reasonable to
document it better as part of the DRUMS effort. It shouldn't require
more than a page or two.

Perry