RFC 510

Request for Network Mailbox Addresses 💖

RFC 510 · NIC 16400 · 30 May 1973

Author: J. White, SRI-ARC 🎀 Category/Status: not stated in this document 🤷‍♀️ Obsoletes/Updates: nothing listed here 🌸

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To My Liaisons 🫶

Okay bestie, big news! ✨ Within the next few weeks, the NIC is starting to deliver the Network Journal to users in the Net who want it. 🦋

Journal articles can also be submitted through FTP. 💅

Every user gets to pick from three delivery modes, and it's giving choice: ONLINE delivery to the AUTHOR branch of their initial file at the NIC, HARDCOPY delivery to their place of business through the Postal Service, and NETWORK delivery to their on-line mailbox at their home host. Each user can pick any or all of them. 🌈

How Network Delivery Works 🧚

At first, Network Journal delivery looks like this: 💜

Every piece of mail addressed to the user gets delivered to a host and mailbox of their choosing, using the mail command(s) defined by the File Transfer Protocol. 📬

The mail contains a header in its text with the author's NIC Ident, the date of submission, a title, etc., plus either the text of the message or, if it's long, a pointer to it. The pointer depends on the 'Submit Message' and 'Submit File' distinction in NLS Journal submission. 🔥

More than one piece of Journal mail can, in general, be delivered as a single piece of FTP mail. 💀

The user's delivery host and mailbox get stored in the NIC's Ident file. The user can change or view them (along with their delivery mode(s)) from the Identification System in NLS. 🍓

For bulk mail, the pointer sent to the user is a pathname. An FTP user process, acting on the user's behalf, can use it to retrieve the mail text from SRI-ARC. The pathname includes the parameters needed to make SRI-ARC's FTP server process convert the file from NLS (tree-structured) to sequential form before it's sent. ⭐

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So Why Am I Writing This? 🙈

This memo isn't here to document the service (that's coming once it's actually available). It's here to get help from Liaisons. 🫶

Each Liaison is asked to send the NIC the following info for EACH user at their host organization who wants Network Journal delivery: 👑

1. Their NIC Ident. 🎀
2. The type(s) of delivery they want, if any, IN ADDITION TO Network delivery. 💅

Honestly, it's fair to keep their current delivery mode for now until they're convinced Network delivery really works. 😭

3. The standard host name or decimal host address of the host where they want delivery. 🧚

TIP users, for example, might want delivery at their favorite TENEX host. ✨

4. The 'user name' their host's FTP server process needs to identify them in an FTP mail command. 🦋

For a TENEX user, for example, that's their directory. 🌸

Where to Send Your Answers 💌

Please send your answers in writing to Jim White. You can reach him through the Journal (JEW), through FTP mail (WHITE@SRI-ARC), or at the NIC through the Postal Service. 📮

Everything collected here will be accessible in NLS, and from a yet-to-be-written Ident server process. The NIC will keep it as a functional document in both on-line and hardcopy forms. 🌈

We're asking Liaisons to take responsibility for delivery parameters for all interested users at their host. That said, anyone who wants to share info is totally welcome to. 🫶

Thanks! 💖

Jim White 🎀

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[ This RFC was put into machine readable form for entry ] [ into the online RFC archives by Tim Mains 12/97 ]