Network Working Group S. Barber Internet Draft The UUCP Mapping Project June 2000 The Conclusion of the UUCP Mapping Project draft-barber-uucp-project-conclusion-00.txt Status of this Memo This document is an Internet-Draft and is NOT offered in accordance with Section 10 of RFC2026, and the author does not provide the IETF with any rights other than to publish as an Internet-Draft 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 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 Barber [Page 1] INTERNET DRAFT June 2000 exchange resource records in the domain name system, these off-net 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 will be the freezing of the system database. This takes place at 0000 GMT on August 1, 2000. After that date, no further changes to the system database will be accepted. The second step will be the last postings of the system database to the newsgroup comp.mail.maps. A penultimate posting will be made during the month of August. This will contain the final version of the map database prior to the conclusion of the project. During September, the final posting will be done. This posting will remove all listings from the map database except for selected gateways so that those sites that have no obvious alternative connectivity for email will continue to work until the end of the 2000. The final step will be the removal of the newsgroup comp.mail.maps as a valid newsgroup. This should be 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 project. RFC 976 references the UUCP Project. The centralized registration operation referenced in this memo will be concluded on the time schedule outlined in this memo. RFC 1168 describes the database aspect of the project and makes specific reference to pathalias, EUNET and JUNET. RFC 1480 make notes that Internet US Domain registration is no affiliated with the registration of UUCP Map entries. It also contains an example of a 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. Barber [Page 2] INTERNET DRAFT June 2000 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 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. 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 Jesse Asher Piet Beertema Bill Blue John Bossert Kent Brodie Malcolm Carlock Lee Damon Richard E. Depew Erik E. Fair Ken Herron Haesoon Cho Dave Davey Robert Elz Paul Graham Ed Hew Hokey Mark R. Horton Nike Horton C. Bryan Ivey Jeff Janock Bob Leffler K. Richard Magill Mikel Manitius Doug McCallum Jim Murray Mike O'Connor Todd Ogasawara John Owens Barber [Page 3] INTERNET DRAFT June 2000 Bob Page Sanjay H. Pathak John Quarterman Rob Robertson Tim Rosmus Partono Rudiarto David Schmidt Larry Snyder Aris Stathakis Kris R. Stephens Gil Tene Tim Thompson Jeff Wabik Peter Wan Mike Wexler Eric Ziegast David Paul Zimmerman Security Considerations Security considerations are not discussed in this memo. Author's Address: Stan Barber The UUCP Mapping Project P.O. Box 300481 Houston, Texas 77230-0481 sob@uucp.org Barber [Page 4]