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]