On Thu, 13 Feb 1997, Stuart Lynne wrote:
> The usual implementation of this is to punt all mail for the top
> level domain to a single gateway machine and then have it forward
> mail to the correct server. In fact this is done at Cambridge for
> example using the lookup driver.
Not quite. Machines out in the Real World (tm) send mail addressed to
user@??? to a single gateway system (actually two hosts, for
redundance), but it operates using alias files to control the
forwarding. However, a few local machines in the Ivory Tower use the
iplookup driver in Exim to look up @cam addresses directly from our
local database server where the master data is kept, thereby bypassing
the central gateway. However, if the database server is down, the mail
goes to the central gateway. It does not use the database server
dynamically, but rebuilds its alias file periodically so that it can
keep going when the database server is down.
It sounds as if LDAP could be used to do this kind of thing in a more
standardised way. A new router would need to be written for Exim. I have
made a note to think about this when I get a moment.
--
Philip Hazel University Computing Service,
ph10@??? New Museums Site, Cambridge CB2 3QG,
P.Hazel@??? England. Phone: +44 1223 334714
