Request for Network Mailbox Addresses
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To Liaisons:
Within the next few weeks, the NIC will begin providing Network Journal delivery to those users in the Net who desire it.
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Submission of Journal articles will also be possible through FTP.
Each user will then have his choice of three Journal delivery modes: ONLINE delivery to the AUTHOR branch of his initial file at the NIC, HARDCOPY delivery to his place of business via the Postal Service, and NETWORK delivery to his on-line mailbox at his home host. Each user may select any or all forms of delivery.
Initially, Network Journal delivery will consist of the following:
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Each piece of mail addressed to the user will be delivered to a host and mailbox of his choosing, using the mail command(s) defined by the File Transfer Protocol. The mail will contain in its text, a header containing the author's NIC Ident, the date of submission, a title, etc., and either the text of the message or, if it's long, a pointer to it (according to the 'Submit Message' and 'Submit File' distinction in NLS Journal submission). More than one piece of Journal mail may, in general, be delivered as a single piece of FTP mail.
The user's delivery host and mailbox will be stored in the NIC's Ident file, and the user can change or view them (along with his delivery mode(s)) from the Identification System in NLS.
The pointer sent to the user for bulk mail will be a pathname by which an FTP user process, acting on the user's behalf, can retrieve the text of the mail from SRI-ARC. The pathname will contain the necessary parameters to cause SRI-ARC's FTP server process to convert the file from NLS (tree-structured) to sequential form before transmission.
The purpose of this memo is not to document the service (we'll do that as soon as it's available), but to solicit help from Liaisons, each of whom is asked to provide the NIC with the following information for EACH user affiliated with his host organization who desires Network Journal delivery:
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(1) His NIC Ident.
(2) The type(s) of delivery he desires, if any, IN ADDITION TO
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Network delivery.
It's fair, for example, to retain one's current delivery mode initially until convinced that Network delivery really works.
(3) The standard host name or decimal host address of the host at
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which he desires delivery.
TIP users, for example, may choose to receive delivery at their favorite TENEX host.
(4) The 'user name' his host's FTP server process requires to
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identify him in the context of an FTP mail command.
For a TENEX user, for example, that's his directory.
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Please communicate answers to these questions in writing to Jim White -- to JEW through the Journal, to WHITE@SRI-ARC via FTP mail, or to Jim White at the NIC via the Postal Service. All information obtained in response to this memo will be made accessible form NLS (as already mentioned) and from a yet-to-be-written Ident server process, and will be maintained by the NIC as a functional document in on-line and hardcopy forms.
We ask Liaisons to assume responsibility for providing delivery parameters for all interested users at their host, although information will be gladly accepted from anyone who chooses to provide it.
Thanks.
Jim White