Hey now.  It's been around 5 years since jim nutt released the FSC-0038,
the proposal for the ^aDOMAIN control line.

Why do only a handful of FTN developers support this proposal?  In my
opinion it could by many developers as a method of determining the full
origin and destination 5D addresses of a netmail (and perhaps echomail)
messages, yet I can't see anyone using it. :-(

Perhaps I am overlooking something?



For those who don't have FSC-0038 handy (or are too lazy to find it :-)), here it is.

--
Document: FSC-0038
Version:  001
Date:     02/22/90





                   A Domain Proposal For Fidonet(r)

                              jim nutt
                          1:114/30{at}fidonet




     Information:

         This FSC suggests a proposed protocol for the FidoNet
         community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
         improvements.  Distribution of this document is
         unlimited.




A. Rationale

A recent proliferation of alternative networks based on Fidonet technology
has brought to light the difficulty of maintaining a fully coupled
addressing method for Fidonet.  Additionally, Fidonet has joined the
Internet,  revealing a need for a transparent scheme for addressing
messages across the networks.  It is therefore proposed that a system be
established whereby geographical or political sub units of the network can
be broken off into an independent network called a "domain". 
These networks will be fully independent, even to the point of having
duplicate net/node numbers or using a different addressing scheme
altogether.  This will allow continued growth of Fidonet without
necessitating that the nodelist grow to an unmanageable size (if it isn't
already there).  Among the advantages of this type of system are reduced
nodelist overhead, easier inter-network communication and greater autonomy
of alternative networks.  This document will only cover the definition  of
the necessary addressing extensions to support domain based addressing. It
will not attempt to define standards for gating mail and conferences
between domains.


B. Description

It is proposed that domain addressing be implemented in a fashion similar
to the current ZONE extended addressing method.  Domain names will be case
insensitive.  The domain extended addressing line will be comprised of a
leading SOH (^A, 0x01) followed by the keyword "DOMAIN", the
destination domain of the message and then the full address
(zone:net/node.point) of the destination node in that domain, followed by
the source domain of the message and the full address of the originating
node.  The line will be terminated by a  (0x0d) and an optional
linefeed (0x0a), fields within the line will be separated by one or more
spaces or tabs. i.e.

     ^ADOMAIN  dstdmn daddress srcdmn saddress

Where "dstdmn" is the name of the destination domain and
"daddress" is the address of the destination system in a format
appropriate to the destination domain.  "srcdmn" and
"saddress" are similar, except that they express the origination
address of the message in a format appropriate to the originating domain. 
This allows a seamless gateway to the Internet and other large system
networks.  The destination address in the FTS-001 message header should be
that of a gateway to the destination domain.


C. Summary

Domains are independent networks that are fully decoupled from the Fidonet
nodelist.  Message traffic is passed back and forth between domains via
domain gateways that can understand the DOMAIN extended addressing line and
act accordingly upon the message.  The advantages include reduced nodelist
size and easier communication with other networks.
--


ZeeYa...
Andrew.

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