Re: Fully Qualified Domain Name

Re: Fully Qualified Domain Name

[Lute Kamstra]

Ralf Muschall <ralf@tecont.de> writes:

> Lute Kamstra <Lute.Kamstra@cwi.nl> writes:
> 
> > "echo $HOSTNAME".  Do you really need to know _your_ domain name?  If
> 
> This just tells you what you types yourself into /etc/HOSTNAME.

I assumed the OP didn't set up his own system.  If he did, he would
probably not ask the questions he is asking.

> It is nontrivial to get the FQDN stuff right for an enduser.  One
> might disable the Message-ID generation in the newsreader.  Then the
> local leafnode will create one.  In order to disable that, one has to
> patch it.  Then the provider's news server will make one, which is
> probably OK.  The problem is that an enduser's computer normally has a
> variable IP and no real name at all ($HOSTNAME is *not* one), since
> it is not DNSed.

Am I missing something?  Why do you need to know, or even have, your
domain name to be able to use Gnus?

> > you want to configure Gnus, you probably only need to know the domain
> > name of your mail server(s) and your news server.  The folks that
> 
> This still does not help perfectly - the thing right of the @ in the
> Message-ID will then be the same as for other users of the same
> provider.  If the provider makes the Message-ID, no problem.  But if
> the left part is made by the users, they might not be unique.

Why do you worry so much about message-ID's?  From the Message manual:

,----
| `Message-ID'
|      This required header will be generated by Message.  A unique ID
|      will be created based on the date, time, user name and system
|      name.  Message will use `system-name' to determine the name of the
|      system.  If this isn't a fully qualified domain name (FQDN),
|      Message will use `mail-host-address' as the FQDN of the machine.
`----

So you don't _need_ to have a FQDN.  What are the chances of the first
part of the ID being the same?  What's the worst that can happen when
the ID's of two different messages are the same?

Lute.

-- 
(spook) => "Centro David John Oates MD5"
(insert-file-contents "~/.signature") => (error "`~/.signature' too rude")

Re: Fully Qualified Domain Name

[Petr Swedock]

Lute Kamstra <Lute.Kamstra@cwi.nl> writes:

> Don Saklad <dsaklad@nestle.ai.mit.edu> writes:
> 
> > At this end it's a at&t broadband cable internet plain text window macssh
> > http://www.macssh.com
> > to nestle.ai.mit.edu reading email with emacs rmail.
> 
> Ah, so you're running Emacs over an ssh connection.  You have an Apple
> running OS X at home with a cable connection; you use this setup to
> contact nestle.ai.mit.edu using macssh; you run Emacs on
> nestle.ai.mit.edu.  (Correct me if I'm wrong.)  In this scheme, what
> really counts is the machine nestle.ai.mit.edu; due to the ssh
> connection everything works as if you sat behind that machine.  So you
> need to find out information about nestle.ai.mit.edu.
> 
> > Trying gnus email might be a better opportunity for managing
> > favorite correspondents messages among the spam commercials.
> 
> It is also useful to read news.  ;-)  Are you already using gnus to
> read news?  If so, you probably already have a basic .gnus file with
> configurations related to Gnus.  In what follows, I assume that you
> have the following in your .gnus to indicate that you use
> "news.ai.mit.edu" as your news server.
> 
>   (setq gnus-select-method '(nntp "news.ai.mit.edu"))

While this certainly resolves, it does not ping and does not serve 
news. (It used to).  Try 'news.lcs.mit.edu' or 'news.mit.edu'.  The
problem is most likely here.

Peace,

Petr