Newsgroups: news.admin.misc,news.announce.newusers,news.answers From: clewis@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Chris Lewis) Subject: How to become a USENET site Summary: Periodic posting about the basic steps involved in configuring a machine to store USENET news. Date: Fri, 17 Jun 1994 13:20:18 GMT Reply-To: sitefaq@ferret.ocunix.on.ca (Site Setup Commentary Reception) Archive-name: site-setup Version: $Id: site-setup,v 1.123 1993/12/27 15:44:47 jik Exp $ How to Become a USENET Site Jonathan Kamens Editor and Poster Chris Lewis Replies and comments to sitefaq@ferret.ocunix.on.ca, automatic if you followup or reply to this article. This article attempts to summarize, in a general way, the steps involved in setting up a machine to be on the USENET. It assumes that you already have some sort of USENET access (otherwise, how did you get this article?), or at the very least, that you have ftp or mail server access to get to some of the files mentioned in it, and that you are trying to configure your own site to be on the USENET after using some other site for some period of time. If this assumption is incorrect, then ask whoever made this article available to you to help you get access to the resources mentioned below. Before reading this posting, you should be familiar with the contents of the introductory postings in the news.announce.newusers newsgroup, most importantly the posting entitled "USENET Software: History and Sources". Many of the terms used below are defined in those postings. The news.announce.newusers postings (and the other Usenet postings mentioned below) are accessible in the periodic posting archive on rtfm.mit.edu [18.70.0.209], in /pub/usenet via anonymous ftp, or via E-mail by sending a message to mail-server@rtfm.mit.edu (send a message with "help" in the body to get more information). ************************* There are five basic steps involved in configuring a machine to be a USENET site. 1. Make the decision -- do you *really* want to do this? If you just want to read USENET yourself, then putting your machine onto the USENET is probably not what you want to do. The process of doing so can be time-consuming, and regular maintenance is also required. Furthermore, the resources consumed by a full USENET setup on a machine are significant: - disk space for the programs (a few Mb for the binaries, another couple of Mb for any sources you keep online); - disk space for the articles - currently (as of March, 1994) around 3500Mb a month, although it is possible to minimize the amount of disk space consumed by articles by carefully selecting which newsgroups and/or hierarchies you wish to receive; - modem time (possibly long-distance) transferring the articles to your machine (assuming that you are using a modem rather than an Internet NNTP connection); A full feed is getting around 15 hours per day using V.32bis modems at 14.4Kb even compressed; and - fees if you're paying someone to provide you with a news feed. You might choose, instead, to get an account on a public-access USENET site on which you can read news by dialing up. See, for example, the "Nixpub posting" articles in comp.misc and the "PDIAL" article in alt.bbs.lists. Even if there are no public-access USENET sites that are a local phone call away from you, you might still choose this approach, especially if you only read a few (low traffic) groups. Using a public-access site that is accessible via PC Pursuit or some other packet network might still be cheaper and/or easier than setting up the feed, transferring the news and configuring your machine to store news locally. You should be sure that the benefits you are going to get by storing news locally are going to outweigh the costs before deciding to proceed. In summary, however, let me say that this decision is not always a clear one. To explain why, let me include an alternative perspective, from joe@jshark.rn.com, on why getting a feed may be appropriate even for a single-user machine: When you get to long distance calls, reading the news on-line gets the cost rising fast. A few seconds to skip an article you've no interest in, maybe a minute to take in a good one plus more time to save it and download it later. But when the whole lot is batched together (as news), a) it only takes a few minutes and b) it's all conveniently automated. Sure, configuring the hardware and software may take a (small) time - but it's something you only do once. And unless you want to get comp.*, the disk space needed is not that great. (20Mb disks are about 100 dollars over here [and the Mb-per-dollar ratio is rising constantly - jik]; the saving in phone charges would pay for that in a few months) I also find that replying takes time, and this is where on-line "reading" would start to really burn dollars! The alternative, { download - logout - compose reply - dial back in - login - post (or mail) reply}, is a) inconvenient and b) still costly. Perhaps I see "news administration" as a simple task *because* I only provide news to one other site and get a very limited feed. (No overflowing disks, no "disappearing inodes", neither angry users nor management.) The initial stages were a bit fraught (200kb batches being bounced back because of permission problems :-( ), but very little effort now. 2. Find a site to feed you news and/or mail. In order to make your machine a USENET site, you need to find other sites on the USENET that are willing to feed you news and/or mail. You might want to locate more than one such site if you want higher reliability. Finding feeds for a UUCP site. If you are going to be using a modem (and, presumably, UUCP) to transfer your news and mail, then then there are several resources you can use when trying to locate a feed site: a. Comp.mail.maps Find the postings in the comp.mail.maps newsgroup for your state, country, or whatever. Look in it for sites that sound like they are local to you. Contact their administrators and ask if they would be willing to give you a feed. Comp.mail.maps is archived at several anonymous ftp and mail server sites, including ftp.uu.net, so you can examine map entries even if the maps have expired at your news-reading site (or if you do not currently have USENET access). See the article entitled "UUCP map for README" in the comp.mail.maps newsgroup or archives for more information about the maps. The comp.mail.maps postings are also archived in rtfm.mit.edu's periodic posting archive, which was mentioned in detail above. b. News.admin.misc Post a message to news.admin.misc. If at all possible, post it with a restricted distribution, so that only people who are likely to be able to give you a feed will have to get it (e.g. if you have posting access on a machine in Massachusetts, and the site you're setting up is going to be in Massachusetts, then post with a distribution of "ne"). Note that you can post to news.admin.misc even if you do not have direct USENET access right now, as long as you have E-mail access -- send your message to news.admin.misc.usenet@decwrl.dec.com. However, if you use this gateway, you probably can't use a restricted distribution as described above, since the gateway probably isn't in the distribution you want to post to, and besides, it's not clear that it listens to the "Distribution:" header in postings that are mailed to it. (Other gateways: news.admin.misc@pws.bull.com, news-admin-misc@cs.utexas.edu, news.admin.misc@news.cs.indiana.edu) When posting your message, try to be as specific as possible. Mention where you are, how you intend to transfer news from your feed site to you (e.g. what kind of modem, how fast), approximately how many newsgroups you are going to want to get and from which hierarchies, and perhaps what kind of machine it's all for. A descriptive Subject line such as "news feed wanted -- Boston, MA" is also useful. If there is a regional hierarchy for the distribution in which you want a feed, then you might want to post a message in one of the regional newsgroups as well, or cross-post your message to one of the regional newsgroups. Look first for an "admin" group (e.g. "ne.admin"), then (if there is no admin group) a "config" group, then for a "wanted" group. c. Commercial services If all else fails, you may have to resort to paying someone to provide you with a feed. I know about the following service providers: a2i communications 1211 Park Avenue #202 San Jose, CA 95126 Data: (408) 293-9010 (v.32bis, v.32), (408) 293-9020 (PEP) (log in as "guest") Telnet: a2i.rahul.net [192.160.13.1] (log in as "guest") Ftp: ftp.rahul.net [192.160.13.1], get /pub/BLURB info@rahul.net (a daemon will auto-reply) (UUCP, news feeds, mail feeds, MX forwarding, name service) Anterior Technology P.O. Box 1206 Menlo Park, CA 94026-1206 Voice: (415) 328-5615 Fax: (415) 322-1753 info@fernwood.mpk.ca.us (UUCP, connectivity, name service, MX forwarding, news feeds) CERFnet P.O. Box 85608 San Diego, CA 92186-9784 Voice: (800) 876-CERF help@cerf.net (connectivity, name service, MX forwarding, news feeds) Colorado SuperNet, Inc. Attn: David C. Menges Colorado School of Mines 1500 Illinois Golden, CO 80401 Voice: 303-273-3471 dcm@csn.org (UUCP, news feeds) connect.com.au (Australia) Attn: Hugh Irvine (hugh@connect.com.au) Ben Golding (bgg@connect.com.au) Voice: 61 3 528 2239 (UUCP, connectivity, name service, MX forwarding, new feed, PPP, SLIP Demon Internet Systems internet@demon.co.uk (Internet access, SLIP, PPP, name service) DMConnection 267 Cox St. Hudson, Ma. 01749 Voice: (508) 568-1618 Fax: (508) 562-1133 info@dmc.com (a daemon will respond, followed by a human being, if necessary) (UUCP, news feeds, mail feeds, MX forwarding, file servers, mailing lists, anonymous FTP and UUCP address to archives, domain registration, FTP, SLIP, etc.) ExNet Systems Ltd 37 Honley Road Catford London, SE6 2HY, UK Voice: +44 81 244 0077 Fax: +44 81 244 0078 exnet@exnet.com or exnet@exnet.co.uk (UUCP, mail and news feeds) Gordian 20361 Irvine Ave Santa Ana Heights, CA 92707 (Orange County) Voice: (714) 850 0205 Fax: (714) 850 0533 E-mail: uucp-request@gordian.com (UUCP, name service, MX forwarding, news feeds (for SoCal sites only)) Hatch Communications 8635 Falmouth Ave., Suite 105 Playa del Rey, CA 90293 Voice: (310) 305-8758 E-mail: info@hatch.socal.com (UUCP Usenet news and e-mail, SLIP connections for ftp and telnet) HoloNet Information Access Technologies, Inc. 46 Shattuck Square, Suite 11 Berkeley, CA 94704-1152 Voice: 510-704-0160, Fax: 510-704-8019, Modem: 704-1058 Telnet: holonet.net E-mail: info@holonet.net (automated reply) Support: support@holonet.net (UUCP/USENET feeds, local to 850+ cities nationwide) infocom Public Access Unix, White Bridge House, Old Bath Road, CHARVIL, Berkshire, United Kingdom, RG10 9QJ. Voice: +44 [0] 734 344000 Fax: +44 [0] 734 320988 Data: +44 [0] 734 340055 (you can register online interactively) E-mail: info@infocom.co.uk (send a message with ALL in the subject) (UUCP, Usenet Feeds and Internet Email to UNIX, DOS, ATARI, AMIGA, MAC) Internet Initiative Japan, Inc. Hoshigaoka Bldg., 2-11-2, Nagata-Cho, Chiyoda-ku, Tokyo 100 Japan Voice: +81 3 3580 3781 Fax: +81 3 3580 3782 E-mail: info@iij.ad.jp (UUCP, news feeds, mail feeds, MX forwarding, name service, anonymous FTP and UUCP services, domain registration) JvNCnet B6 von Neumann Hall Princeton University Princeton, NJ 08543 Voice: (800) 35-TIGER market@jvnc.net (connectivity, name service, MX forwarding, news feeds) MSEN, Inc. 628 Brooks Street Ann Arbor, MI 48103 Voice: (313) 998-4562 Ftp: ftp.msen.com [148.59.1.2], see /pub/vendor/msen/* info@msen.com (UUCP, connectivity, name service, MX forwarding, news feeds) MV Communications, Inc. P.O. Box 4963 Manchester, NH 03108-4963 Voice: (603) 429-2223 Data: (603) 429-1735 (log in as "info" or "rates") info@mv.mv.com (UUCP, name service, MX forwarding, news feeds) NEARnet (New England Academic and Resarch Network) 10 Moulton Street Cambridge, MA 02138 Voice: (617) 873-8730 Fax: (617) 873-5620 nearnet-join@nic.near.net (connectivity, name service, MX forwarding, news feeds (for NEARnet sites)) Netcom - Online Communication Services 4000 Moorpark Avenue - Suite 209 San Jose, CA 95117 Voice: (408) 554-UNIX Data: (408) 241-9760 (login guest, no password) Telnet: netcom.netcom.com [192.100.81.100] (login guest) E-mail: info@netcom.com (UUCP, connectivity, name service, MX forwarding, news feeds, other services) Northwest Nexus Inc. P.O. Box 40597 Bellevue, WA 98015-4597 Voice: (206) 455-3505 Data: (206) 382-6245 (log in as "new") Fax: (206) 455-4672 info@nwnexus.wa.com (Internet access, SLIP/PPP (dial-up, dedicated, 56k, FT-1), UUCP, news feeds, mail feeds, MX forwarding, name service, NIC registration, Nutshell books) | The PC User Group | PO Box 360 | Harrow | London. | Voice: +44 81 863 1191 | Fax: +44 81 963 6095 | hostmaster@ibmpcug.co.uk or hostmaster@ibmpcug.uucp | (UUCP, mail and news feeds) Performance Systems International, Inc. 11800 Sunrise Valley Drive, Suite 1100 Reston, VA 22091 Voice: (703) 620-6651 or (800) 827-7482 Computerized info: all-info@psi.com Human-based info: info@psi.com (UUCP, connectivity, name service, MX forwarding, news feeds) Portal Communications Company 20863 Stevens Creek Boulevard Suite 200 Cupertino, CA 95014 Voice: (408) 973-9111 Fax: (408) 725-1580 Data: (408) 973-8091 (V.32/PEP) Call for local node near you. Nodes provided by Sprintnet or Tymnet have additional charges. Telnet: portal.com Email: CS@portal.com (UUCP, news feeds, mail feeds, MX forwarding, mailing lists, file archives, domain registration, FTP, SLIP/PPP, commercial menu-based online service, shell, telnet, irc, gopher, interface software available for Amiga, PC, and Sun) SURAnet 8400 Baltimore Blvd. College Park, MD 20742 Voice: (301) 982-3214 Fax: (301) 982-4605 E-mail: news-admin@sura.net (connectivity, name service (for SURAnet sites), news feeds (for SURAnet sites)) TDK Consulting Services 119 University Ave. East Waterloo, Ontario Canada N2J 2W9 Voice: (519) 888-0766 Fax: (519) 747-0881 E-mail: info@tdkcs.waterloo.on.ca (UUCP News/Mail feeds) UUNET Canada, Inc. 1 Yonge St., Suite 1400 Toronto, Ontario Canada M5E 1J9 Voice: (416) 368-6621 Fax: (416) 369-0515 info@uunet.ca or uunet-ca@uunet.uu.net (UUCP, connectivity, name service, MX forwarding, news feeds) UUNET Technologies Inc. 3110 Fairview Park Drive, Suite 570 Falls Church, VA 22042 Voice: (703) 204-8000 Fax: (703) 204-8001 info@uunet.uu.net AlterNet (network connectivity) info: alternet-info@uunet.uu.net (UUCP, connectivity, name service, MX forwarding, news feeds) UUNORTH, Inc. Box 445, Station E Toronto, Ontario Canada M6H 4E3 Voice: (416) 537-4930 or (416) 225-UNIX Fax: (416) 537-4890 WIMSEY Attn: Stuart Lynne 225B Evergreen Dr. Port Moody, BC, V3H 1S1 Voice: 604-93-7532 sl@vanbc.wimsey.bc.ca (UUCP, name service, MX forwarding, news feeds) Xenon Systems Attn: Julian Macassey 742 1/2 North Hayworth Ave. Hollywood, CA 90046-7142 Voice: (213) 654-4495 postmaster@bongo.tele.com (UUCP, news feeds, mail feeds) | XMission | PO Box 510063 | Salt Lake City, UT 84151-0063 | Data: (801) 539-0900 (log in as "guest") | Telnet: xmission.com [198.60.22.2] (log in as "guest") | Ftp: xmission.com [198.60.22.2], get /pricing | support@xmission.com | (UUCP, news feeds, mail feeds, MX forwarding, name service, SLIP/PPP) Note that some of these are actually network service providers which provide Internet connectivity, but some will also provide news feeds to their customers. For more information about many network service providers, see the anonymous ftp file /nsfnet/referral-list on nnsc.nsf.net. Also, the book "Connecting to the Internet" (see the "Bibliography" section below) contains a list of Internet service providers and instructions for getting an updated version of the list. Some regional network service providers, especially in large urban areas, offer both UUCP and TCP/IP service via modem or leased line. If you can find such a company, the cost of a dedicated (leased line) Internet connection will often be cheaper and more desirable than a UUCP connection, if you plan on using it for a full newsfeed or for frequent downloading. Some companies can offer combined voice and data connections using T1 links, for large-scale users seeking both Internet access and low-cost toll telephone service. For more information about the possibility of hooking up to the network, see the "How to Get Information about Networks" posting in news.announce.newusers. NOTE: I am not endorsing any of these companies in any way. I don't know anything about the level or quality of service either of them provides. They are simply the ones I know about. If you know of a site that provides feeds and think it should be mentioned here, please let me know. d. Special information for European users (This section discusses the various big European networks. There are also smaller service providers, such as ExNet Systems (see above), in Europe.) In Europe, you can get a feed from one of EUNet's national networks. They charge for feeds but are "non-commercial," which means (I assume) that the fees go to the maintenance of the networks. Most provide help on getting started, can provide source for the mail and news software and lists of sites who have indicated they will provide feeds. They also act as Internet forwarders (see below for more information on this). To contact them, try sending mail to postmaster@country.eu.net or newsmaster@country.eu.net. The "country" in this case should be whatever country you're in. Note that the national networks have a "no redistribution" policy and have the option to cut off sites which break this rule. There are other groups (such as sublink); see (a) and (b) above for suggestions on how to contact them. Subscribing to EUNet or to one of the NALnets (National Networks) currently requires to be member of EurOpen either directly or indirectly by being member of a NALUUG (National Unix User Group) affiliated to EurOpen. In the UK, smaller scale users and individuals can also get news access via Demon Internet Systems. They provide very cheap dialup Internet access, SLIP, PPP and name service entries. Contact them (contact information is given above) for more information. There are also several other network services providers, already operational (or to become soon available for some of them). Contrary to EUnet which generally accepts any organization as customer, those networks may have restrictions and accept only some kind of customers (generally academic and/or research) as they are sometimes government funded. Some of these networks are NORDunet (northern Europe), FUNET (Finland), SWITCH (Switzerland), EASInet (European Academic Supercomputing Initiative, mainly if not totally funded by IBM), DFN (Germany), PIPEX(UK) and RENATER (France). There are several anonymous ftp sites from which information about all of these networks and about networking in Europe in general might be obtained. They are ftp.switch.ch, ftp.easi.net, ftp.ripe.net, ftp.eu.net, corton.inria.fr and nic.nordu.net. Note that it is to your advantage to try to find a feed site that is directly on the Internet, if you are not going to be. Getting a feed from a site on the Internet will allow that site to act as your MX forwarder (see section 5 below), and the fact that you are only one hop off of the Internet will make both mail and news delivery fast (assuming that the feed you get from the Internet site is for both mail and news; of course, if you can only find someone willing to forward mail to you but not to traffic with you the heavier load of a news feed, then your mail delivery will still be fast). Finding feeds for an Internet site. It is beyond the scope of this document to discuss how you can get onto the Internet yourself. However, many of the service providers listed above provide Internet connections as well as newsfeeds and will help you through the process of getting onto the Internet. Furthermore, the book "Connecting to the Internet" (see the "Bibliography" section below) is a step-by-step to the process of getting connected, and contains a more extensive list of Internet service providers. If you are already on the Internet and would like your news feed to be over the Internet rather than over a modem link, then you might want to look in the UUCP maps in comp.mail.maps, as mentioned above, since many USENET sites that are on the Internet are mentioned there. News.admin.misc and the commercial services listed above are also viable options. Another option which is relevant only to Internet sites is to send mail to the mailing list nntp-managers@apple.com, and ask if anyone on that list is willing to provide you with a news feed. If you do this, be specific, just as if you were posting to news.admin.misc as described above. 3. Get the software. The "USENET Software" posting referenced above goes into quite a bit of detail about the software that is available. There are three components in the software at a USENET site: (a) the software that transports the news (usually using either UUCP or NNTP), (b) the software that stores the news on the local disks, expires old articles, etc., and (c) the news-readers for looking at the news. For example, if you're a UNIX site on the Internet and you're going to be getting your news feed over the Internet, then you are probably going to want to get one of the news transport packages mentioned in the "USENET Software" posting (e.g., INN or C News + NNTP), as well as one or more of the UNIX news readers mentioned there. Since you are probably going to be exchanging mail as well as news, and the mail software that is shipped with the OS you are using might not be powerful enough to handle mail exchanging with the rest of the USENET, you might want to obtain new mail software as well. There are several packages you might choose you use. Discussion of them is beyond the scope of this document; the books referenced below will probably provide some useful information in this area. Furthermore, if you are a UNIX site, the posting by Chris Lewis entitled "UNIX Email Software Survey FAQ" in news.admin.misc, comp.mail.misc and news.answers provides a good introduction to the UNIX mail software that's out there. Finally, Eric S. Johansson 's "FAQ - UUCP Mail, News and Gateway Software for PCs and MACs" posting (actually, the Subject line appears to vary somewhat, and the posting doesn't seem to appear very regularly), in comp.mail.uucp, news.software.readers and vmsnet.uucp, will help you to find out more about the UUCP software that is available to you if you wish to run it on a PC or Macintosh computer. The basic idea is to go read the "USENET Software" posting, and then to work from there. Europeans can ask their national backbone site, which will usually either be a software archive or be closely associated with one. UKNET, for example, provides an information pack explaining what is needed and where (and how) to get it. 4. Do what it says. Most of the software available for news transport or storage comes with installation instructions. Follow them. This part should be self-explanatory (although the instructions might not be :-). 5. Register your site on the network. The "traditional" method of advertising your site to the rest of the USENET after setting it up is to get an entry for it added to the UUCP maps. Doing this involves choosing a name for your site and submitting a map entry indicating the name, other vital statistics, and a list of your feed sites, preferentially weighted. Since many USENET sites still rely exclusively on the UUCP maps for routing mail, you will almost certainly want to register in the maps. To find out more about how to do this, read the "UUCP map for README" posting in comp.mail.maps, referenced above. However, the past several years have witnessed a dramatic increase in the number of sites choosing to register host names in the Internet Domain Name Service (DNS) hierarchy, in addition to getting a host entry added to the UUCP maps. The DNS hierarchy is becomingly increasingly standardized, and DNS name service is more reliable than the UUCP maps. Therefore, if register a DNS name for your site, put that DNS name in your UUCP map entry as an alias for your site, and use the DNS address rather than the UUCP host name in your mail and USENET postings, both UUCP hosts and hosts that do DNS will be able to get mail to you more efficiently and reliably. There are two types of DNS host records that are relevant here. If you have opted to contract with a company for a direct connection to the Internet, then you are probably going to want to register an address record advertising what your address will be on the Internet. Hosts which understand DNS can then use that record to connect directly to your machine and deliver mail to it. If, on the other hand, you are going to be getting your mail via UUCP from some other site, then the host record you will be registering is a Mail eXchange (MX) record. This record announces to the world that mail destined to your host can be directed instead to another host that IS directly on the Internet. That host is your "MX forwarder," and it must be one of your feed sites that knows how to deliver mail to you. In fact, you can have multiple MX records if you have multiple feeds on the Internet and want it to be possible for mail to be routed through all of them (for increased reliability), if they are willing. Note that if you use a commercial service provider for your mail feed, it will probably also be your MX forwarder. Even if none of your feeds are on the Internet, you may be able to get an MX record, by finding an Internet site that is willing to receive your mail and put it on its way through the correct UUCP route. There are currently at least a couple of sites willing to perform this service for no charge, in order to encourage the increased use of DNS records. You can therefore probably locate an MX forwarder by posting to news.admin.misc and asking if anyone is willing to forward for you. The procedure for registering a DNS record is quite simple. For some Network Information Centers (the people who handle domain registration, a.k.a. NICs), e.g., the InterNIC (see Internet RFC 1400 for more information about the InterNIC) which handles domain registration for the original Arpanet domains (COM, EDU, etc., as opposed to the geographic domains such as US for the United States, FR for France, etc.), it takes a month or less; others, unfortunately, might take a lot longer. Note that many commercial service providers, such as UUNET, will take care of this for you when you ask for a network connection or news/mail feed from them. Whether you decide to register an address record or an MX record, you need to decide what your DNS host name is going to be. Since the DNS is arranged in a hierarchy, you need to decide what hierarchy your name will appear in. For example, you might choose to be in the ".us" domain if you are in the United States and want to be in the United States geographical hierarchy. Alternatively, you might choose ".edu" for a University, ".org" for a non-profit organization, ".com" for a commercial company, etc. For more information about the various hierarchies and about choosing a host name, see the "How to Get Information about Networks" posting already referenced. If you are not in the US, you're theoretically supposed to have no choice about the top-level domain -- it should always be the two-letter ISO code for your country (".fr", ".de", etc.). However, depending on how and how well you are connected to the network, you might be able to get away with being in one of the older domains mentioned above (".edu", ".org", etc.). If you want to find out how to get a host name in a particular European domain, you can probably start by sending mail to hostmaster@mcsun.eu.net and asking for more information. Once you have determined your host name, you need to determine one or more hosts (preferably two or three, so that even if one is having trouble, the others will fill in for it) that will act as your "name servers," advertising your host name to anyone who asks for it. Note that many hierarchies have their own name servers, which means that when you go through the process of figuring out which domain your host name will be in, you may find some name servers available to you already. Furthermore, if you opt to go with a commercial service provider as described above, your service provider will probably be willing to act as a name server. Different domain-administration organizations may require fewer or more name servers (e.g. the NIC (mentioned below) requires at least two). Once you've got your host name picked out, you need to submit an application to the authorities for the domain you've chosen. Many of the domains, for example, are managed by the InterNIC -- to submit an application to one of those domains, you would get the file DOMAIN-TEMPLATE.TXT via anonymous ftp from rs.internic.net (ftp://rs.internic.net/templates/domain-template.txt) fill it out, and mail it to hostmaster@internic.net. You will probably determine the correct method for applying for a host name in your domain during the course of investigating which domain to put your host name in. If you submit an application and don't get any acknowlegement or response in a couple of weeks, it's a good idea to send another note to the same address as you sent your original application to, asking if it was received. Even if you aren't going to be connecting directly to Internet at the start, if your site is using any TCP/IP-based equipment, you should request a block of IP addresses, to save future transition headaches. Request one Class C address per subnet, or a Class B if your site has a large number of systems on multiple subnets (for the precise guidelines, see Internet RFCs 1366 and 1367). If you don't understand any of this and don't intend on getting on the Internet, don't worry about it. If/when you do decide to get onto the Internet, your service provider should be prepared to help you understand what needs to be done. Once your application has been approved and your name entered into your name servers' databases, update the mail software on your system and on your MX forwarder's system to recognize and use the new domain. [A final note: Much of the information in this section about the DNS system is sketchy. It is intentionally so, since all of this information is available from a number of different sources, and they cover it much better than I can here. If you are interested in finding out more about how the DNS works, you are strongly urged yet again to read the "How to Get Information About Networks" posting and to follow up on the sources of documentation that it references. You might also want to read the book "Connecting to the Internet"; see the entry for it in the "Bibliography" section below.] ************************* Bibliography In addition to the resources already mentioned, there are several books which discuss getting on the Internet and USENET and/or UUCP maintenance. Here's a bibliography of a few of them (some of these entries are culled from a book-list posting by Mitch Wright in comp.unix.questions): TITLE: Connecting to the Internet AUTHOR: Estrada, Susan PUBLISHER: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. DATE: 1993 PAGES: 188 ISBN: 1-56592-061-9 APPROX_COST: 15.95 KEYWORDS: Internet SUGGESTED_BY: Jonathan Kamens SUPPLIERS E-mail: nuts@ora.com Phone#: 1-800-338-NUTS TITLE: Managing UUCP and USENET AUTHOR: O'Reilly, Tim AUTHOR: Todino, Grace SUBJECT: Introduction PUBLISHER: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. DATE: 1990 PAGES: 289 ISBN: 0-937175-48-X APPROX_COST: 24.95 KEYWORDS: Nutshell Handbook SUGGESTED_BY: Mitch Wright SUPPLIERS E-mail: nuts@ora.com Phone#: 1-800-338-NUTS TITLE: Unix Communications AUTHOR: Anderson, Bart AUTHOR: Costales, Barry AUTHOR: Henderson, Harry SUBJECT: Communication Reference PUBLISHER: The Waite Group DATE: 1991 PAGES: 736 ISBN: 0-672-22773-8 APPROX_COST: 29.95 KEYWORDS: UUCP, USENET COMMENTS Covers everything the end user needs to know about email, USENET and UUCP. TITLE: Using UUCP and USENET AUTHOR: Todino, Grace AUTHOR: Dougherty, Dale SUBJECT: Introduction PUBLISHER: O'Reilly & Associates, Inc. DATE: 1990 PAGES: 210 ISBN: 0-937175-10-2 APPROX_COST: 21.95 KEYWORDS: Nutshell Handbook SUGGESTED_BY: Mitch Wright SUPPLIERS E-mail: nuts@ora.com Phone#: 1-800-338-NUTS If you are going to be setting up a UUCP/modem USENET site, you will probably find these books quite useful, especially if the UUCP documentation that comes with the OS you're running is sparse. ************************* Please comment on this posting! Comments about, suggestions about or corrections to this posting are welcomed. If you would like to ask me to change this posting in some way, the method I appreciate most is for you to actually make the desired modifications to a copy of the posting, and then to send me the modified posting, or a context diff between my posted version and your modified version (if you do the latter, make sure to include in your mail the "Version:" line from my posted version). Submitting changes in this way makes dealing with them easier for me and helps to avoid misunderstandings about what you are suggesting. Rich Braun provided most of the information above about registering DNS records, and provided other useful comments and suggestions. joe@jshark.rn.com provided some very useful rewriting as well as some different perspectives that helped to make the article more general, as well as providing some specific information about working in Europe, as well as providing other useful comments. The following people provided useful comments and suggestions about this article: Vikas Aggarwal Anton J. Aylward Bruno Blissenbach Oliver Boehmer Andy Brager Michael Bryan Alan Cox John Curran Chris Davies Christopher Davis Paul Eggert Nathan F. Estey Stuart Freedman Margaret D. Gibbs David Gilbert B.J. Herbison Dan Horner Brad Isley J. Lee Japp Ray.Lampman@Heurikon.Com Norman Lin jmalcom@sura.net Mark E. Mallett Owen Scott Medd Bertrand Meyer Pushpendra Mohta Mark Moraes Don Nichols Andrew Partan Brad Passwaters Michel Pollet Bob Rieger Rich Salz Martin Lee Schoffstall Russell Schulz Doug Sewell Barry Shein Vince Skahan Shih-ping Spencer Sun Jerry Sweet David W. Tamkin Christophe Wolfhugel Steve Yelvington -- Chris Lewis: _Una confibula non sat est_ Phone: Canada 613 832-0541 Ferret list: ferret-request@ferret.ocunix.on.ca Latest psroff: FTP://ftp.uunet.ca/distrib/chris_lewis/psroff3.0pl17/* Latest hp2pbm: FTP://ftp.uunet.ca/distrib/chris_lewis/hp2pbm/*