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- Document: FSC-0038
- Version: 001
- Date: 02/22/90
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- A Domain Proposal For Fidonet(r)
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- jim nutt
- 1:114/30@fidonet
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- Information:
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- This FSC suggests a proposed protocol for the FidoNet
- community, and requests discussion and suggestions for
- improvements. Distribution of this document is
- unlimited.
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- A. Rationale
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- 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.
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- B. Description
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- 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 <CR> (0x0d) and an optional linefeed (0x0a), fields within
- the line will be separated by one or more spaces or tabs. i.e.
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- ^ADOMAIN dstdmn daddress srcdmn saddress
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- 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.
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- C. Summary
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- 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.
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