Re: Any Comments on the Draft?

[Randall Gellens <Randy@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 11:29 AM -0800 11/17/97, Jeff Stephenson wrote:

>1)  I'd prefer to see the whole solution provided on the SMTP port
>than on some other port.  Admittedly if someone is _only_ going to
>provide on-demand email service a separate port for a specialized
>service might make sense, but in reality anyone who's providing
>on-demand service is also going to be providing regular SMTP service. 
>Just making this part of SMTP seems to make more sense to me.

The problem with this is that it requires that the provider run a
standard SMTP server which is also capable of handling TURN and
becoming a client.  This is architectually difficult in many server
implementations, where the client and server portions are in separate
modules, and switching between them can be ugly.

Also, using a separate port allows the provider to block access based
on IP addeess (using a firewall or wrapper or server configuration).
This may be desirable in a a number of situations, and can help protect
the client's mail by not allowing just anyone with an IP connection to
bang on the server.

 
>2)  I don't see the need for specifying the domains to be turned on
>the TURN command.  Since some out-of-band mechanism is required to
>link authenticated user IDs and the domains they're allowed to TURN,
>simply having the server keep a list of domains to TURN for each ID
>would be simpler.  With no arguments on the TURN command, adding a
>domain to the list for a given ID only requires updating the ISP's
>configuration; with domain arguments, both the ISP and the customer
>would need to update their configuration in synch.

Interesting point.  I can see arguments for either way.  I don't want
to make it an option, because that hurts interoperability.  I'd like to
see other comments on this.


 



--
Randall Gellens       ||    Opinions are personal; facts are suspect;
randy@xxxxxxxxxxxx    ||    I speak for myself alone

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