[ih] Design choices in SMTP

[John Day]

NETRJE didn’t get a lot of use because the systems that could support a Server FTP didn’t need the NETRJE. (Can someone correct me about that?)

What did get a lot of use of was CCNRJE written by Bob Braden for the UCLA CCN 360/91. It opened a Telnet connection to the CCNRJE server and then did data transfers with connections a fixed offset from the Telnet connection: one for input, one for output. (Remember all of these applications were using Initial Connection Protocol (ICP) to move the initial connection off the well-known socket.

Take care,
John

> On Feb 8, 2023, at 17:54, Steffen Nurpmeso via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> Craig Partridge wrote in
> <CAHQj4Cedsaw0OrN+d8jHohjxQLrhLPHuC+S81=QT-ATn2W8gdQ at mail.gmail.com>:
> |On Wed, Feb 8, 2023 at 2:24 PM Dave Crocker via Internet-history <
> |internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> |> On 2/8/2023 1:02 PM, Steffen Nurpmeso wrote:
> |>>
> |>> Here RFC 354 (THE FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL) and RFC 385 (COMMENTS ON
> |>> THE FILE TRANSFER PROTOCOL) are missing, the latter includes MAIL
> |>> and MLFL.
> |>
> |> Count me as both befuddled and embarrassed.  No idea why/how I missed \
> |> 385.
> |>
> |> I left off 354 because it doesn't provide any email protocol specificati\
> |> on.
> |>
> |> The fact that 385 explicitly specifies MAIL and MLFL makes the fact that
> |> neither are in the RFC 542 version of FTP quite odd..
> |>
> |My recollection, from the digging into this that I did for the article on
> |the history of email for IEEE Annals,  is there
> |was a tension between the FTP and email teams.  There was a meeting about
> |FTP at MIT in March 1973 (that led to 542) where the FTP team
> |had decided to punt on email issues, only to have their DARPA PM (Steve
> |Crocker) show up and tell them that email mattered.
> |After the meeting, the group decided (in some sense, flouting Steve) that
> |email should really be in a separate annex and left email
> |commands out of RFC 542.  (As I recall, they were on a page by Jon Postel
> |in the ARPANET Protocol Handbook but may be misremembering).
> 
> I am noting that 542 neither mentions 385 nor 475 at all.
> RFC 475 states
> 
>   This paper describes my understanding of the results of the Network
>   Mail System meeting SRI-ARC on February 23, 1973, and the
>   implications for FTP (File Transfer Protocol).  There was general
>   agreement at the meeting that network mail function should be within
>   FTP.
> 
>   FTP currently provides two commands for handling mail.[.]
> 
>   [.]Local mail and SNDMSG
>   programs have been modified at many sites to include network mailing
>   (e.g., USER at HOST at BBN_TENEX and MAIL host user at MIT-DMCG).
> 
> And this does not sound to me as if it would have been wishful
> thinking, but rather that it was actively being used?
> 
> RFC 542 states in "MISCELLANEOUS COMMANDS"
> 
>   There are several functions that utilize the services of file
>   transfer but go beyond it in scope.  These are the Mail and Remote
>   Job Entry functions.  It is suggested that these become auxiliary
>   protocols that can assume recognition of file transfer commands on
>   the part of the server, i.e., they may depend on the core of FTP
>   commands.  The command sets specific to Mail and RJE will be given in
>   separate documents.
> 
> It also defines response status bits for mail.  My local RFC pool
> does not have the necessary bits to do sleuthing.
> 
> --steffen
> |
> |Der Kragenbaer,                The moon bear,
> |der holt sich munter           he cheerfully and one by one
> |einen nach dem anderen runter  wa.ks himself off
> |(By Robert Gernhardt)
> -- 
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