DomainNamesAndIS

Domain Names and IS

1) Admin->System Profile->Server->Domain name

This is the domain name of the FC server machine. This entry has nothing to do with Internet Services. Your DNS should have an entry for this name which points to the IP address of the machine that the FirstClass server (not IS) is running on. This field is used mainly by the FC client to formulate FCP URL's.

2) Admin desktop->Internet Services->Multiple Sites & Languages

This form is used to configure IS to host multiple web sites. Data on this form does not affect mail delivery, or mail domains hosted in any way. The only effect of this form is to route incoming HTTP requests to the appropriate web page(s) located beneath the WWW folder. This form contains an expanding list of entries. Each entry on this form consists of 7 fields, defined as follows:

• Web site alias - the name of the folder (under WWW) which contains the web site's files, templates, and folder links

• IP address - this field is misunderstood by most, it need only be filled in to associate web requests to the IP address with the default web site. In other words, when a browser user types http:\\111.222.333.444, which of the sites would you like them to see. If the IS machine has multiple IP addresses, then each of them can be associated with a different "default" site.

• Domain names - a comma separated list of domain names which resolve to this web site. Each of these names should have a DNS entry associated with it that points to the IP address of the IS machine.

• Languages - another poorly understood bit. When a browser connects to a web server, part of each request header lists the preferred language for that browser. This language preference is sent as a (usually) 2 character abbreviation: en - english, fr - French, etc. The languages field is a list of these abbreviations, comma separated, for which you have defined a separate sub-site. To define a language-specific sub-site, the admin must create folders or conferences under the web site folder (or conference) whose names match the language abbreviation they are meant to service. For example, the French version of a web site named dogworld will have the folder path: admin desktop:Internet Services:WWW:dogworld:fr

• Port - the IP port that you want this site to listen on (default is 80 the standard HTTP port)

• SSL Status - one if enabled, disabled, or required, meaning do you want to allow SSL access to this site or not, and if so do you want only SSL access

• SSL Certificate Name - if SSL access is enabled, this field lets you specify which certificate you want to use with this site

3) Admin desktop->Internet Services->Basic Internet Setup->General->Primary domain name

This field specifies the domain name used for all IS addressing where a domain name is not otherwise specified. Every alias without a domain name part will get @thisdomain added to the address on outbound, and every address with this on the end will be translated into ,thissite on inbound.

4) List Directory->route or gateway name->directory information->Domain name

Each FC gateway and route can have a domain name. These domain names represent IS's secondary domains. All remote names from these sites automatically get @thisdomainname tacked on to them on outbound, and any incoming mail with @thisdomainname gets routed to that site. This means that a gateway or route with a domain name need not dir sync in order to have mail routed to it, but may dir sync to allow aliases to be mapped on outbound mail. Users at these secondary domains can still have fully qualified aliases which overrides this behavior. Any gateways without domain names are considered part of the primary domain, and so must dir sync and have users with aliases in order to have mail routed to them.

5) List Directory->local or remote name->directory information->Mail aliases

This field contains mail aliases for local and dir sync-ed users. When the alias has no @ sign, the alias is considered to be @ the domain associated with it's site. When it has an @ sign, it is a fully qualified alias and it forms a mini-domain for the part after the @ sign. So, if I had an SAOL alias of terry@microdoft.com, then microdoft.com would be a secondary domain of SAOL's IS, but only for the user terry. Without a user alias match, the routing will not occur, and microdoft.com will not appear to be a locally served domain.

6) What do #3, #4, and #5 actually mean????

A brief digression here from our field enumeration to describe what IS does with addresses and how it does it. IS must map Internet addresses to FC addresses, and FC addresses to Internet addresses. To help it accomplish this, it gets a special dir sync from the server, which allows it to build a table of the aliases and sites it knows about. It is important to note that this dir sync does not contain all users on the system, just all users with an Internet alias. For any FC address with an alias, the conversion from FC address format to Internet address format consists of a lookup. Things get trickier for addresses IS doesn't know about. For this type of address, IS converts names mechanically using a space replacement algorithm, and converts domains to/from FC site names by looking sites up in a table. Now for an example we'll look at a hypothetical FC server "terry" running IS:

Site name Domain name Note

terry terry.com Primary domain, this is the FCIS server

gate1 sales.terry.com gated downstream server, dir syncs with terry

gate2 jerry.com gated downstream server, doesn't dir sync with terry

gate3 <none> gated downstream server, dir syncs with terry

gate4 <none> gated downstream server, doesn't dir sync with terry

In our example, all users at terry, gate3, and gate4 are considered part of terry.com. So, if an address arrives from the Internet as j_dude@terry.com how does IS turn that into FC_user_name,FC_site_name? Well, if j_dude is an alias, then we look it up and get something like Jonny Dude,gate1. If j_dude is not an Internet alias, then we pass j dude,terry into the server, and the server must resolve this name. As you can see, routing addresses without aliases to any downstream gateways will require the server to either be dir sync-ed (gate3 is OK) or have manually entered remote names (gate4). Now, let's say an address bill_gates@jerry.com arrives. Since we don't dir sync with gate2, we have no aliases for anyone at that site. We do, however, have a site table entry, so we submit bill gates,gate2 to the server. The server routes this to the gateway and the message gets delivered (or rejected) on the next gateway connection. Finally, let's pretend there is a user Joe Blow at site gate1, and the admin at that site has set his alias to jblow. If we get a jblow@sales.terry.com, we get an alias match, and that record allows us to spit out Joe Blow,gate1 which routes on the next gateway connection.

7) Admin desktop->Internet Services->Basic Internet Setup->Mail->SMTP server domain name

8) Admin desktop->Internet Services->Basic Internet Setup->Mail->NNTP server domain name

9) Admin desktop->Internet Services->Basic Internet Setup->Mail->HTTP server domain name

10) Admin desktop->Internet Services->Basic Internet Setup->Mail->FTP server domain name

These domain names are used by IS when it presents login banners to other Internet clients and servers. They have no routing significance

11) Message relaying

A relayed message is one that arrives at an IS, but has no recipients that IS can deliver to. In other words, it is a message bounced of IS back into the Internet at large. IS has 3 message relaying options: Do not relay, Relay all, and Relay messages from domains served by this system. The first 2 are self evident, either denying relays or allowing them with impunity. The 3rd option is used so that local users who use POP3 clients (like Eudora) to read their mail, can send messages outside of the domain(s) IS services. In other words, your IS is Centrinity.com, your Internet alias is jon, and you use Eudora for all of your messaging. Since IS is your POP3 provider, you configure it as the place to send SMTP mail as well, counting on it to get the mail out to the rest of the Internet. So, jon composed a mail to bill@microsoft.com. When jon connects, IS will see that someone is trying to relay mail off of Centrinity.com to microsoft.com. If Eudora is properly configured, IS will see that the mail is from jon@softarc.com, and will check to see that this it serves the domain Centrinity.com. Since it does, the relay will be accepted. However, if bogus@pirate.com tried to relay the same message, IS would see that it does not service pirate.com, and the relay would be rejected.

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