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Grex Info Item 97: Query for EMU internet mail host name(s)
Entered by albaugh on Fri Jan 14 19:29:21 UTC 1994:

I wish to surprize a friend who works in the EMU English department with an
internet mail message "out of the blue."  Does anyone have any suggestions
for which mail host name(s) to use?  (e.g. english.emu.edu)

17 responses total.

#1 of 17 by remmers on Fri Jan 14 22:40:59 1994:

Most faculty receive their email on one of the two mainframes, either
emunix.emich.edu (Unix), or emuvax.emich.edu (VMS).  You'd have to
know which machine the person is on and what their id is on that
machine.

#2 of 17 by popcorn on Sat Jan 15 02:26:32 1994:

This response has been erased.

#3 of 17 by gregc on Sat Jan 15 03:23:22 1994:

yes, finger on grex can do that now.

#4 of 17 by popcorn on Sat Jan 15 13:43:59 1994:

This response has been erased.

#5 of 17 by albaugh on Sat Jan 15 21:50:37 1994:

Using "finger" with both "emunix.emich.edu" and "emuvax.emich.edu" tells me
"unknown host".  I get sensible responses to "finger" with the hosts
"cyberspace.org", "grex.cyberspace.org", and "grexold.cyberspace.org".
I'll try some blind mailings to "emunix.emich.edu" and see what mail reports.

#6 of 17 by remmers on Sat Jan 15 22:47:59 1994:

Weird.  Those have worked for me before.  Were you running finger *on*
Grex?

#7 of 17 by scg on Sun Jan 16 00:35:31 1994:

Would trying to finger when the link is down produce "unknown host"?

#8 of 17 by scg on Sun Jan 16 00:37:43 1994:

Alternatively, you could try a netfind server.  Those of us with access to
telnet can telnet to netfind.oc.com.  Others can get to them through the
MSU gopher.  Netfind servers ask for the person's name and the institution they
are at, and attempt to find the address from that.

#9 of 17 by gregc on Sun Jan 16 04:26:02 1994:

Once the internet link is back up, the syntax for finger is:

Finger user@domain
or
finger @domain
or
finger user
so these are all correct:
finger gregc
finger grex@cyberspace.org
finger @cyberspace.org
But this one is not:
finger cyberspace.org

Uh, that should be "finger gregc@cyberspace.org" not "grex@cyberspace.org"

#10 of 17 by albaugh on Mon Jan 17 19:54:37 1994:

Whelp, the person I seek is not listed under "finger" output for either of
the emunix.emich.edu or emuvax.emich.edu hosts.  Any other host names to try?

#11 of 17 by remmers on Mon Jan 17 21:01:58 1994:

Not that I'm aware of.

#12 of 17 by albaugh on Tue Jan 18 20:12:07 1994:

Well, with a little good fortune and some good deductive reasoning I found
the proper e-mail address.  Thanks for the tip about the host names.

#13 of 17 by remmers on Tue Jan 18 22:36:03 1994:

Glad you got the problem resolved.

#14 of 17 by carson on Wed Jan 19 07:04:54 1994:

Aren't most, if not all emuvax accounts unfindable without knowing the 
student number AND class number/description AND how to determine an ID
from those tidbits? I've always been unable to locate people on VAX by 
fingering ANY part of their name (I remember when I first started surfing
the net and couldn't find anyone over at EMU). I also have this problem
at most systems which lack x.500. Am I the only one? Am I being singled
out? If not, am I fingering the right spot? For the EMUVax, I finger
@emuvax.emich.edu. Actually, I do that often to see who's over there. I look
through the output and match login with name, but I can't use the name to
find the login. 
Hope that's clear enough.

#15 of 17 by albaugh on Wed Jan 19 07:53:58 1994:

Note that on emuvax.emich.edu the ID's all seem to have a 3-character dept.
mnemonic, followed by an underscore, followed by the person's last name.
E.g. eng_jones

#16 of 17 by scg on Thu Jan 20 21:46:04 1994:

It looks like about a quarter of the emuvax accounts have a department and a
name, and the rest have a department and a number.

#17 of 17 by remmers on Fri Jan 21 03:22:33 1994:

The former are mostly faculty accounts, the latter being student accounts.

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