The "traditional" method of advertising your site to the rest of the
Usenet after setting it up is to get an entry for it added to the UUCP
maps.  Doing this involves choosing a name for your site and submitting
a map entry indicating the name, other vital statistics, and a list of
your feed sites, preferentially weighted.  Since many Usenet sites
still rely exclusively on the UUCP maps for routing mail, you will
almost certainly want to register in the maps.  To find out more about
how to do this, read the "UUCP map for README" posting in
comp.mail.maps, referenced above.

However, the past several years have witnessed a dramatic increase in
the number of sites choosing to register host names in the Internet
Domain Name Service (DNS) hierarchy, in addition to getting a host
entry added to the UUCP maps.  The DNS hierarchy is becomingly
increasingly standardized, and DNS name service is more reliable than
the UUCP maps.  Therefore, if you register a DNS name for your site,
put that DNS name in your UUCP map entry as an alias for your site, and
use the DNS address rather than the UUCP host name in your mail and
Usenet postings, both UUCP hosts and hosts that do DNS will be able to
get mail to you more efficiently and reliably.

There are two types of DNS host records that are relevant here.  If you
have opted to contract with a company for a direct connection to the
Internet, then you are probably going to want to register an address
record advertising what your address will be on the Internet.  Hosts
which understand DNS can then use that record to connect directly to
your machine and deliver mail to it.

If, on the other hand, you are going to be getting your mail via UUCP
from some other site, then the host record you will be registering is a
Mail eXchange (MX) record.  This record announces to the world that
mail destined to your host can be directed instead to another host that
IS directly on the Internet.  That host is your "MX forwarder," and it
must be one of your feed sites that knows how to deliver mail to you.
In fact, you can have multiple MX records if you have multiple feeds on
the Internet and want it to be possible for mail to be routed through
all of them (for increased reliability), if they are willing.  Note
that if you use a commercial service provider for your mail feed, it
will probably also be your MX forwarder.

Even if none of your feeds are on the Internet, you may be able to get
an MX record, by finding an Internet site that is willing to receive
your mail and put it on its way through the correct UUCP route.  There
are currently at least a couple of sites willing to perform this
service for no charge, in order to encourage the increased use of DNS
records.  You can therefore probably locate an MX forwarder by posting
to news.admin.misc and asking if anyone is willing to forward for you.

The procedure for registering a DNS record is quite simple.  For some
Network Information Centers (the people who handle domain registration,
a.k.a. NICs), e.g., the InterNIC (see Internet RFC 1400 for more
information about the InterNIC) which handles domain registration for
the original Arpanet domains (COM, EDU, etc., as opposed to the
geographic domains such as US for the United States, FR for France,
etc.), it takes a month or less; others, unfortunately, might take a
lot longer.  Note that many commercial service providers, such as
UUNET, will take care of this for you when you ask for a network
connection or news/mail feed from them.

Whether you decide to register an address record or an MX record, you
need to decide what your DNS host name is going to be.  Since the DNS
is arranged in a hierarchy, you need to decide what hierarchy your name
will appear in.  For example, you might choose to be in the ".us"
domain if you are in the United States and want to be in the United
States geographical hierarchy.  Alternatively, you might choose ".edu"
for a University, ".org" for a non-profit organization, ".com" for a
commercial company, etc.  For more information about the various
hierarchies and about choosing a host name, see the "How to Get
Information about Networks" posting already referenced.

If you are not in the US, you're theoretically supposed to have no
choice about the top-level domain -- it should always be the two-letter
ISO code for your country (".fr", ".de", etc.).  However, depending on
how and how well you are connected to the network, you might be able to
get away with being in one of the older domains mentioned above
(".edu", ".org", etc.).  If you want to find out how to get a host name
in a particular European domain, you can probably start by sending mail
to hostmaster@mcsun.eu.net and asking for more information.

Once you have determined your host name, you need to determine one or
more hosts (preferably two or three, so that even if one is having
trouble, the others will fill in for it) that will act as your "name
servers," advertising your host name to anyone who asks for it.  Note
that many hierarchies have their own name servers, which means that
when you go through the process of figuring out which domain your host
name will be in, you may find some name servers available to you
already.  Furthermore, if you opt to go with a commercial service
provider as described above, your service provider will probably be
willing to act as a name server.  Different domain-administration
organizations may require fewer or more name servers (e.g. the NIC
(mentioned below) requires at least two).

Once you've got your host name picked out, you need to submit an
application to the authorities for the domain you've chosen.  Many of
the domains, for example, are managed by the InterNIC -- to submit an
application to one of those domains, you would get the file
DOMAIN-TEMPLATE.TXT via anonymous ftp from rs.internic.net
(ftp://rs.internic.net/templates/) fill it out, and
mail it to hostmaster@internic.net.  You will probably determine the
correct method for applying for a host name in your domain during the
course of investigating which domain to put your host name in.

If you submit an application and don't get any acknowlegement or
response in a couple of weeks, it's a good idea to send another note to
the same address as you sent your original application to, asking if it
was received.

Even if you aren't going to be connecting directly to Internet at the
start, if your site is using any TCP/IP-based equipment, you should
request a block of IP addresses, to save future transition headaches.
Request one Class C address per subnet, or a Class B if your site has a
large number of systems on multiple subnets (for the precise
guidelines, see Internet RFCs 1366 and 1367).  If you don't understand
any of this and don't intend on getting on the Internet, don't worry
about it.  If/when you do decide to get onto the Internet, your service
provider should be prepared to help you understand what needs to be
done.

Once your application has been approved and your name entered into your
name servers' databases, update the mail software on your system and on
your MX forwarder's system to recognize and use the new domain.

[A final note: Much of the information in this section about the DNS
system is sketchy.  It is intentionally so, since all of this
information is available from a number of different sources, and they
cover it much better than I can here.  If you are interested in finding
out more about how the DNS works, you are strongly urged yet again to
read the "How to Get Information About Networks" posting and to follow
up on the sources of documentation that it references.  You might also
want to read the book "Connecting to the Internet"; see the entry for
it in the "Bibliography" section below.]

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