[LINK] RFC: emailing to <username>@<IP-Address>

Scott Howard scott at doc.net.au
Mon Dec 10 19:52:05 AEDT 2007


You can - the format is   username@[1.2.3.4]

Of course, there's no guarantee that the remote host is going to accept the
email - especially as it generally isn't going to know what domain it's
for...

  Scott.



On 12/10/07, Roger Clarke <Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au> wrote:
>
> Sorry, Link Institute, but I think we've been here before.
>
> I just wrote to a bunch of MSc(ECommerce) candidates as follows.  If
> there's anything gravely wrong or misleading with what I said, please
> let me (and linkers) know.
>
> Thanks!
>
>
> Candidate asked:
> >Q10. Can you email to someone at their IP-address rather than their
> >domain name?
>
> Roger replied:
>
> I said in a seminar that it is not possible to email to an IP-address.
>
> I base this on:
> (1)  my reading of RFC 2821, at http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2821.txt
> (2)  never having seen an email-address that includes an IP-address
> (3)  experiments trying to send an email to the IP-address indicated in
> the
>       MX-record for my own domain, i.e. Roger.Clarke at 203.20.62.11.
>       This results in a 550 error from my IAP - 'recipient blocked'.
>
> (I can't find a clear statement in the RFC that it isn't possible,
> but it's clear that the recipient is meant to be defined as a
> 'mailbox' at a 'domain-name', and that the MX record in the
> authoritative domain-name server is intended to provide the
> translation from 'domain-name' to IP-address).
>
>
> --
> Roger Clarke                  http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/
>
> Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd      78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
>                     Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
> mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au                http://www.xamax.com.au/
>
> Visiting Professor in Info Science & Eng  Australian National University
> Visiting Professor in the eCommerce Program      University of Hong Kong
> Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre      Uni of NSW
> _______________________________________________
> Link mailing list
> Link at mailman.anu.edu.au
> http://mailman.anu.edu.au/mailman/listinfo/link
>



More information about the Link mailing list