How to Join the ALT.ZA Domain

Revision: 1.1 Date: 91/07/05 14:51:11

How to join the .Alt.ZA domain

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The .Alt.ZA domain is administered by Alternet SA, and all people or organisations that register subdomains below .Alt.ZA automatically become members of Alternet SA.

Joining the .Alt.ZA domain space is rather simple. What is necessary is:

1 - You must be based primarily in South Africa, and you must be prepared to join Alternet SA. (You do not need to make a separate application for membership of Alternet SA, because registering a subdomain below .Alt.ZA automatically gives you membership of Alternet SA.)

2 - Complete, sign, fax and mail the "Letter of Assurance" to Randy Bush (randy@m2xenix.psg.com) about being a non-proscribed organisation in terms of the United States' Comprehensive Anti Apartheid Act. This is to allow use of the default .ZA nameservers and MX forwarders on the Internet.

3 - Receive approval from Randy for your _written_ LoA.

4 - If, for any reason, you cannot or will not sign the LoA, you must arrange two nameservers on the North American continent, both connected to the Internet, and an MX forwarder, also connected to the Internet. See the relevant documentation from `hostmaster@nic.ddn.mil' for more details, or contact `hostmaster@Alt.ZA'.

5 - have your site in the uucp maps, either as a site with a full map entry, or at least have some mapped site showing that they connect to you. This is required because we have to know how to deliver your incoming mail.

Your site having a registered map is not sufficient, as that only says how mail gets *from* your site. It is mandatory that some site in the public maps admits that it connects *to* your site. Please do not send any mail or news with yoursite.Alt.ZA in the From_, From:, or any other header line until this condition is met and you receive confirmation of registration of yoursite.Alt.ZA.

6 - do *not* configure your system so that outgoing news and mail appears as user@sitename.Alt.ZA (see step 6), but *do* configure your system so that incoming for user@sitename.Alt.ZA is properly delivered to users.

7 - tell the Alt.ZA admin, by filling out the application form and mailing it to ``hostmaster@alt.za''. At present, to get past sites that do not know about .Alt.ZA, you can send mail to Please note, however, that this alternative address will only be valid for a short period.

8 - receive approval, which is pretty automatic given 1 through 6.

9 - At this point, mail to you addressed to your .Alt.ZA address will actually work, as you will be in the paths database for the default recipients of .Alt.ZA mail, m2xenix and undeed, and they will know how to get mail to you.

10 - Configure your mail system so that mail from your site appears From: user@sitename.Alt.ZA.

11 - If you wish, submit new map entry to uucpmap@tabbs.UUCP showing sitename = sitename.Alt.ZA This is not mandatory, but it is advised.

12 - If your site will not have a map entry, it would be good form to tell us so the .Alt.ZA default mail forwarder can show sitename = sitename.Alt.ZA in the forwarder's map entry so map lookups will succeed for your Alt.ZA address out there in the world, as opposed to having to use the Alt.ZA default.

We hope this seems reasonable and that it helps. If there is anything we can do to help, please say so.

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