Let's discuss some of the basic concepts of NNCPNET.
# Nodes and Addressing
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@@ -19,8 +20,12 @@ When your NNCPNET node sees an email address in the form of `user@something.nncp
NNCP can be used for more than just email. There is a public relay called [quux](https://www.complete.org/quux-org-nncp-public-relay/) that people can join. NNCP can route messages directly from machine A to machine C, but if A and C can't talk to each other directly, they can talk via B. B is quux. quux knows about all the nodes in the public network, and can interact with them. By default, nncpnet-mailnode will send everything via quux. (If you have a more direct route to something, you can certainly add that later, but that is a more advanced optimization.)
Because NNCP is end-to-end encrypted, unlike regular email, quux will never see the content of your messages. It simply receives things from bucket A and puts them in bucket C.
# The nodelist
But how does your node know about nodes like `grumpy` or `mail.greenhouse`?
quux also publishes a *nodelist*. The nodelist is a listing of all the participating nodes in the quux network. Any node in the network can submit a [file request over the NNCP network](https://nncp.mirrors.quux.org/nncp_002dfreq.html) to quux, and quux will respond with the nodelist.
nncpnet-mailnode will automatically request an updated nodelist from quux every day. It parses the nodelist and configures your system to be able to send and receive mail from each participating node. So once you join the network, 24 hours later, you should be reachable by the peers on it.
