RE: Re: More about the SPF RRTYPE

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Alex van den Bogaerdt [mailto:[email protected]]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 17, 2011 7:19 PM
> To: [email protected]
> Subject: Re: [spf-discuss] Re: More about the SPF RRTYPE
> 
> > I think RR type 99 won't be very useful in v=spf3 because using the TXT
> > type with a name prefix (_spf) is clearly a better approach.
> 
> TXT records with an _spf prefix is clearly a better approach than TXT
> records without this prefix. That does IMHO not mean it is also a better
> approach than using SPF RR. I am not necessarily saying the opposite is
> true either(!)

I think a lot of people would be happy if SPFbis said to use an "_spf" TXT record, and the various open source and commercial implementations evolved to comply.  People could leave SPF TXT records in the current location for transition purposes as long as they like, but we should explicitly deprecate that practice and encourage the new one.

> The experiment could enter a new phase. There is no need for ASCII
> characters in the SPF record. This means that for instance
> "ip4:192.168.234.123" could be encoded in 5 octets instead of 19 plus 1
> for a separating space. [...]

Some of this stuff might fly, if we do indeed move the TXT record, but we'll also need to come up with tools that the average sysadmin can use to generate a TXT record in a BIND zone file that matches the new specification.  The thought of doing this stuff in a conventional text editor will set a barrier to entry.

> The use of PTR, and possibly MX, should IMHO be depriciated. More
> generally speaking: the effect of SPF on DNS usage should be evaluated and
> the protocol should, where necessary, be adapted.

What are the bases for those changes?

-MSK