Re: [ietf-smtp] MTS-STS validation when MX host points to a CNAME, violating RFC 2181 § 10.3

[Mark Andrews <[e-mail]>]

The rules about MX and CNAME are primarily there so a MTA can easily identify itself by name and not produce mail loops. If you are send email to a CNAME then you are using a name the MTA doesn’t know itself by so it can’t reject the MX and any equal or higher value MX. Lots of mail used to bounce because mail was sent to an alias.  

To do the same filtering with CNAMES you need to lookup address records for each MX target and check all the CNAMES targets as well for a match.  You go from a single MX lookup that has to work to MX plus multiple A and AAAA lookups that have to work and you have to describe the behavior when those lookups fail. 
-- 
Mark Andrews

> On 5 Apr 2021, at 06:31, Arnt Gulbrandsen <[e-mail]> wrote:
> 
> What John Levine says.
> 
> You can say things like "those people should be liberal in what they accept and overlook my minor error" but sometimes you run into people who aren't conservative, just like you aren't conservative if you violate a rule knowingly. And sometimes you run into people who haven't tested their handling of the error you commit, and untested code breaks, that's a <beep> <beep> axiom.
> 
> Arnt
> 
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