Re: Last Call: draft-klensin-rfc2821bis

Jim Fenton wrote:
> (2) Although some SMTP servers will continue to be found through A 
> records for legacy reasons, there is no longer a good reason for any new 
> server not to have a published MX record.

Then they won't.

And we don't need to alter algorithms that have been in operation for more than 
20 years and working well.

Really, it does not make sense to impose changes based on hopeful thinking 
rather than compelling need.

   SMTP clients (senders) will,
> of course, need to continue to look up A records, but since there is 
> currently no significant use of AAAA records for email routing, we 
> should not perpetuate this legacy in IPv6 as it is in IPv4.

Please document the problems caused by this legacy, since serious problems are 
what ought to dictate changing an installed service.

The added 'complexity' has worked well enough for 20 years, so it's a bit 
difficult to assert it as significant now.

Make AAAA records get the same handling as A and you've made the smallest 
possible change to Internet email's transport service.  Start messing around 
with the role of the address record, and you are altering the service at a more 
basic architectural level.  Absent compelling need, that's usually a poor idea.

d/
-- 

   Dave Crocker
   Brandenburg InternetWorking
   bbiw.net
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