Re: [spfbis] Question about SPF checks based on RFC 7208

Scott Kitterman <spf2@kitterman.com> Sun, 01 May 2016 01:08 UTC

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From: Scott Kitterman <spf2@kitterman.com>
Date: Sat, 30 Apr 2016 21:08:50 -0400
To: spfbis@ietf.org
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Subject: Re: [spfbis] Question about SPF checks based on RFC 7208
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On April 30, 2016 8:45:40 PM EDT, Frank Bulk <frnkblk@iname.com> wrote:
>While working through a SPF failure for a message sent from our
>IPv6-capable
>email server (for premieronline.net), I ran an across an SPF checker
>(http://vamsoft.com/support/tools/spf-policy-tester) that had a hard
>fail
>when these values were entered:
>	2607:fe28:0:4000::20
>	fbulk@premieronline.net
>
>premieronline.net's record is as follow:
>	v=spf1 mx ip4:96.31.0.0/24 ip6:2607:fe28:0:1000::/64
>ip6:2607:fe28:0:4000::/64 ~all
>
>The tool tries to work through the MX records of premieronline.net, but
>for
>some reason it specifically queries for an AAAA for each MX record, of
>which
>we don't have one (because our inbound email gateway does not yet
>support
>IPv6).  Since we have four MX records, it work through two of them
>(which
>both fail) and then the tool hard fails saying that,
>	"The maximum void DNS lookup limit of 2 has been exceeded during the
>evaluation (see RFC7208 Section 4.6.4.)."
>
>This is the only SPF tool to fail in this way, which makes we wonder if
>it's
>the site's SPF checking methodology for RFC 7208 section 5.4 is
>correct.  If
>so, and other email gateways have implemented their SPF checking in the
>same
>way, there could be more incorrect SPF evaluation checks out there.  If
>the
>site's SPF checking methodology is incorrect, can you point me to a
>section
>in any RFC that would suggest a better/proper approach?
>
>Either way, does RFC 7208 need some clarification on this matter?  My
>guess
>is that "it performs an address lookup on each MX name" is not
>equivalent to
>"check for an AAAA on each MX name and check for an A on each MX name",
>but
>I'm not sure.
>
>Frank
>
>
>5.4.  "mx"
>
>   This mechanism matches if <ip> is one of the MX hosts for a domain
>   name.
>
>   mx               = "mx"     [ ":" domain-spec ] [ dual-cidr-length ]
>
>   check_host() first performs an MX lookup on the <target-name>.  Then
>   it performs an address lookup on each MX name returned.  The <ip> is
>   compared to each returned IP address.  To prevent denial-of-service
>  (DoS) attacks, the processing limits defined in Section 4.6.4 MUST be
>   followed.  If the MX lookup limit is exceeded, then "permerror" is
>   returned and the evaluation is terminated.  If any address matches,
>   the mechanism matches.
>
>   Note regarding implicit MXes: If the <target-name> has no MX record,
>   check_host() MUST NOT apply the implicit MX rules of [RFC5321] by
>   querying for an A or AAAA record for the same name.

I think they are just wrong.  If either an IPv4 or IPv6 address is returned it's not a void look up.  That's described at the end of 4.6.4 and is, I think clear.  I'd report it as a bug.

Scott K