Edward B. Dreger wrote:
DAU> Date: Wed, 4 Aug 2004 15:46:17 -0700 DAU> From: David A. Ulevitch
DAU> SPF's use of TXT records doesn't bother me so much. It's
Perhaps some other technology would like to use TXT RRs. If something hogs an entire RRTYPE at a given scope, it really should have its own RRTYPE. An acceptable alternative would be KRB5-style "_foo" entries. All IMHO.
Last time I looked, draft-ietf-marid-protocol-00.txt addressed this issue, 2.1.1 DNS Record Type The record type is a textual RR type to be allocated by the IANA for this purpose. However, because there is a large number of domains with these records already deployed as TXT type records, and because there are a number of DNS server and resolver implementations in common use that cannot handle new RR types, the record type can be TXT. Domains SHOULD publish records under both types. If a domain does publish under both types, then they MUST have the same content. Mail receivers SHOULD query for both types of records. If both are returned, then the new RR type MUST be preferred. It is recognized that the current practice (using a TXT type record), is not optimal, but a practical reality due to the state of deployed records and software. The two record type scheme provides a forward path to the better solution of using a RR type reserved for this purpose. For either type, the character content of the record is encoded as US-ASCII. -- Crist J. Clark crist.clark@globalstar.com Globalstar Communications (408) 933-4387