This was more of an issue before your tree-walk took hold.  Now it is an
edge case.   But I think it deserves explicit consideration.   I am sorry
that it seems so obscure


My terminology:

An email domain-part that is a "DNS Domain" is associated resource records
having an empty host portion, so that the domain-part name matches the name
of the containing DNS directory structure.  Gmail.com is an example of an
email domain-part that is also a DNS domain.

An email domain-part that is a "host record" is associated with resource
records that have a non-empty host portion, so that the name does not match
the containing DNS directory structure.

Either type of record can publish MX, A, SPF TXT, and DKIM TXT records, but
only the empty host-portion names can have a corresponding entry in a
"_dmarc." subdomain

(I am open to improved vocabulary suggestions.   This is my best attempt.)


Explaining the concern:
With DMARCv1, email addresses which use "host record" domain-parts have
only one possible policy match, the SP policy of the organizational
policy.   It seemed to me that every valid domain-part should have two
protection options, and the only way to achieve this would be to do a
one-level tree walk to find the parent,.

With normal DNS queries, we cannot determine whether the host portion of a
resource record is empty or not, so there does not seem to be a way to
specify conditional logic.  A one-level tree walk ensures that every name
has at least one low-level policy option as well as an organizational
policy option.


How the constrained tree walk minimizes the problem:

The proposed tree walk model says to initially look for a DMARC policy that
exactly matches the email address domain-part.   If this fails and the
address has many segments, jump to level five and move up until a policy is
found or a termination signal is found (PSL list match or "I'm a PSL" in
DNS or something else.)   This covers names with up to 6 segments.

But what about names with more than 6 segments that are also "host record"
names?   Such addresses are unusual, but they are not invalid, so they
deserve a fair playing field, and I think that should include a granular
DMARC policy.   Thus, my preference for a one-level tree walking before
jumping across any levels.

I hope this at least clarifies the concern.

Doug Foster



On Wed, Nov 3, 2021 at 1:23 PM John Levine <jo...@taugh.com> wrote:

> It appears that Douglas Foster  <dougfoster.emailstanda...@gmail.com>
> said:
> >-=-=-=-=-=-
> >
> >Correct, but you cannot query _dmarc.host1.domain because host1 is not a
> >DNS domain, even though it can be a mail sender and receiver
>
> Sorry, but I also have no idea what you're talking about. Any mail
> domain is a DNS domain because you have to use the DNS to publish an
> MX or A or AAAA record.
>
> R's,
> John
>
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