RE: [vps-mail] SPF implimentation

[Weldon Whipple <wwhipple@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 13 May 2004, Ron Pero wrote:

> That is probably true. I would feel better about doing it if Verio were to
> "bless" it, to investigate it and say to us: "This is a good idea. We
> encourage you to do it. Here are instructions."
>
> Anyone at Verio reading this? Any thoughts about this?

Verio is investigating it. (I, for one am investigating it; others at
Verio are also investigating it.) Verio isn't yet prepared to bless SPF,
however. Here are a few reasons (others may want to give other reasons):

1. The current implementation requires a special build of the perl
interpreter. The perl developers warn that the resulting perl might be
unstable.

2. aol.com has published SPF records. (You can view them by typing:

% dig txt aol.com

at your VPS command line.) However, at the end of their SPF record you
will see "?all", which causes spf-milter to treat AOL's SPF record as if
it doesn't exist ... more or less.

3. Many other major e-mail providers don't publish SPF records. In fact,
they all seem to be "doing their own thing."

4. Today's SPF record format is *very* different from what it was a year
ago when I tested it.

5. It would be irresponsible for Verio to officially "bless" anything that
isn't stable--in its specifications, functionality, and acceptance.  (The
last thing we want to do is have thousands of customers's sendmails
crashing because of unstable code!!)

Having stated the above, there is nothing to prevent you from trying out
any of the emerging technologies on your own. My experience is that just
about any instructions that work on "real" FreeBSD will work the same way
on your VPS2. (It is more difficult on VPS1, because of the "virtual"
environment ...)

We continue to survey the e-mail landscape to look for promising
technologies. Scott and friends have already provided vinstalls for
things like procmail, spamassassin and (on VPS2--so far) clamav. As new
technologies are agreed upon (something that is definitely *not* the case
with SPF) and become stable (also not the case with SPF--yet?), I hope
Verio will step up and provide instructions or vinstalls.

-- 
Weldon Whipple
Software Engineer (sendmail and other things)
wwhipple@xxxxxxxxx
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