On Sun, 27 Sep 2020, Keith Moore wrote:
For example, should the standard insist that client SMTPs have and use an
outgoing IPv4-capable interface any time the server SMTP is reached (directly
or indirectly) via IPv4? Or should client SMTPs be forced to use
IPv6-to-IPv4 SMTP relays rather than NAT64? Should we have to keep
maintaining a public IPv4 network indefinitely (or at least until IPv6 is
globally ubiquitous)?
To me NAT64 seems like an essential tool for transitioning to IPv6 and one
quite often chosen by carriers, and I don't see the benefit in adding
complexity to the SMTP signal chain (with the consequent degradation of
reliability) just to preserve this rule.
This seems backward to me. Keeping in mind that upwards of 90% of all
mail is spam, and reliable spam signals are valuable, we know from
experience that real mail servers have static addresses and matching
forrward and reverse DNS. Anything that comes from a dynamic or NAT pool
is invariably spam from a botnet.
Small mail servers send and receive on the same address, so if they're
going to work on IPv4 at all, they need a static v4 address. Large
providers do NAT64 for their customers, but that's not where they put
their mail servers (or any servers that need an A record.) They have a
chunk of static v4 space for that, and that's where they put their
outgoing mail hosts, too.
Also remember that mail hosts don't need a lot of address space. I've
seen estimates of the total number of SMTP hosts in the 100,000 range.
Regards,
John Levine, johnl(_at_)taugh(_dot_)com, Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly
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