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[ietf-smtp] Should we update an RFC if people refuse to implement parts of it ?

2021-05-24 18:06:15
I've been doing some EAI tests. RFC 6531 section 3.7.3 says that domain names in trace headers SHOULD all be U-labels. In practice, everyone uses A-labels for reasons that are not absurd. The FROM clause has the name from the EHLO command which has to be sent as A-labels, and it's quite plausible to have a message where the message itself is entirely ASCII, sent to a UTF-8 address, which then could be forwarded to an ASCII address except that it has those U-labels in the trace header which would have to be downgraded. I've talked to a couple of MTA maintainers who have told me forget it, that's silly, not doing that.

In a situation like this, would it make sense in a future update to the RFC to adjust the advice to the reality?

Regards,
John Levine, johnl(_at_)taugh(_dot_)com, Primary Perpetrator of "The Internet for 
Dummies",
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail. https://jl.ly

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