spf-discuss
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Re: Unified SPF: example with single domain, multiple machines

2004-06-18 14:51:04
On Fri, 18 Jun 2004 15:37:38 -0600 (MDT), Weldon Whipple wrote:

On Fri, 18 Jun 2004, Karl Prince wrote:

Not happy to disagree with Meng, but here goes

In the above example SPF records, I believe that

  www.example.com TXT "v=spf1 a -all"

is incorrect, and should be

www.example.com TXT "v=spf1 -all"

Since www.example.com should/would never be a sender domain,
and for a bounce it would use it's HELO of example.com as the
sender domain

Perhaps www.example.com *should* never be a sender domain ... but I have
seen many cases where a web server has a formmail [shudder] script that
calls a local sendmail directly. www's sendmail executable 
sends the mail
through another mail server (mx1.example.com or whatever), which then
delivers it to the destination mail server.
<snip>

The issue I feel is what domain should used for the 
from-address. I would hope that it would not use the 
"www.example.com", though quality of install's does vary, both 
for sendmail and the underlying OS, which can impact of  
sendmail default domain name and HELO

The SPF should reflect the "policy" of the domain owner, though 
that policy could allow email from www.example.com if the 
domain owner felt that there was not sufficient technical 
expertise to be sure no email came from it. Bit harsh maybe, 
but if the policy said no email from www.example.com, and an 
errant program started emailing from it, should it be accepted?

<snip> Thank you Meng and everyone else for your
contributions to SPF etc.!
My thanks also.

OT Any progress on the SPF goodies, if not I'll just hit the 
PayPal link

Regards
KArl Prince


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