Internet Engineering Task Force Motonori Nakamura
INTERNET-DRAFT Kyoto University
Expires: January 13, 2002 Jun-ichiro itojun Hagino
IIJ Research Laboratory
July 13, 2001
IPv6 SMTP operational requirements
draft-ietf-ngtrans-ipv6-smtp-requirement-02.txt
Status of this Memo
This document is an Internet-Draft and is in full conformance with all
provisions of Section 10 of RFC2026.
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Distribution of this memo is unlimited.
The internet-draft will expire in 6 months. The date of expiration will
be January 13, 2002.
Abstract
The memo lists operational requirements for IPv6 SMTP, and IPv6-capable
MX DNS records. As we deploy IPv6 SMTP servers, it became apparent that
we need certain configuration in IPv6-capable MX DNS record, for stable
dual-stack (IPv4 and IPv6) SMTP operations. The document tries to
clarify the problems we have in transition period between IPv4 SMTP and
IPv6 SMTP, and operational requirements for stable IPv4/v6 SMTP
operation.
The document does not try to define any new protocol.
1. Summary of IPv4 MX operation
For reference purpose, the section outlines how mail message delivery is
performed in IPv4-only environment [Partridge, 1986] .
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In IPv4 SMTP operation, we register MX records like below, for
"example.org." domain:
example.org. IN MX 1 mx1.example.org.
IN MX 10 mx10.example.org.
mx1.example.org. IN A 1.0.0.1
mx10.example.org. IN A 1.0.0.2
When an MTA delivers a message to a particular destination (say it is to
foo@example.org), the MTA would send DNS queries to lookup DNS database
in the following order:
o Lookup MX record for "example.org.".
o If an MX record is returned, try to lookup A record on the righthand
side of the MX record.
o If a CNAME record is returned, try to chase the CNAME chain.
Eventually we will reach some A record.
NOTE: from RFC2181 MX records must not point CNAME records [Elz,
1997] . However, it has been permitted in older RFCs [Partridge,
1986] . We mention CNAME chasing logic here just for backward
compatibility. Implementers may want to avoid CNAME chasing to be
more conformant to RFC2181.
o If MX lookup failed with NO_DATA, it means that there is no MX
record but there can be other record for "example.org.". Lookup A
record for "example.org.".
o If MX lookup failed with HOST_NOT_FOUND, it means that there is no
record at all for "example.org.". This means a delivery failure.
2. MX records and IPv6 SMTP operation
The following sections talk about how to make IPv4 SMTP and IPv6 SMTP
coexist, under dual-stack environment during the transition period
between IPv4 to IPv6. In the future, when we have completely migrated
to IPv6-only network, we can forget about IPv4/v6 SMTP interaction.
As IPv6 DNS lookup RFCs [Thomson, 1995; Crawford, 2000] use IN class for
both IPv4 and IPv6, we will use IN MX records for both IPv4 and IPv6.
For simplicity, the document lists DNS records for IPv6 address as AAAA
records, not as A6 records [Crawford, 2000] . In reality, we can use a
chain of A6 records, instead of AAAA records.
There are couple of technologies defined for IPv4 and IPv6 transition.
The document concentrates on issues with dual stack environment.
Translators do not need special consideration from SMTP point of view;
If we have SMTP traffic from IPv6 MTA to IPv4 MTA over an IPv6-to-IPv4
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translator, the traffic will be considered as a normal IPv4 SMTP
traffic, from the IPv4 MTA point of view. We may, however, need some
consideration on translators for protocols like IDENT [StJohns, 1993] .
3. SMTP sender algorithm in dual stack environment
When we lookup MX records for the domain in IPv4/v6 dual stack
environment, we will see records like below:
example.org. IN MX 1 mx1.example.org.
IN MX 10 mx10.example.org.
mx1.example.org. IN A 1.0.0.1 ; IPv4/v6 dual stack
IN AAAA 3ffe:501:ffff::1
mx10.example.org. IN AAAA 3ffe:501:ffff::2 ; IPv6 only
For single MX record, we have many possibility for the final lookup
result, including: (a) single, or multiple A records for IPv4
destination, (b) single, or multiple AAAA records for IPv6 destination,
(c) mixture of A and AAAA records. As we can define multiple MX records
with different preference value, we also need to go through multiple
addresses based on multiple MXes. We need to cope with domains without
MX records, and failure recovery cases too.
The algorithm for a SMTP sender would be like this.
(1) Lookup MX record for the destination domain. If a CNAME record is
returned, go back to step (1) with the queried result. If MX
records are returned, go to step (2) with the result. If NO_DATA
is returned, go to step (3) as there is no MX record. If
HOST_NOT_FOUND is returned, there is no domain, raise permanent
email delivery failure (finish).
NOTE: regarding to MX records pointing CNAME records, see a note in
the previous section.
(2) We have multiple MX records with us. Loop steps from (3) to (8),
based on MX preference values, in ascending order.
(3) If the source MTA has IPv4 capability, lookup A record. Keep the
resulting address till step (5).
(4) If the source MTA has IPv6 capability, lookup AAAA record.
(5) Reorder queried result based on implementation-dependent preference
between A and AAAA records. If you would like to encourage the
transition from IPv4 SMTP to IPv6 SMTP, AAAAs should take
precedence.
(6) Loop steps from (7) to (8), for all the addresses (or part of the
list of addresses) we have. If no reachable destination is found,
and if we are going through a list of MX records, go back to (3)
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and try the next MX record. If we do not have a list of MX
records, or we have reached the end of the list of MX records,
raise temporary delivery failure (finish).
(7) Try to make a TCP connection to the destination. If it fails, try
the next address we have. If it succeeds, go to step (8).
(8) Try a SMTP protocol negotiation. If SMTP protocol negotiation
fails with TEMPFAIL (4xx), go back to (3) and try the next MX
record. If it succeeds, SMTP delivery was successful (finish).
4. MX configuration in receipient domain
4.1. Ensuring reachability for both protocol versions
If a site has IPv4/v6 dual stack reachability, the site SHOULD configure
both A and AAAA records onto its MX hosts. It will help both IPv4 and
IPv6 senders to reach the site efficienlty.
4.2. Reachability between primary and secondary MX
When we configure MX records onto DNS database in dual-stack
environment, we need to be careful about reachability between MX hosts.
Suppose we try to gather all inbound email to primary MX host,
mx1.example.org.
example.org. IN MX 1 mx1.example.org.
IN MX 10 mx10.example.org.
IN MX 100 mx100.example.org.
If mx1.example.org is an IPv6 only node and the rest are IPv4 only node,
we have no reachability between primary MX host and the rest. Once an
email reaches one of secondary MX host, the email will never reach the
primary MX.
; the configuration is troublesome.
; no secondary MX can reach mx1.example.org.
example.org. IN MX 1 mx1.example.org. ; IPv6 only
IN MX 10 mx10.example.org. ; IPv4 only
IN MX 100 mx100.example.org. ; IPv4 only
The easiest possible configuration is to configure the primary MX host
as an IPv4/v6 dual stack node. By doing so, secondaries will have no
problem reaching the primary MX host.
; the configuration works just fine.
; emails reaches from secondary MX to primary with no trouble.
example.org. IN MX 1 mx1.example.org. ; IPv4/v6 dual stack
IN MX 10 mx10.example.org. ; IPv4 only
IN MX 100 mx100.example.org. ; IPv6 only
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There are many other ways to ensure the reachability between secondary
MX and primary MX. For example, we could configure secondary MX to
route emails statically, without considering DNS MX configuration. Or
we could estalish alternative email routing path (i.e. UUCP, or via
IPv4/v6 translator) between secondary MX and the primary MX.
5. Operational experiences
Many of the existing IPv6-ready MTAs seem to work in the way documented
in section 3.
>From past experiments and operatinal experiences, it is known that none
of the existing IPv4-only MTAs will get confused by AAAA records,
registered for MX hostnames. No experiments were conducted with A6
records.
6. Open issues
o How to interpret scoped address on MTAs. As we relay emails between
MTAs, interpretation of scoped address can be different between MTAs,
as intermediate MTAs may be in different scope zone as the originator.
If we get scoped IPv6 address as a result of DNS lookups, how MTAs
should behave?
If we consider scoped address in ``route-addr'' specification
[Crocker, 1982] like
<@kame.net,@[fec0::1]:itojun@itojun.org>
it gets more trickier. Luckily, route-addr form was obsoleted by
RFC2822 [Resnick, 2001] .
7. Security consideration
As presented in ``Open issues'' section, it could be problematical if
route-addr email address format is used across multiple scope zones.
MTAs would need to reject emails with improper route-addr email address
formats. A possible example of improper route-addr format would be like
this: an email from outside of the site border, which carries numeric
site-local address in route-addr format.
References
Partridge, 1986.
C. Partridge, "Mail routing and the domain system" in RFC974 (January
1986). ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc974.txt.
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Elz, 1997.
R. Elz and R. Bush, "Clarifications to the DNS Specification" in RFC2181
(July 1997). ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2181.txt.
Thomson, 1995.
S. Thomson and C. Huitema, "DNS Extensions to support IP version 6" in
RFC1886 (December 1995). ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1886.txt.
Crawford, 2000.
M. Crawford, C. Huitema, and S. Thomson, "DNS Extensions to Support IPv6
Address Aggregation and Renumbering" in RFC2874 (July 2000).
ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2874.txt.
StJohns, 1993.
M. StJohns, "Identification Protocol" in RFC1413 (January 1993).
ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc1413.txt.
Crocker, 1982.
D. Crocker, "Standard for the format of ARPA Internet text messages" in
RFC822 (August 1982). ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc822.txt.
Resnick, 2001.
P. Resnick, editor, "Internet Message Format" in RFC2822 (April 2001).
ftp://ftp.isi.edu/in-notes/rfc2822.txt.
Change history
00 -> 01
Correct email address notation for source-routed emails, based on a
comment from Gregory Neil Shapiro.
01 -> 02
Refer RFC2822, not 822. Use example.org, not sample.org. Based on
comments from Arnt Gulbrandse. Add Operational experiences
section. Clarify MX-points-to-CNAME, based on comments from Mohsen
Souissi.
Acknowledgements
The draft was written based on discussions with Japanese IPv6 users, and
help from WIDE research group.
Author's address
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DRAFT IPv6 SMTP operational requirements July 2001
Motonori NAKAMURA
Center for Information and Multimedia Studies, Kyoto University
Yoshida-nihonmatsu-cho, Sakyo, Kyoto 606-8501, JAPAN
Tel: +81-75-753-9063
Fax: +81-75-753-9056
Email: motonori@media.kyoto-u.ac.jp
Jun-ichiro itojun HAGINO
Research Laboratory, Internet Initiative Japan Inc.
Takebashi Yasuda Bldg.,
3-13 Kanda Nishiki-cho,
Chiyoda-ku,Tokyo 101-0054, JAPAN
Tel: +81-3-5259-6350
Fax: +81-3-5259-6351
Email: itojun@iijlab.net
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