Resolution of the Sender Policy Framework and Sender ID Experiments

Abstract

In 2006, the IETF published a suite of protocol documents comprising the Sender Policy Framework (SPF) and Sender ID: two proposed email authentication protocols. Both of these protocols enable one to publish, via the Domain Name System, a policy declaring which mail servers were authorized to send email on behalf of the domain name being queried. There was concern that the two would conflict in some significant operational situations, interfering with message delivery.

The IESG required all of these documents (RFC 4405, RFC 4406, RFC 4407, and RFC 4408) to be published as Experimental RFCs and requested that the community observe deployment and operation of the protocols over a period of two years from the date of publication to determine a reasonable path forward.

After six years, sufficient experience and evidence have been collected that the experiments thus created can be considered concluded. This document presents those findings. This document is not an Internet Standards Track specification; it is published for informational purposes.

Abstract as published in the RFC, via rfc-editor.org.

What “Informational” means

Published for the general information of the community. It does not define an IETF standard and carries no standards-track status.