[ietf-dkim] DKIM DNS record types

[Mark Delany]

On Tue, Nov 15, 2005 at 01:43:59PM -0500, Andrew Newton allegedly wrote:
> There are a few benefits for not cloning TXT:


> 1) You can avoid the errors that may come with having to break the  
> record up into multiple character strings.
> 2) If it doesn't look like a TXT, there is less likelihood for  
> certain vendors to do the non-standard escaping that they currently  
> do with TXT (this can really mess up people doing cut-and-paste).

Right. If that is the path to take, let's make it similar to a TXT but
withut the problems. Say,

                          1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 2 3 3
        0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+
       |         Length                |   value .... 
       +-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+-+

A 16bit unsigned length followed by txt.

That eliminates 1) and 2).

> 3) There is a possibility to define a less cumbersome master file  
> format for the record.

It will be interesting to see that in practice given that most master
files I've seen are positional and DKIM has numerous optional
tags. Would it end up looking something like this?


    IN	DKIMSEL 1 rsa sha256 -  -  - 34E7BC... - "marketing"


Note I'm not advocating a surrogate TXT at this time, just discussing
the options and implications.

Mark.