IPv6 address literals probably aren't SMTP either

Thu Mar 27 04:02:07 UTC 2014

On 3/26/2014 11:28 PM, John Levine wrote:
>
> It's messier than that.  See RFC 5321 section 4.1.3.  I have no idea
> whether anyone has actually implemented IPv6 address literals and if
> so, how closely they followed the somewhat peculiar spec.
>
> R's,
> John
>
I'm not sure why the SMTP RFC defines IPv6-addr so thoroughly and in an 
incompatible way with the other RFCs.  It would make more sense to refer 
back to another RFC with authoritative definitions. They're completely 
missing the fun that's happening with Zone Identifiers in RFC6874 and 
the hacks to support them some have been doing with the IPvFuture 
definition.

I'm not saying John Klensin shouldn't have a say in how the IPv6 address 
is defined, but I do think it would be best for everyone to work it out 
in an official place somewhere so that email software isn't doing the 
complete opposite of everyone else.