Hello all.

After learning about DMARC and reading the draft specification, I have some 
questions still lingering in my head:

---

Question 1: If I publish "v=spf1 a:mail.example.com -all" for my domain 
"example.com", for which I am not using DKIM signing, and then I also publish 
"v=DMARC1;p=reject" for my domain "example.com", and then I send an email 
without any DKIM signature with Header-From: [email protected] and 
ENVELOPE-FROM: [email protected], sent from my MTA at "mail.example.com", will 
that email be DMARC-authenticated? My guess is YES. Am I correct?

My guess is based on:
 "A Mail Receiver MUST consider an arriving message to pass the DMARC
 test if and only if one or more of the underlying message
 authentication mechanisms pass with proper identifier alignment." (section 5)
and on:
 "DMARC will not make a distinction between absence of DKIM
 signature and failed DKIM signature." (section 3.5)

---

Question 2: If I publish "v=spf1 a:mail.example.com ?all" for my domain 
"example.com", for which I am not using DKIM signing, and then I also publish 
"v=DMARC1;p=reject" for my domain "example.com", and then I send an email 
without any DKIM signature with Header-From: [email protected] and 
ENVELOPE-FROM: [email protected], sent from the MTA "mail.convoluted.com" (where 
"mail.convoluted.com" -> ip4:1.1.1.1 and where "mail.example.com" -> 
ip4:2.2.2.2), will that email be rejected as per DMARC-policy? My guess is YES 
(which would mean DMARC-policy is overriding SPF-policy). Am I correct?

My guess is based on:
 "Message disposition requests via DMARC override those requested
 by any other public mechanism." (section 3.4, Requirement 7)
and on:
 "DMARC-compliant Mail Receivers MUST disregard any mail directive
 discovered as part of an authentication mechanism (e.g., ADSP, SPF)
 where a DMARC policy is also discovered. {R7}" (section 7)

---

Question 3: the absence of a SPF resource record in DNS for a domain, would it 
mean SPF-mechanism-authentication fail in DMARC for all email sent from that 
domain?

---
Question 4: If domain "example.com" does not have a SPF resource record in DNS, 
and does not sign with DKIM its outgoing email, and then the domain owner 
publishes v=DMARC1;p=reject" for his domain "example.com", will outgoing email 
without any DKIM signature with Header-From: [email protected] and 
ENVELOPE-FROM: [email protected] be rejected as per DMARC-policy? My guess is 
YES. Am I correct?

My guess here is based on wild speculation.

(Note: I know publishing a DMARC RR in DNS without having a previous SPF RR en 
DNS and/or DKIM signing on outgoing email is against recommended practice in 
the DMARC draft specification, but it's something which nonetheless could 
happen in the real world and I want to know the outcome in that scenario.)

---

After scouring the DMARC draft specification I could not find any conclusive 
answer to question 3 above. The closest I could find about that are these 
excerpts:

 "Messages that purport to be from a Domain Owner's
 domain and arrive from servers that are not authorized by SPF and do
 not contain an appropriate DKIM signature can be affected by DMARC
 policies." (section 4.1)

 "A Domain Owner that does not advertise an SPF policy or sign with
 DKIM is making an implicit statement that the use cases those
 protocols satisfy are not to be considered when determining whether
 or not the message under evaluation is valid.  For example, not
 publishing an SPF policy is an implicit message from Domain Owners to
 Mail Receivers that successful path authorization is not to be taken
 as sufficient evidence that the Domain Owner authorized the message." (section 
5)

Which I have a hard time parsing down to whether SPF-absence means 
SPF-mechanism-authentication fail in DMARC, o not.

---

Any help with answering those questions would be much appreciated.


Regards,

-J. Gomez


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