[exim] Some news on SMTP DANE TLS

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Author: Viktor Dukhovni
Date:  
To: exim-users
Subject: [exim] Some news on SMTP DANE TLS
Today, Microsoft announced plans to implement SMTP DANE TLS in Office365
"Exchange Online":

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/exchange-team-blog/support-of-dane-and-dnssec-in-office-365-exchange-online/ba-p/1275494

this is not live yet, the implementation will be in two stages:

The first phase will include only outbound support (mail sent outbound
from Exchange Online) and we aim to enable this by the end of the
calendar year 2020.

The second phase will add inbound support for Exchange Online and we
plan to enable that by the end of 2021. For both of those phases,
corresponding TLS-RPT support will be provided.

The relevance of this to the Exim community is:

   - If you are already publishing DANE TLSA records for your MX hosts,
     now is a good time to make sure that these are not neglected or
     managed poorly.  Please read:


      https://github.com/internetstandards/toolbox-wiki/blob/master/DANE-for-SMTP-how-to.md
      https://mail.sys4.de/pipermail/dane-users/2018-February/000440.html
      https://community.letsencrypt.org/t/please-avoid-3-0-1-and-3-0-2-dane-tlsa-records-with-le-certificates/7022/17
      https://mail.sys4.de/pipermail/dane-users/2017-August/000417.html
      https://github.com/baknu/DANE-for-SMTP/wiki/2.-Implementation-resources


     in particular, make sure that your TLSA RRset is *monitored* and
     any dicrepancies betweent the DNS and your live certificate chain
     are brought to your attention for remediation in a timely manner.


     With monitoring under control, make sure that your certificate
     rollover practices are robust enough to avoid even transient
     problems as a result of changing the cert/key *before* the
     corresponding *new* TLSA RRs are published (along with records
     matching the *current* chain).


     Also, just in case, locating a working technical contact for your
     domain should not require crystal ball gazing, or some form of
     voodoo.  Please consider publishing an RFC8640 TLS-RPT address,
     and an working contact address in your SOA record.  If all else
     fails, have a working postmaster mailbox that is actually read.


   - If you don't already publish TLSA records, that's fine, and I
     don't encourage doing it "as a fashion statement".  Don't do it
     unless you take the time to do it well (see above).  That said,
     please consider adopting DNSSEC and DANE.


     Considerable work has gone into BIND 9.16 to make key management
     easier, with BIND now able to not only automatically resign your
     zone, but also do automated rollover of signing keys.  This may
     be a good time to dip your toes in the water, and learn how to
     deploy DNSSEC.


     As always, monitor what you deployment, unmonitored infrastructure
     should be an oxymoron.


--
Viktor.