[kmail2] [Bug 481763] New: Support for RFC 6186 for Mail Auto-Configuration

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https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=481763

            Bug ID: 481763
           Summary: Support for RFC 6186 for Mail Auto-Configuration
    Classification: Applications
           Product: kmail2
           Version: unspecified
          Platform: Other
                OS: Other
            Status: REPORTED
          Severity: wishlist
          Priority: NOR
         Component: config dialog
          Assignee: kdepim-bugs at kde.org
          Reporter: zocker.network at gmail.com
  Target Milestone: ---

SUMMARY

RFC 6186 (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc6186) describes a way for MUAs to
locate the correct submission, IMAP and/or POP3 servers for certain mail
addresses. In short, it works as follows:
1. ask the user for its email address & password
2. extract the domain part of that address
3. request DNS SRV records for
_{submission,imap,imaps,pop3,pop3s}._tcp.<domain>.
4. (if both IMAP & POP3 can be used & MUA supports both) decide between IMAP
and POP3 according to SRV priority, or preference of MUA
5. first try <localpart>@<domain> as username, then only <localpart> as
fallback
6. profit

IMO RFC 6186 is simple to implement for MUAs as well as mail administrators and
it is sufficient for most email server setups. Comparing to Microsoft’s
autodiscover & Thunderbird’s autoconfig variants (which do support more weirder
setups), RFC 6186 is only based on DNS entries, so it is not required for mail
administrators to create rather complex XML files and serve them via HTTP(s).

SECURITY

Some recommend the use of DNSSEC for validating DNS SRV records. If the targets
of the SRV records points to subdomains on the same "main domain", such
validation might be lifted. Here by "main domain" I mean domains which can be
registered arbitrarily. For validating if two domains correspond to the same
"main domain" the public suffix list can be used, see
https://publicsuffix.org/.

RELEVANCE

RFC 6186 sadly is not (yet) supported by major email providers nor by major
email clients.

The following public mail providers support RFC 6186 as of now (2024-02-24):
- icloud.com
- yandex.com

Support by other MUAs:
- Microsoft Outlook (Desktop): unknown
- Mozilla Thunderbird: not yet, see
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=342242
- K-9 Mail: planned, see
https://github.com/thunderbird/thunderbird-android/issues/4721#issuecomment-1732575441

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