ruf tag
The DMARC tag listing addresses for failure reports, the per-message reports a receiver may send when a message fails DMARC.
What it means
ruf=mailto:dmarc-failures@example.com asks receivers to send failure reports, with details and often headers or content of individual failing messages. Which failures trigger a report is set by fo=. Without ruf, receivers must not send failure reports.
Not every receiver sends them: Google's DMARC guide states that Gmail does not support ruf, and RFC 9991 asks those that do to weigh privacy. Expect few reports compared with rua.
External addresses need the same authorization record as for rua, and RFC 9991 requires receivers to rate-limit what they send.
Example
ruf=mailto:dmarc-failures@example.com; fo=1Related terms
On this site
Sources
What this definition rests on. The wording is ours; the facts are theirs.
- RFC 9989: Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance (DMARC), section 4.7rfc-editor.org
- RFC 9991: DMARC Failure Reporting, section 2rfc-editor.org
- Google Workspace Admin Help: Set up DMARCknowledge.workspace.google.com
All 432 terms in the glossaryThe wiki: blocklists and bounce codes