Can I have a TXT or SPF record longer than 255 characters?
  • 06 Sep 2018
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Can I have a TXT or SPF record longer than 255 characters?

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Article Summary

You may have more than 255 characters of data in a TXT or SPF record, but not more than 255 characters in a single string.

If you attempt to create an SPF or TXT record with a long string (>255 characters) in it, BIND will give an error (e.g. "invalid rdata format: ran out of space".)  Strings in SPF and TXT records should be no longer than 255 characters.  However to get around this limitation, per RFC 4408 a TXT or SPF record is allowed to contain multiple strings, which should be concatenated together by the reading application.  In the case of use for SPF (using either TXT or SPF RRs) the strings are concatenated together without spaces as described below.  Reassembly by other applications of multiple strings stored in TXT records might work differently.

3.1.3.  Multiple Strings in a Single DNS record

As defined in [RFC1035] sections 3.3.14 and 3.3, a single text DNS record (either TXT or SPF RR types) can be composed of more than one string. If a published record contains multiple strings, then the record MUST be treated as if those strings are concatenated together without adding spaces.  For example:
  
       IN TXT "v=spf1 .... first" "second string..."
       
  MUST be treated as equivalent to
  
       IN TXT "v=spf1 .... firstsecond string..."
       
SPF or TXT records containing multiple strings are useful in constructing records that would exceed the 255-byte maximum length of a string within a single TXT or SPF RR record.