After digging through RFC 7489 and historical mailing lists, the naming convention becomes clear:

• rua: "Report URI for Aggregates"
• ruf: "Report URI for Forensics"

The "ru" prefix stands for "Report URI" - a standardized way to specify destination endpoints for DMARC feedback. This follows similar URI-based naming patterns seen in other email authentication protocols.

Here's how these tags appear in a DMARC DNS TXT record:

v=DMARC1; p=reject; rua=mailto:reports@example.com; ruf=mailto:forensics@example.com

For programmatic handling in Python:

import dkim.util

def parse_dmarc_record(record):
    """Parse DMARC DNS TXT record into structured data"""
    tags = dkim.util.parse_tag_value(record)
    return {
        'aggregate_uri': tags.get('rua', '').split(','),
        'forensic_uri': tags.get('ruf', '').split(',')
    }

Major email providers follow specific conventions when implementing these URIs:

For enterprises handling large volumes of reports:

# Sample DMARC record with multiple report destinations
v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; 
rua=mailto:dmarc-aggregate@corp.com,https://reports.corp.com/dmarc/xml;
ruf=mailto:dmarc-forensic@corp.com,https://reports.corp.com/dmarc/arf

Note that HTTPS URIs require proper certificate configuration for successful submission.

While implementing DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting & Conformance) for a client last week, I found myself staring at these seemingly arbitrary tags in the DNS records:

v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:reports@example.com; ruf=mailto:forensics@example.com

Like many developers, I wondered about the logic behind these abbreviations. After diving into RFC 7489 and historical mailing lists, here's what I discovered.

The "ru" prefix stands for Reporting URI, with the suffixes differentiating report types:

• rua: Reporting URI for Aggregate data (a = aggregate)
• ruf: Reporting URI for Forensic data (f = forensic)

This naming convention follows IETF's tradition of concise yet meaningful abbreviations in protocol specifications.

Here's how these tags appear in actual DMARC DNS records:

// Basic implementation
_dmarc.example.com. IN TXT "v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; rua=mailto:dmarc-aggregate@example.com"

// With multiple reporting destinations
_dmarc.example.com. IN TXT "v=DMARC1; p=reject; 
    rua=mailto:agg1@example.com,mailto:agg2@provider.net;
    ruf=mailto:forensic@example.com"

You can specify size limits for reports using additional syntax:

// With size limit specification
_dmarc.example.com. IN TXT "v=DMARC1; p=none; 
    rua=mailto:reports@example.com!10m"

The "!10m" suffix limits aggregate reports to 10MB. This prevents mailbox flooding from large report volumes.

When implementing DMARC reports:

• Start with rua only during initial deployment
• Add ruf only after testing forensic reports
• Consider using third-party services for report parsing

Here's a Python snippet to validate DMARC records (including rua/ruf syntax):

import dns.resolver

def validate_dmarc(domain):
    try:
        answers = dns.resolver.resolve(f'_dmarc.{domain}', 'TXT')
        for rdata in answers:
            if 'v=DMARC1' in str(rdata):
                return str(rdata)
    except dns.resolver.NXDOMAIN:
        return None
    return None