I'm going to apply for a PhD position and as you know, I need my current supervisor recommendation letter.
So, I asked my supervisor to give me a recommendation letter regarding all the researches I have done in his lab. He responds that he won't provide any recommendation letter directly to me or any other student, but instead he will send a recommendation letter to any professor/university who asks about my progress.
To be precise, he told me to send an email to the professor I want to send recommendation letter for and tell him to request a recommendation for me.
The whole process looks problematic to me, for many reasons:
I can't ask my new supervisor to ask my old supervisor to ask for a recommendation for me...I feel like my new supervisor won't do such a thing because there is a really tough competition between candidates and most of them already have strong recommendation letters.
I have to apply via a webform inside the university website. The apply form asks for at least 2 recommendation letters (in PDF format). There is no place in that form for me to add my professors email.
I didn't see such process anywhere, almost all my friends got their recommendation letters from their previous professors.
My question here is that did I miss something? Is this process looks okay in academic world or its just me that feel its wrong? Why my professor is not directly providing a recommendation letter to any student?
Edit I'm living in Iran and I'm going to apply for a position in Sweden.