SPF TXT Record

J

jlpeifer

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Jun 6, 2006
Messages
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I have a client who complains that their email messages aren't being received by customers who are using gmail. I sent an email from one of their accounts to my personal gmail account and found that the message got filtered by gmail as JUNK.

After a bit of research I found that the problem may have something to do with the SPF record for their domain. The default SPF record that was created for their domain was (including the quotation marks):

Code: 
"v=spf1 a mx ip4:2.2.2.2 ~all"

(it's not actually 2.2.2.2... I just changed that to obscure my server's IP address)

After digging into this a bit I found that changing my client's SPF record might help, so I changed it to this...

Code: 
"v=spf1 a mx ip4:2.2.2.2 include:_spf.google.com ~all"

Two questions:
1) Has anyone else run into a similar problem?
2) When entering the TXT record into DA, should the text syntax include the opening and trailing quotation marks?

Thanks,
Joe
 
Its not a problem at all. If you use external hosting you must change your spf record.
 
I don't follow.

I've never had to mess around with the TXT entry in DNS zones that are automagically created in DA when I add a new domain for a customer.

The TXT record that gets created automatically by DA when I add a domain looks like this...

Code: 
somedomainname.com.	TXT	"v=spf1 a mx ip4:2.2.2.2 ~all"
(domain name and ip address obscured)

My clients' email flows through my server on its way to the destination server...

some email client --> my DA server --> some destination server

Suddenly I'm finding that email messages from a specific domain hosted on my DA box, that are sent to gmail accounts, are being flagged as Junk by Gmail.

I've cross-referenced mxtoolbox to make certain my DA server isn't blacklisted... It's not.
I've sent email from my own account and from other domains hosted on my DA server to gmail accounts and they flow into the gmail inbox perfectly fine (don't get marked as Junk)

The problem is related to a single domain hosted on my DA box and there's nothing different or odd about their configuration. The problematic domain has the exact same TXT record in their zone that all of my other clients have.

What am I missing?
 
If the other domains don't have issues sending to gmail and only 1 domain is having an issue, the only reason I can think of, is that not your DA server but maybe the problematic domain itself could be listed somewhere.

You say the mail is send from some email client via your DA server, so you DA server is functioning as the smtp for the user, in that case the SPF record looks correct to me.

Did you also do a check on blacklistalert.org on the problematic domain name?
Or do a check on Senderbase with the domain name: http://www.senderbase.org/senderbase_queries/detail_lookup
and maybe a security check on the website of the domain itself:
http://www.unmaskparasites.com/
 
It doesnt mean its related to spf at all. Check the mail headers. Spf records are a list of ips of servers that are allowed to send email for the domain. If your domain is not hosted by google email then you do not add it to spf record. You better read the wikipedia page on spf records.
 
Note that ~all is neutral for all other IP#s sending mail. The 2.2.2.2 entry means all email with a from address in the domain name are definitely coming from the right server. The -all woud mean that no other servers not specifically included in the record are allowed to send email from the domain. The reason we use ~all is to allow emails from the user's own ISP, etc., to be accepted. You'd never include Google Servers unless the user is sending email from his domain through Google servers.

Note that spf has never been described as an anti-spam method; it's doubtful Google would be classifying email as spam based on an SPF record.

And to answer an earlier question in this thread I don't see answered: yes, include the quotes.

Jeff
 
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