If we set it up as “+all”, then our SPF record is useless, because we’re telling that any server is authorized to send the emails. Basically, “all” tell if the host’s list of the record is inclusive or not. There’s a few more mechanism that can be used by SPF record that we didn’t include in our SPF record example, but it is important to know them, so we’re going to include those here for reference.Īll: this mechanism needs to be set up correctly, otherwise there could be some bad consequences. Any other server should be considered a spammer.
Ip4: is the same as the include, but in this case, the host is an IP, not a host name like in the previous case.-all: this means that only the servers or hosts featured on this record are authorized to act as the SMTP server of the domain. Remember that the domain is already specified in the first part of the record.include: the host specified here is authorized to send emails from the domain previously specified. TXT records can be used for a lot of different purposes, so it’s important to have a way to identify which is the SPF record of the domain.Ī: the letter “a” means that the host is authorized to send the emails of the domain. V=spf1: this will help identify the record as an SPF record. Nowadays all SPF records are TXT records, so keep that in mind when setting up your own SPF. There’s another class called Chaos (CH), but it doesn’t matter for us. IN: the DNS class, in this case IN means “Internet”. A TTL of 14400 means that the DNS servers around the world will check the record every 4 hours. This is the time (in seconds) that must pass before the changes to a record completely take effect. : pretty self-explanatory, that’s the domain to which the SPF record belongs to.ġ4400: a standard TTL (Time to live). What is that exactly? Let’s make a short description of every item: So, how does exactly an SPF record work? To begin with, SPF is actually a TXT record, and you will use it to identify your SMTP server.
#SPF MAC MAIL SERVER 10.6 UPDATE#
So to avoid all these problems is important that you keep an SPF record, and remember to update it if necessary when there are changes on the email side of your domain. Remember: SPF records tell which server (or servers) are allowed to send a domain’s email, so if the record is not there or is wrongfully set up then you’re in trouble.Īlso, keep in mind that if you have an SPF problem and someones decides to spoof you to send spam or another kind of junk emails, your domain may get blacklisted, your IP may get blacklisted and you will probably have a lot of bounces from emails that you never sent in the first place. If your domain doesn’t have an SPF record set up, then most recipients will automatically mark your email as spam. The other important topic regarding SPF records is being marked as spam. Spoofing is a very common practice among spammers and people looking to stole date through phishing. If you set up an SPF record, then you will be able to avoid a situation like that, which means that someone else won’t be able to spoof your identity to pretend to be you. This could be used to get stole data from you if the recipient doesn’t realize what’s going on. That way, that person is sending an email pretending to be you. What is email spoofing exactly? To make it simple, imagine that someone sends an email from any domain but their change the “from” field to your domain. Probably many of you have heard about email spoofing. SPF records are important because of two things: avoiding spoofing issues and avoiding spam issues. If we don’t properly set up our SPF record, then we are risking that our emails may never reach their destination. Due to this, SPF is very important if we want our website’s email to work as it should.
These records are used to tell which are the hosts that are authorized to send a domain’s email. SPF is an acronym that comes from “Sender Policy Framework”.