SPF records as an Anti-SPAM tool, for advanced users familiar with DNS

In the continuing quest to stop spam, here is one more tool that will become increasingly useful if it catches on. We've set it up for our advantagecom.net domain and will roll it out to our other domains if we find it to be trouble-free. If you're familiar with DNS, try out the SPF wizard near the middle of the page on the left hand side.

http://www.openspf.org/


Update (December 16, 2005):
We have found this to be trouble-free and are now working towards implimenting SPF record checking on mail inbound to our mail servers. We recommend that anyone concerned about their domain(s) being used in email forgery setup an SPF record for each domain.

While email will function without an SPF record, it certainly doesn't hurt to define to the world what systems should be allowed to originate email for your domain. Increasingly, companies are developing and using spam filtering techniques based on SPF records.

Hi Andy,

Where do I post the output from that wizard? Is it from the HSP complete control panel?

I'm supposed to put

<mydomainname>.org. IN TXT "v=spf1 a -all"

into my DNS record


Brian

In a normal situation, you would go and add a new zone record to your zone configuration. With HSPC, you would go into the DNS section and add a TXT record, but due to a bug in HSPC, TXT records are processed with the same requirements as a MX record or A record, so you can not add anything other than a real host name for a TXT record, making them useless for now.
If you would like to have a SPF record added to a domain you have setup in the HSPC DNS system, then you will just need to send an email to support with exactly what you want to have put in, and we can manually do it until the TXT record bug in HSPC is corrected.

SPF records can be added now in the HSPC control panel, just not with quotes. To add a SPF record in the HSPC control panel follow these steps:

1) Click on the System tab.
2) In the Domain Management section, click on Domains.
3) Click on yourdomain.com.
4) Click on the DNS Zone tab.
5) Click on New Record.
6) Add the hostame you wish to configure the SPF record, followed by a period. Example:

yourdomain.com.

7) Select TXT from the DNS Type drop-down menu.
8) In the host textbox place your SPF record WITHOUT QUOTES. Example:

v=spf1 a mx -all

9) Click on the Save button to save your changes.

Thanks Andy!!

You guys are great!

Brian

If your only public mail exchanger is cskv.speedingbits.com, would you omit the 'mx', since cskv is the inbound spam catcher and should never generate email from your domain? So the trivial example for those using spampax would be:

Or should we include the mx, which will allow cskv to generate email 'on our behalf' as necessary to do its thing?

N

At the moment, in your case, I do not see any reason to need the MX record included, however I would still suggest to include it anyway, so that just in case, if something did slip my mind, there would be no negative impact. There is also no logical reason including the MX record would be negative. The only case that could benefit from excluding the MX record would be if cskv.speedingbits.com were to be compromised, and that is a very slim chance indeed, the anti-spam system is very locked down and secure.

For Plesk WebPro and OHP hosting accounts, email is now sent through a secure relay server at 66.29.143.160. If you create your SPF record that specifies the IPs of your outgoing mail server(s), you must also include this IP address.