How do I add an SPF record to my domain name?

What is an SPF record and how can I create an SPF record for my domain?

What is SPF?

Sender Policy Framework (SPF) records specify which mail servers are permitted to send email from a domain.

Why use SPF?

SPF records are not essential to send email. However, publishing a valid SPF record greatly improves the likelihood of your email reaching your recipients. This is because many ISPs and email hosting providers, including Ecenica, check for a valid SPF record as part of their spam filtering checks.

Making your domain work with Ecenica

Ecenica DNS

If you’ve purchased your domain as part of an Ecenica email or web hosting package, we’ll have already configured an SPF record for you. So you do not need to do anything!

How-to add an additional IP address to your SPF record in cPanel

  1. Log in to cPanel.
  2. Click Email Deliverability
    Email Deliverability button in cPanel
  3. Click Manage next to the domain you wish to edit.
  4. Under SPF, click Customize
  5. Click Add A New “+ip4” Item under Additional IP Address blocks for your domains (IPv4):
  6. Enter your IP address you wish to add. For example, 192.0.2.12
  7. Click Install a Customized SPF Record

How-to include additional domains in your SPF record in cPanel

  1. Log in to cPanel.
  2. Click Email Deliverability
    Email Deliverability button in cPanel
  3. Click Manage next to the domain you wish to edit.
  4. Under SPF, click Customize
  5. Click Add A New “+include” Item under Include List (INCLUDE)
  6. Enter the domain you wish to add. For example, example.com
  7. Click Install a Customized SPF Record

How do I add my SPF to a 3rd-Party DNS

Add the following TXT record to your domain DNS when sending using an Ecenica email address.

"v=spf1 include:ecenica.com ~all"

Testing SPF Records

You can test your domain’s SPF records using the Kitterman – SPF Record Testing Tools

An example result will look like this;

SPF record lookup and validation for: example.com

SPF records are published in DNS as TXT records.

The TXT records found for your domain are:
v=spf1 include:ecenica.com ~all 

Checking to see if there is a valid SPF record. 

Found v=spf1 record for example.com: 
v=spf1 include:ecenica.com ~all 

evaluating...
SPF record passed validation test with pySPF (Python SPF library)!

Explanation of the possible results

“pass”
The message passed the authentication test.

“fail”
The message failed the authentication test.

“softfail”
The message failed the authentication test, and the authentication method has either an explicit or implicit policy which doesn’t require successful authentication of all messages from that domain.

“neutral”
The authentication method completed without errors, but was unable to reach either a positive or a negative result about the message.

“temperror”
A temporary (recoverable) error occurred attempting to authenticate the sender; either the process couldn’t be completed locally, or there was a temporary failure retrieving data required for the authentication. A later retry may produce a more final result.

“permerror”
A permanent (unrecoverable) error occurred attempting to authenticate the sender; either the process couldn’t be completed locally, or there was a permanent failure retrieving data required for the authentication.

Adapted fromdraft-kucherawy-sender-auth-header-04.txt andPort25.com.

External links