Link to home
Start Free TrialLog in
Avatar of whistlerwebdev
whistlerwebdev

asked on

help with SPF record please

I am trying to help a client of my set up an SPF record for his domain. He has the need to authenticate mail from three locations

1. his domain whistlerreservations.com which is set up with google apps mail

2. Via a third party booking engine that sends mail from the domain rezserve.com

3. Via campaign monitor (cmail1.com) which is an email distribution system.

This is the following SPF that I created

v=spf1 a mx include:rezserve.com include:cmail1.com include:_spf.google.com ~all

I set this up but when I try and verify with http://www.kitterman.com/spf/validate.html i get the following


Results - PermError SPF Permanent Error: No valid SPF record for included domain: rezserve.com: include:rezserve.com

and any messages sent from rezserve.com on whistlerreservations.com behalf end up in my gmail spam folder

Can somebody please verify this is correct?

Does rezserve.com also have to publish an spf record? and if show what is it that they need to set?


I hacked this together from various sources

1) google apps help - google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=178723]SPF records - Google Apps Help

which says to set the following v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all

2) Campaingmonitor help -help.campaignmonitor.com/topic.aspx?t=88

Which says to set - v=spf1 mx include:cmail1.com ~all

Below is the mail header from one of the messages sent from resserve.com

Delivered-To: jac@whistlerwebandprint.com
Received: by 10.231.30.196 with SMTP id v4cs105047ibc;
Mon, 28 Feb 2011 13:54:38 -0800 (PST)
Received: by 10.227.156.207 with SMTP id y15mr5389341wbw.38.1298930077969;
Mon, 28 Feb 2011 13:54:37 -0800 (PST)
Return-Path: <reservations@whistlerreservations.com>
Received: from rezserve.com ([204.14.93.102])
by mx.google.com with ESMTPS id p44si7256090wej.197.2011.02.28.13.54.36
(version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=OTHER);
Mon, 28 Feb 2011 13:54:36 -0800 (PST)
Received-SPF: neutral (google.com: 204.14.93.102 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of reservations@whistlerreservations.com)

client-ip=204.14.93.102;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com; spf=neutral (google.com: 204.14.93.102 is neither permitted nor denied by best guess record for domain of

reservations@whistlerreservations.com) smtp.mail=reservations@whistlerreservations.com
Received: from rezserve.com (localhost.localdomain [127.0.0.1])
by rezserve.com (8.13.1/8.13.1) with ESMTP id p1SLsT8X032018
for <jac@whistlerwebandprint.com>; Mon, 28 Feb 2011 16:54:29 -0500
Received: (from apache@localhost)
by rezserve.com (8.13.1/8.13.1/Submit) id p1SLsTll032016;
Mon, 28 Feb 2011 16:54:29 -0500
Date: Mon, 28 Feb 2011 16:54:29
Avatar of VespaMaru
VespaMaru
Flag of United States of America image

The SPF record should be put in the rezserve.com DNS zone.

Since it is in that zone, you don't need the 'include:rezserve.com' entry, so you can delete that portion:

rezserve.com. IN TXT "v=spf1 a mx include:cmail1.com include:_spf.google.com ~all"

Once I removed that part it passed the syntax test.  You can also use a wizard to make your SPF entry:

http://old.openspf.org/wizard.html?mydomain=rezserve.com
Avatar of whistlerwebdev
whistlerwebdev

ASKER

Thanks for your quick comment.

I am sorry I am a bit new to this and as such am confused

Don't I need to add the SPF to my clients domain's  DNS which is http://www.whistlerreservations.com/?

it's that domain that sends mail out through google apps

cmail1.com is a 3rd party newsletter server and rezserve.com is another  thrid party booking widget that both send out email from their 3rd party servers on behalf of whistlerreservations.com

From what I got out of my research i need to create the SPF on my clients DNS and sounds like rezserve.com should have some sort of SFP  in place as well. Am I completely confused here?

also I re-ran the test with the adjusted string you supplied and the out put was

The result of the test (this should be the default result of your record) was, ambiguous . The explanation returned was, SPF Ambiguity Warning: No A records found for: http://www.whistlerreservations.com 

Should I be concerned about the SPF ambifuity warning?
Ah, OK. You COULD add:
whistlerreservations.com. IN TXT "v=spf1 a mx include:_spf.google.com include:rezserve.com include:cmail1.com ~all"

to your whistlerreservations.com zone.  It will fail though as it will include all SPFs from cmail1.com, _spf.google.com and rezserve.com. The problem is that rezserve.com does not yet have an SPF record.  

To avoid creating a SPF in rezserve.com you use this record in the whistlerreservations.com zone:

whistlerreservations.com. IN TXT "v=spf1 a mx mx:rezserve.com include:_spf.google.com include:cmail1.com ~all"

Instead of the include, we set it to allow from rezserve.com MX record addresses.
awsome thanks.... I could ask rezserve.com to create an spf record if I did that what should I ask them to create? and is there any advantage to doing that over just using there MX records as you have proposed?
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
Avatar of VespaMaru
VespaMaru
Flag of United States of America image

Link to home
membership
This solution is only available to members.
To access this solution, you must be a member of Experts Exchange.
Start Free Trial