I'm working on this for about 5 hours and I still couldn't find a way to not send the emails of my private server to the spam folder of gmail.
The error I'm receiving in google is:
Received-SPF: neutral (google.com: 212.113.177.3 is neither permitted nor denied by domain of info#skiuwi.com) client-ip=212.113.177.3;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com;
spf=neutral (google.com: 212.113.177.3 is neither permitted nor denied by domain of info#skiuwi.com) smtp.mail=info#skiuwi.com
I actually do not know what d'hell is the IP 212.113.177.3, but a search around the google told me to add some SPF to my domain, so I did.
But the emails continue to go to the SPAM folder. So I went to the SPF Record Checker
and they output the following results:
What am I doing wrong in the SPF?
You need to combine your two SPF records into one.
v=spf1 ip4:212.113.177.3 include:_spf.google.com ~all
Note that adding SPF isn't a magic bullet. Many components go into spam filtering - content analysis, the reputation of the sending IP, the age of the domain name being used, blacklisting, DKIM, etc.
Related
I am in the process of migrating our staff's email client from Window's Live Mail to Gmail. I have gone through the process of connecting each staff's email from our domain to their respective Gmail accounts (so each staff has two valid email addresses, e.g. bob.our_domain#gmail.com and bob#our_domain.com). I am able to receive and send mail from the linked account, but emails sent from bob#our_domain.com are tagged with an alarming red question mark and read "Gmail could not verify that our_domain.com actually sent this message (and not a spammer) ". I understand that this is an error with SPF configuration but for the life of me cannot figure out what the correct configuration looks like.
The domain in questions is evergreensupplyonline.com.
Step 1 - Ensure SPF is enabled.
Our server is managed through cPanel, so I navigate to the authentication tab and enable both DKIM and SPF. The default SPF record is
v=spf1 +a +mx +ip4:166.62.38.87 ~all
Sending email with this configuration generates the error: SOFTFAIL with IP 208.109.80.60. Seems reasonable enough, the IP isn't listed and the ~all specifies a soft fail for unknown IPs (as far as I am aware)
Step 2 - Add the sender's IP to the SPF record
I add 208.109.80.60 to the record and my SPF record becomes
v=spf1 +a +mx +ip4:166.62.38.87 +ip4:208.109.80.60 ~all
Sending email with this configuration still generates a SOFTFAIL error but with a different IP (208.109.80.60). Based on this change I assume I won't be able to add a static IP for all of google's mail servers - not too much of a surprise.
Step 3 - Add Google's _spf domain
Following the instructions from https://support.google.com/a/answer/33786?hl=en
I removed 208.109.80.60 and instead include _spf.google.com domain. My SPF record now looks like
v=spf1 +a +mx +ip4:166.62.38.87 +include:_spf.google.com ~all
If I run my domain through https://toolbox.googleapps.com/apps/checkmx/ I get some some non-critical errors but everything relating to the _spf.google.com domain seems to check out. If I send an email with this configuration I still get a SOFTFAIL error.
I'm not sure where to go from here - I've tried all that my preliminary understanding of SPF will permit. Any suggestions, observations, or tricks are greatly welcomed. Cheers,
This does all look correct, apart from one thing. I looked up both the IPs you mentioned (using whois) and they belong to... GoDaddy, not Google, which entirely explains your problem. It's quite likely that GoDaddy is redirecting your outbound email traffic since they don't allow direct SMTP sending, so you may need to add GoDaddy's SPF as well, or move to a more enlightened hosting provider.
A minor thing: put the ip4 mechanism first as it's fastest to match for receivers (it requires no extra lookups), and you don't need the + qualifiers because that's the default action.
I have configured Postfix with SPF and DKIM but all emails are marked as spam.
Here is my domain.db (I use bind9) :
...
mail._domainkey IN TXT ( "v=DKIM1; k=rsa; p=ABCD" )
I verify with :
host -t TXT mail._domainkey.domain.com
I receive (OK) :
mail._domainkey.domain.com descriptive text "v=DKIM1\; k=rsa\; " "p=ABCD"
I've checked also what could be the problem on email-tester.com, and I get 10/10, DKIM seems also correctly installed.
But when I check the content of an email, I see :
...
dkim:pass
dkim:pass
SPF:pass
...
X-Spam-Report:
* -0.0 NO_RELAYS Informational: message was not relayed via SMTP
* -0.0 NO_RECEIVED Informational: message has no Received headers
* 0.0 T_DKIM_INVALID DKIM-Signature header exists but is not valid
X-Spam-Status: No, score=0.0 required=5.0 tests=NO_RECEIVED,NO_RELAYS,
T_DKIM_INVALID autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.0
Any idea ?
----- UPDATE -------
After adding in master.cf :
-o receive_override_options=no_header_body_checks,no_unknown_recipient_checks,no_milters
Here is the new email content :
...
dkim:pass (now there is only one: OK)
spf:pass
...
X-Spam-Report:
* -1.0 ALL_TRUSTED Passed through trusted hosts only via SMTP
X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=ALL_TRUSTED autolearn=ham
autolearn_force=no version=3.4.0
which seems better, but the email is still marked as spam, grrr
A working SPD DKIM config does not necessarily lead it to not beeing categorized as spam.
I had to find that out escpecially from virtual hosters or cloud server/mail providers the ip ranges of them have a generally bad reputation which means even without sending spam before from the url and fresh DKIM SPF ect. the mails still go directly to junk (for example in office 365 which have a very strict unforgetting spam filter) because the IP belongs to a range that is generally marked with a bad reputation, or some spammer used the IP in the past...
(I did my testing with a custom DigitalOcean server postfix/opendkim and a free Mailgun account, Mailgun seems to offer dedicated IPs hopefuly without a ba drep as it seems in some blog posts)
Of course this is very annoying but of course also Marketing mail from SPFed and DKIMed servers get marked as Spam therefore big providers seem to go to the IP level ... I also read that especially office365 has some system that takes user feedback into account and assigns the negative spam markts back down till the IP.
Here's what's going on with your SPF record.
Go to this link and change the DNS Server to `Google Public DNS (8.8.8.8)
https://www.unlocktheinbox.com/dnstools/spf/luckeo.fr/
The results of your SPF will be v=spf a mx ip4:176.58.101.240 ~all
Now change it to DNS Advantage (156.154.70.1)
The results of your SPF will be v=spf1 a mx ip4:176.58.101.240 ~all
Notice the difference v=spf vs v=spf1
So your DNS hasn't propagated yet and depending on how the receiving email server looks up your DNS Records you're running into issues. Wait 24 hours and if you're still having issues, reply back.
So I have the following SPF record for the domain hojio.com:
The TXT records found for your domain are:
v=spf1 ip4:194.150.114.22 ip4:194.150.114.0/24
include:support.zendesk.com include:smtp.zendesk.com ~all
The domain is on the ip 194.150.114.22 and a reverse dns lookup on that ip gives hojio.com
Gmail says:
neutral (google.com: 194.150.114.22 is neither permitted nor denied by
best guess record for domain of www-data#ksenikovweb01.dandomain.net)
client-ip=194.150.114.22;
As if its not finding any SPF record? This is strange, since I can use various online SPF record checker tools, that all give me the correct one. What am I doing wrong?
Are you sure that hojio.com is being used in the Return-Path? SPF works off the Return-Path, not the From address. So it doesn't matter if the From address is from a user at hojio.com, unless the Return-Path is the same.
From the Gmail message it looks like the Return-Path is www-data#ksenikovweb01.dandomain.net. The domain ksenikovweb01.dandomain.net does not have an SPF record, so that would explain the 'neutral' SPF rating.
Right now, I'd like to use zoho mail for manual mailing from my domain and PHPMail from my server to handle automated messages.
Problem is, when my server sends out an email it hits spam filter. I get the following error:
deemstars#server.deemstars.com does not designate permitted sender hosts) smtp.mail=deemstars#server.deemstars.com
My txt record is the following (I Use Cloudflare):
v=spf1 mx ptr ip4:207.244.68.190 a:server.deemstars.com include:zoho.com ?all
207.244.68.190 being my server IP. I also added multiple domains to the txt record to make sure it gets whitelisted. I also included zoho.com, which zohomail sends an email out just fine with no spam filter, and it doesn't get the "not permitted sender" error.
So I think the problem is that your return path address has a domain of server.deemstars.com and your SPF record is defined only on the apex domain. SPF does not check parent domains.
So add the following record to server.deemstars.com
v=spf1 ip4:207.244.68.190 a:server.deemstars.com include:zoho.com mx ptr ?all
and see if that addresses the issue. I've also rearranged the SPF directives to move the cheaper to evaluate, more likely to match ones to the front.
I'm trying to get an SPF record set up on our domain, but it just seems to be get confused.
The domain is letterpart.com and the mail server is mail.letterpart.com. We send all of our emails from an Exchange Server at mail.letterpart.com, either directly or via Perl scripts that forward to the Exchange server. This is our only server and deals with incoming and outgoing mails.
We originally had
v=spf1 mx a:mail.letterpart.com a:cmail1.com ~all
which includes our mail server and that of Campaign Monitor which we sometimes use to send out marketing emails.
This, though, was giving us a soft fail:
Recipient address rejected: SPF Tests: Mail-From Result="softfail": Mail From="*****#letterpart.com" HELO name="mail.letterpart.com" HELO Result="none" Remote IP="94.72.251.210">
I spoke to our ISP, KCOM, and they came back with this reply:
I have checked the existing SPF record and found a possible cause of
your "softfail". The "all" mechanism was prefixed with a "~" which
gives a soft fail. I have changed the records "all" section to "-all"
which should produce a fail.
Now, when I send mail from Outlook, I get a hard fail:
spf-test#openspf.net on 22/06/2012 09:47
You do not have permission to send to this recipient. For assistance, contact your system administrator.
<mail.letterpart.com #5.7.1 smtp;550 5.7.1 <spf-test#openspf.net>: Recipient address rejected: SPF Tests: Mail-From Result="fail": Mail From="*****#letterpart.com" HELO name="mail.letterpart.com" HELO Result="none" Remote IP="94.72.251.210">
I went back to our ISP and said that the change they made had indeed changed our soft fail into a hard fail, so can they now change it so we don't fail at all.
His reply was that this record is correct and that it shows that emails not coming from our domain will fail. I pointed out that the test I am sending was coming from our domain, and he just sent me a reference to SPF Record Syntax which is the same site I am testing the spf-test#openspf.net email on.
Have I completely got the wrong end of the stick when it comes to these records? I thought the idea was not to fail at all when sending from our domain.
Now. Our MX record shows the following:
mail.letterpart.com 94.72.251.212
But the SPF test email is showing the IP address as 94.72.251.210, and when I look at a header of an email sent from letterpart.com, it does indeed show it as coming from .210:
for *****#digitalessence.net; Fri, 22 Jun 2012 11:03:06 +0100
Received: from [94.72.251.210] (helo=mail.letterpart.com)
94.72.251.210 is the Wan1 interface on our Firewall. Should I add an IP address to the SPF or a range?
I was looking over your SPF records. It's listed as
v=spf1 ip4:94.72.251.210 a:cmail1.com ~all
It should look something like:
v=spf1 mx a ip4:94.72.251.210 a:cmail1.com ~all
Which will mean all the MX and A records for the current domain are valid. I really don't understand why your have a PTR set up for 94.72.251.210 back to mail letterpart.com, when mail.letterpart.com points to 94.72.251.212.
Yes, it sounds like you answered your own question - you should add 94.72.251.210 to your SPF record if that is where your emails are sent from (as far the outside world is concerned).
That's the easy way. The harder solution is to figure out why your mail server winds up sending from that IP address and correct the firewall rules so that mail emerges from your network on the IP address associated with the mail server's name. This seems more correct and might have other benefits - your mail headers look "forged" if they use a name that's different from the actual IP address they come from.