Mailing List Archive

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-spf-help@v2.listbox.com
> [mailto:owner-spf-help@v2.listbox.com]On Behalf Of dgreenfi@cnyric.org
> Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2004 1:08 PM
> To: spf-help@v2.listbox.com
> Subject: [spf-help] setting up spf for my domains
>
> where i work, we are an agency of new your state that supports our county
> school districts in internet access, applications, vocational education,
> etc.
>
> we also provide primary dns services for us and our districts.
>
> i have a couple of questions.
>
> the 1st question is ==> is this requirement for domains to have
> SPF records
> mandatory or just a good idea to help prevent spammers from posting as us
>
It's not mandatory.

> my next set of questions come from the page that has the wizard
> for setting
> up SPF records,
>
> 1st i want to set the back ground. as stated we service 50 school
> districts. as you see my domain is cnyric.org. each district has their own
> mail server. some school districts have their own domain such as
> districtx.org or district.k12.ny.us. other districts have their mail as
> districty.cnyric.org with their email address being
> persona@districty.cnyric.org (which is actually part of cnyric.org).
>
> so my 2nd question would be how would i use the wizard to set this up. in
> looking at the wizard, this becomes a little confusing to myself. is there
> anyone that i can talk to about setting up our spf records.

There are a number of people available on this list to help out. If you are
interested in just hiring someone to figure it out for you, see:

http://spf.pobox.com/services.html

You are going to need to set up a record for each domain.

Whoever is going to figure this out will need to know all the legitimate
sources for e-mail for each domain. I would recommend trying to figure out
a few and see where that leads you. Once you've got a couple under your
belt, the rest should flow pretty easily.

Scott Kitterman

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----- Original Message -----
From: <dgreenfi@cnyric.org>
To: <spf-help@v2.listbox.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 25, 2004 1:08 PM
Subject: [spf-help] setting up spf for my domains


>
>
>
>
> where i work, we are an agency of new your state that supports our county
> school districts in internet access, applications, vocational education,
> etc.
>
> we also provide primary dns services for us and our districts.
>
> i have a couple of questions.
>
> the 1st question is ==> is this requirement for domains to have SPF
records
> mandatory or just a good idea to help prevent spammers from posting as us

It's just a really good idea. In some far away time, it may become time, but
the specification as written says that if there is no SPF record, you should
just go ahead and do whatever other filtering you feel like doing.

> my next set of questions come from the page that has the wizard for
setting
> up SPF records,
>
> 1st i want to set the back ground. as stated we service 50 school
> districts. as you see my domain is cnyric.org. each district has their own
> mail server. some school districts have their own domain such as
> districtx.org or district.k12.ny.us. other districts have their mail as
> districty.cnyric.org with their email address being
> persona@districty.cnyric.org (which is actually part of cnyric.org).
>
> so my 2nd question would be how would i use the wizard to set this up. in
> looking at the wizard, this becomes a little confusing to myself. is there
> anyone that i can talk to about setting up our spf records.
>
> thanx in advance for your help and support.

It's going to vary on a case by case basis, depending on if they want to
allow other domains to send mail as them, how the SMTP servers are
configured, etc. The help list is pretty good if you can go through a few
example cases.

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On Wed, Aug 25, 2004 at 01:08:13PM -0400, dgreenfi@cnyric.org wrote:
> the 1st question is ==> is this requirement for domains to have SPF records
> mandatory or just a good idea to help prevent spammers from posting as us

It is not mandatory, as mail servers should never reject mail on the
basis of a lack of spf records.

> so my 2nd question would be how would i use the wizard to set this up. in
> looking at the wizard, this becomes a little confusing to myself. is there
> anyone that i can talk to about setting up our spf records.

I think your application is far above the order-of-magnitude for which
the wizard was intented. If you want to do all this yourself, i suggest
you start reading the specs:

http://spf.pobox.com/spf-draft-200406.txt

and

http://spf.pobox.com/spf-draft-200406.txt

There's a lot of documentation on the spf.pobox.com site, just click on
the sitemap button in the upper-right.

If you want an external consultant to help you here, you could ask on
this list (spf-help) and ask for someone in your area to contact you
off-list, so you can get some experts in.

If you are going to do this yourself, please please please read the
specs and make sure you understand what you are doing. It also helps to
read through the archives of the spf lists.

Koen

--
K.F.J. Martens, Sonologic, http://www.sonologic.nl/
Networking, embedded systems, unix expertise, artificial intelligence.
Public PGP key: http://www.metro.cx/pubkey-gmc.asc
Wondering about the funny attachment your mail program
can't read? Visit http://www.openpgp.org/

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On Aug 25, 2004, at 2:01 PM, gmc@metro.cx wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 25, 2004 at 01:08:13PM -0400, dgreenfi@cnyric.org wrote:
>> the 1st question is ==> is this requirement for domains to have SPF
>> records
>> mandatory or just a good idea to help prevent spammers from posting
>> as us
>
> It is not mandatory, as mail servers should never reject mail on the
> basis of a lack of spf records.

Let me add to this that some sites will only allow whitelisting of
addresses which have an SPF pass. So while using SPF isn't mandatory,
if you want to be whitelisted by some recipient sites, you may find SPF
necessary. AOL has in fact announced such a policy.

http://postmaster.aol.com/spf/

I think that some people have read this as a statement that SPF is
mandatory for sending to AOL. It is not, but it is required for
whitelisting.

-j

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Right, having a SPF only means you will not be subject to the same anti
spam rules they would process otherwise. This also protects your domain
from being blacklisted or RBL'ed by a spammer.

Remember the ruleset:

SPF Record = valid
No SPF Record = possibly valid
Non-Valid SPF Record = immediate spam.

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-spf-help@v2.listbox.com
[mailto:owner-spf-help@v2.listbox.com] On Behalf Of Jeffrey Goldberg
Sent: Sunday, August 29, 2004 11:41 PM
To: spf-help@v2.listbox.com
Subject: Re: [spf-help] setting up spf for my domains

On Aug 25, 2004, at 2:01 PM, gmc@metro.cx wrote:

> On Wed, Aug 25, 2004 at 01:08:13PM -0400, dgreenfi@cnyric.org wrote:
>> the 1st question is ==> is this requirement for domains to have SPF
>> records mandatory or just a good idea to help prevent spammers from
>> posting as us
>
> It is not mandatory, as mail servers should never reject mail on the
> basis of a lack of spf records.

Let me add to this that some sites will only allow whitelisting of
addresses which have an SPF pass. So while using SPF isn't mandatory,
if you want to be whitelisted by some recipient sites, you may find SPF
necessary. AOL has in fact announced such a policy.

http://postmaster.aol.com/spf/

I think that some people have read this as a statement that SPF is
mandatory for sending to AOL. It is not, but it is required for
whitelisting.

-j

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subscription, please go to
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