How to Create a SPF Record
This article describes what an SPF record is, what it does, and how to add any additional 3rd party mail services IP addresses to your SPF record.
If you are have trouble following this guide or have any questions then please contact support.
SPF records are used to authenticate a mail services IP addresses to allow them to send emails on behalf of your domain name.
This is done to prevent unauthorised servers from sending emails out to recipients using your domain name for multiple malicious practices (phishing, baiting, and other social engineering strategies).
If you have purchased an email or hosting plan from us an SPF record will be created automatically for you with our email services information.
If you would like to add an IP address for a 3rd party mail service then please follow this guide on how to do so.
1. Log into your portal at https://www.nuttyabouthosting.co.uk/portal.
2. Click on your hosting plan to take you to your hosting control panel.
3. Click on the 'Domains' option, under the System heading.
4. Select the domain you would like to add an SPF record to.
5. Click "Edit DNS zone records".
6. Find and click the edit button (pencil icon) to edit the SPF record.
7. To authenticate an IP address from your mail service we need to edit this line of text,
v=spf1 – This means the version of the SPF protocol our domain is using.
a – This means we are allowing any A records within our domain records to send emails on behalf of the domain name
mx – This does the same job as “a” except this allows any MX records in our domain records to send emails on behalf of your domain name
-all – This defines how the unauthorised emails are handled.
If “-“ is in front of the “all” any unauthorised email sent will be rejected.
If “~” is used this means emails will be sent, but are marked as “failed to authenticate”.
If “+” is used this allows all sent emails to pass through using your domain name without any SPF authentication.
We highly suggest that you keep this option as “-all” to stop unauthorised users from impersonating your domain name.
All we need to change is between the “MX” and –“all” we need to enter our IP address using the tag “ip4:” as such,
v=spf1 a mx ip4:192.168.1.0 -all
If the address given is an ipv6 address we would use the tag “ip6:” which will look like this:
v=spf1 a mx ip6:134a:61ee:08eb:42c2:97ba:854b:8f5c:6dfc -all
If you need to allow an entire domain to send emails on your domains behalf you would use “include:”,
v=spf1 a mx include:nuttyabouthosting.co.uk -all
Once you have formatted your SPF record with the address you would like to authenticate press the “Save” button.
8. You should now see the record has been updated with the new authenticated address.
