[Office 365] How bad is it to not enter the TXT record? (spf.protection)

[thecomputerguy]

I have a client who has their domain hosted at Yahoo which does not support TXT records ... how bad are we talking if I don't enter in this record?

v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com -all

Should it be mandatory to move the domain just to enter this record?

 

[callthatgirl]

I don't do the SPF records for my migrations, but I didn't think Yahoo did DNS????

 

[nlinecomputers]

Anything related to Yahoo should be moved just because it's Yahoo

 

[thecomputerguy]

Yeah their interface is AWFUL ... making any sort of record changes take forever just to get the screen to load. I agree yahoo is garbage but the owner didn't want to pay me to move the domain because everything "technically" works fine through Yahoo but just from an organizational stand-point on my end it sucks.

 

[thecomputerguy]

I don't do the SPF records for my migrations, but I didn't think Yahoo did DNS????

You better believe they do but the DNS and Domain management interfaces suck!

 

[callthatgirl]

Force 'em over, good grief these clients are dying for our help!!!

I have a multi millionaire client using gmail (free) for his core business email. 30 gigs OST and PST broke, I told him we need to move him to a server that costs $60 a year. No reply. WTF!

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

As you probably know, SPF (senders policy framework) is a mechanism to validate a senders domain....it is one more step to prove that e-mail is legit, as anti spam filters on the receiving persons end run their checks on the e-mail. SPF is one of many checkpoints. You'll find some larger ISPs/hosts think they don't need SPF because they're....them..they're so big...and well known, no spam filter will bag their mail.

Well, Yapoops e-mail servers.....we all have our laugh at them....rightfully so. For so many reasons...so many issues. SPAM filters often do catch email that originates from Yapoops servers...false positives. Is this one of the reasons? Could be.

Any businesses e-mail should not be there...should be using a good email service.

 

[TAPtech]

On my mail server, SPF violations don't seem to trap very much spam.

 

[nlinecomputers]

On my mail server, SPF violations don't seem to trap very much spam.

Because it is poorly implemented so if it was rigorously checked it would fail on real email too often. SPF is a worthless standard.

 

[TAPtech]

I agree. I think it gets some fragment of a point in SpamAssassin if it fails, and that is the default.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

On my mail server, SPF violations don't seem to trap very much spam.

True...not overly important...but we cannot control "other peoples/recipients" spam filters. Some of which may rely on SPF more, some less....some suck, some are good. Regardless...I'm still someone that likes to implement our services as proper and complete as possible. Even if something "mostly doesn't matter"...there's a small, teeny weeny % that it can have impact on it...so I'll dot those "i"s and cross those "t"s if it will make my clients e-mail service just 0.0000001% more reliable.

 

[Markverhyden]

I've never put in an SPF record either. But TXT records are used to confirm ownership of a domain. Appriver make us update the DNS with a TXT record formated like MS=ms<a bunch of numbers> to prove we own the domain.

 

[thecomputerguy]

I've never put in an SPF record either. But TXT records are used to confirm ownership of a domain. Appriver make us update the DNS with a TXT record formated like MS=ms<a bunch of numbers> to prove we own the domain.

With O365 you also have the option to use an MX record instead of a TXT record.

 

[Markverhyden]

With O365 you also have the option to use an MX record instead of a TXT record.

Yes, but the MX record has a real impact as that tells the Internet ecosystem where the email lives. A TXT record just kind of sits there.

 

[thecomputerguy]

Yes, but the MX record has a real impact as that tells the Internet ecosystem where the email lives. A TXT record just kind of sits there.

Well you can add the MX record just to verify you own the domain then remove it after ... shouldn't take longer than 20 minutes and you do it in the middle of the night.

Maybe I just deal with much smaller clients than you which is likely ... either way I'm with you ... I'd much rather do the TXT record over the MX record.

 

[YeOldeStonecat]

Another purpose is to show legitimacy of your domain...coming from another domains SMTP servers. For example....most of you probably know we "wash" our clients e-mail with our own in-house spam filter ...and we have a pool of outbound SMTP servers which we configure our clients Exchange servers to send outbound mail through. So our clients e-mail (under their domain) is being seen as coming from our mail servers (which is under one of our domains). So in our clients public DNS control panel we always put a record in with our domain name.