What are SPF records and how do they effect me?

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	What are SPF records and how do they effect me?

Solution SPF stands for "Sender Policy Framework" and this is a technical term that refers to a method used to detect and block spammers. SPF records allow systems to identify and reject forged addresses in the SMTP MAIL FROM (Return-Path). A very common spamming technique is to forge the sender’s identity to show the email came from someone else. To help block spam, most major ISPs and email service providers check the SPF record of every email received. If the record does not match the email, then this was obviously a forgery and the email is discarded.

- That’s great, but how does this affect me?
Gafana allows you to consolidate all of your email accounts so you can manage all of them from one place. So for example, let’s say you have an AOL email account that you added to your Gafana account. When you send an email through Gafana from your AOL account, Gafana must modify the header to make it appear like it is coming from your AOL email address and not from your Gafana email address. If the email service provider of the person you are sending the email to checks the SPF record of all emails they receive, your email will be considered a forgery (because of the modified header) and therefore will either be marked as spam or even worse, completely deleted.

- So how do I fix this?
Gafana has its own SPF records setup so when other ISPs or email service providers check the validity of emails sent from your @gafana.com address, they see it is a valid account and your email is accepted. We have a feature that will allow all of your sent emails to pass all SPF checks, even if you are sending from a non-Gafana email address. When this feature is enabled, it sets the "From" field for all email addresses to your @gafana.com email address, even if you chose to have the email sent from your AOL account. What also happens is the Reply-To field is set to your AOL email address so when the person you sent the email to replies, it will go directly to your AOL account (and hence back to your Gafana account).

This way, when the SPF record of the email you send is tested, it passes all checks and is accepted. This also allows the person you emailed to respond right back to your AOL. This is all done automatically in the background. The only difference is when your friend receives your email, it will show "From: jdoe@gafana.com Reply-To: jdoe@aol.com"

To enable this feature, first log into your Gafana account. Under the Profile tab, go to the Account Options page. There you will see the option "Set 'From: user@gafana.com' to pass SPF checks". Make sure this is checked - that’s all you have to do.

- What other options do I have?
There are two others things you can do. You can choose to disable this feature on your Account Options page under the Profile tab. With this disabled, if you send an email from your AOL account, the header will be modified so it appears the email really did come from your AOL account. However, some ISPs and email service providers will notice this modification or "forgery" and will either flag your email as spam or simply delete it. This does not happen very often but it is a possibility.

Your other option is if you use a mail client program such as Outlook, you can use the SMTP server (if available) of the ISP or email service provider that email address is from. For example, let’s say your ISP was Time Warner. Your email address would be john.doe@roadrunner.com. You can use Gafana to remove all the junk from your john.doe@roadrunner.com email address, but use Time Warner to send emails (by using their SMTP server). This will ensure you do not receive any spam and will ensure all of your emails are delivered. However, the downside to this is you will lose the benefits of using Gafana's SMTP server (such as automatically adding people you email to your verified list and saving sent emails to the sent folder in your web inbox)

If you have any questions or need help regarding this, please let us know.

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15 Feb 2008 04:10 PM