14

I'm having problems with Google rejecting mail because of SPF problems. I thought I had this fixed, but evidently not...

The mail is being sent from a Drupal site running mimemail. A message that shows the problem looks like:

Delivered-To: [email protected]
Received: by 10.112.47.229 with SMTP id g5csp300564lbn;
        Wed, 2 Apr 2014 10:21:06 -0700 (PDT)
X-Received: by 10.66.249.233 with SMTP id yx9mr1407538pac.3.1396459264202;
        Wed, 02 Apr 2014 10:21:04 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <[email protected]>
Received: from sender.com (sender.com. [xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx])
        by mx.google.com with ESMTP id m8si1612133pbd.503.2014.04.02.10.21.03
        for <[email protected]>;
        Wed, 02 Apr 2014 10:21:04 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: softfail (google.com: domain of transitioning [email protected] does not designate xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx as permitted sender) client-ip=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com;
       spf=softfail (google.com: domain of transitioning [email protected] does not designate xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx as permitted sender) [email protected]
Received: by sender.com (Postfix, from userid 48)
    id 3E486101774; Wed,  2 Apr 2014 17:21:02 +0000 (UTC)
To: "reg" <[email protected]>
Subject: Message Subject here
X-PHP-Originating-Script: 501:mimemail.module
MIME-Version:1.0
Content-Type:multipart/mixed;
 boundary="ca08a4eb4d5f903d3ee41d8632611e3ff9f7e67713"
Content-Transfer-Encoding:8Bit
X-Mailer:Drupal
Sender:Sender <[email protected]>
From:Sender <[email protected]>
Message-Id: <[email protected]>
Date: Wed,  2 Apr 2014 17:21:02 +0000 (UTC)

This is a multi-part message in MIME format.

--ca08a4eb4d5f903d3ee41d8632611e3ff9f7e67713
Content-Type:multipart/alternative;
 boundary="2db314e2a942d712c21894936b800a2c7998463d12"
Content-Transfer-Encoding:8bit


--2db314e2a942d712c21894936b800a2c7998463d12
Content-Type:text/plain; charset=utf-8
Content-Disposition:inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding:8bit

Message text goes here...

--2db314e2a942d712c21894936b800a2c7998463d12
Content-Type:text/html; charset=utf-8
Content-Disposition:inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding:8Bit

<html>
<html text goes here>
</html>

--2db314e2a942d712c21894936b800a2c7998463d12--

--ca08a4eb4d5f903d3ee41d8632611e3ff9f7e67713--

[Apologies for the anonomyzing.]

The SPF records for the domain, obtained from http://www.whatsmyip.us/txt, look like:

v=spf1 ip4:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx ~all , ttl : 14144
v=spf1 include:_spf.google.com ~all , ttl : 14144
v=spf1 a -all , ttl : 14144
v=spf1 ip4:xxx.xxx.xxx.yyy ~all , ttl : 14144

similarly anonymized.

I can't figure out what's wrong -- the appropriate SPF records seem to be in place. The only issue I can see is that I have indeed set up (or tried to set up) two servers as legal senders for the domain; this is meant to cover both a production and a development server (let's call them sender.com and dev.sender.com). Is this an issue?

Any thoughts about what's wrong? Again, I thought this was once working correctly, but it's definitely not now. Thanks!

1
  • There's too much anonymization here -- please at the very least use example.com records to show us where exactly those four SPF records live; if they're all on just one domain, well, that's your problem, but if they're separate we need to know where they are in relation to each other to help you.
    – Kromey
    Apr 3, 2014 at 16:43

1 Answer 1

19

You can only have one SPF record. Since you created four of them, which one actually gets used is essentially random. You should combine them together into a single record.

6
  • Aha -- so this would be something like v=spf1 ip4:xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx ip4:xxx.xxx.xxx.yyy include:_spf.google.com -all ?
    – Jim Miller
    Apr 3, 2014 at 16:57
  • That's the general idea, yes. Apr 3, 2014 at 16:58
  • Thx! -- I'll try it and report back.
    – Jim Miller
    Apr 3, 2014 at 16:58
  • 1
    Bingo! The domain's SPF records are updated and mail is getting through, with the domain "designated as permitted sender". Thanks!
    – Jim Miller
    Apr 3, 2014 at 20:05
  • Have in mind that hardfail can be a bitch. Sending an email through a relaying server i.e. an email is being forwarded, might reject your email at the reciepient. Softfail is IMO the best solution. Oct 15, 2015 at 11:14

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