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SPF Checks

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General #

Mailborder servers evaluate every connection by verifying SPF records for the sending domain. Note that Mailborder servers do not reject based on SPF at will or at random. By default, your Mailborder server will obey the wishes of the remote domain owner’s SPF record. However, you can change this behavior or whitelist problem senders. 

The original sender will be notified of any rejection by their own email server and the reason will be clearly stated in the rejection. 

 

Viewing Rejections #

Remote servers rejected by your RBLs are logged to the GUI. They can be viewed in the Mailborder Master GUI.

 

Configuration Options #

The SPF configuration file is located here: 

/etc/mailborder/spf.cf

The instructions for making changes are within this file. If you wish to make changes, do edit this file directly. Changes go in this file:

/etc/mailborder/conf.d/spf.cf

If you put changes in the main file, it will be overwritten during updates. 

 

Checking SPF Records #

The best online resource known at the time of this writing for checking SPF records is MX Toolbox. If you are having a problem with a remote domain failing SPF checks, this resource will explain why. 

 

Command Line Tool #

You can use the command line tool on any Mailborder server to do a basic test. Below is an example where we are checking ip the associated IP is allowed to send email on behalf of mailborder.com

root@mx5:~# mb-spf-eval 40.107.30.5 mailborder.com
Result: pass
Time: 0.14s