SPF Records

This information only pertains to Hurricane Electric's Shared Web Hosting package. There may be different information in our other categories.

This document explains what an SPF record is, why you might want one, and how to create one.

What is SPF?

SPF is a method used by some email providers to help identify legitimate users of an email domain. It's fairly easy for anyone to send email claiming to be using any particular domain, but it's much harder to hide where the email actually comes from (the IP address). SPF records are a type of DNS record that's associated with your domain name, so email providers can look up your domain name and see whether someone using a particular IP address is supposed to be sending email using your domain name.

What do I need to know about how SPF works?

First of all, the following instructions apply only if you're using our default email settings. They will not work if you're doing any of the following:

• Using an email provider other than Hurricane Electric
• Using a DNS provider (nameservers) other than Hurricane Electric
• Sending your email through a third party, such as an Exchange server or your home ISP

Do I need an SPF record?

Not usually. Most email recipients don't use it, and those that do use it as one of many factors they consider in determining whether an email is spam. If you find that many of your emails are being identified as spam, and either blocked or put in recipients' spam folders, creating an SPF record may help. Usually an email provider will reply to your email with a message saying something like, "Your domain does not have an SPF record."

How do I create an SPF record?

1. Log into admin.he.net.
2. Click on your domain name under "Active Domains For This Account".
3. Locate your domain's IPv4 address. There will be a row in the table where the "Type" column is "A". In the "Data" column there should be four numbers separated by dots. This is your domain's IP address. For this example, we'll assume that the IPv4 address is 192.168.64.96.
   • Note: If there is more than one row where the "Type" column is "A", you are not using our default DNS settings, and these instructions may not apply. Contact HE support if you are not sure how to proceed.
4. Locate your domain's IPv6 address. Some older accounts may not have these. If your account does have one, it will be in the "Data" column in the row where the "Type" column is "AAAA". It will look like a series of letters and numbers separated by colons. For this example, we'll assume that the IPv6 address is 2001:470::c0a8:4060.
5. Click on the tab at the top that says, "New TXT".
6. In the "Text string" field, enter the following, using your actual IPv4 and IPv6 addresses from the previous steps instead of the example ones:

   v=spf1 ip4:192.168.64.96 ip6:2001:470::c0a8:4060 ?all

7. Leave the "Name" field blank and click "Submit".