SPF recordsSender
Policy Framework (SPF) records are used as anti-spam measure. They are
used to list which servers are allowed to send emails from the domain.
This way, when an email is sent, the mail servers will check the SPF
record to check if the server that has sent the email is allowed to send
it.
You will have to put the SPF record into a TXT record (within quotes).
An SPF record usually looks like this:
v=spf1 ip4:89.238.146.98 ip4:62.212.64.0/24 a:mail.YOURDOMAIN-NAME mx ~all
Explaining what the values mean in the above example:
Value
| What does it mean ?
|
v=spf1
| This means the SPF version being used is version 1.
|
ip4:89.238.146.98
| This means that the IPv4 address '89.238.146.98' is allowed to send email from this domain.
|
ip4:62.212.64.0/24
| This means that the IPv4 range 62.212.64.0 through 62.212.64.255 is allowed to send email from this domain.
|
ip6:2001:1af8:4100:2::40
| This means that the IPv6 address '2001:1af8:4100:2::40' is allowed to send email from this domain.
|
ip6:2001:1af8:4100:2::/64
| This means that the IPv6 range specified is allowed to send email from this domain.
|
a:mail.YOURDOMAIN-NAME | The IP address behind the A record of mail.YOURDOMAIN-NAME is allowed to send email from this domain.
|
mx
| This means that all the MX records for this domain are allowed to send emails.
|
~all
| If
you put this at the end of the SPF rule, it means that if an email does
not match this rule, we ask the receiving mail server not to throw it
away but to keep it under SPAM folder. If we were to change this to
'-all' (note the - sign), we ask it to instead throw away all email not
matching this rule.
|
SOA recordsNot editable
SOA records are part of the DNS infrastructure. They are generated automatically and are not editable.
A
Start of Authority (SOA) resource record is the information stored in a
Domain Name System (DNS) zone about that zone and other DNS records. A
DNS zone is the part of a domain for which an individual DNS server is
responsible. Each zone contains a single SOA record.
The SOA record stores the following information about a zone:
- Administrator of the zone
- Current version of the data file
- Default number of seconds for the Time to Live (TTL) file on resource records
CNAME recordsPlease
note that a CNAME is not a redirect. If you create a CNAME for a
website, it will not redirect it to another domain. It will point the
CNAME record to the IP listed at the original record.
Canonical Name (CNAME) records are used to create aliases for other DNS records.
This
is convenient when running multiple services (such as an FTP
server and a web server - each running on different ports) from a single
IP address. For example, you can point
ftp.example.com and
www.example.com to the A record server.
example.com, which in turn points to the IP address.
If
you ever need to change the IP address, you only have to change it in
one place. CNAME records must always be pointed to another domain name,
never to an IP address. A CNAME must always be a sub-domain record.
MX records
Mail
Exchanger (MX) records are used to help mail servers that are trying to
send emails to your domain, and find the servers that are accepting
emails for your domain. It is recommended to have more than one MX
record for your domain. You can add MX records to your full domain or
for sub domains. For example, I can add MX records for
test.domain.com and for
domain.com. Emails sent to
test.domain.com will go to the MX records created for that domain.
Priority
It
is recommended to have multiple mail servers for each domain - and
priority plays a critical role in this. For each MX records you add, you
will have to enter a priority. This determines which mail server gets
picked first. The MX record with the lowest priority will always be the
first mail server where emails will be sent.
A recordsAddress
(A) records are the most basic of DNS records. They provide a way to
translate host name into IP addresses. When creating an A record, you
can fill in any sub-domain for your domain, and after the host name, you
can fill in any IP address (either internal or external).
Adding more than one record per subdomainIt is possible to add more than one record to any sub-domain. For example, if you have the domain "
example.com", and you have added two A records:
When a user requests the IP address for "
test.example.com",
it will get 127.0.0.1. When another user requests the same host name,
it will get 127.0.0.2, the next one will get 127.0.0.1 again, and this
continues. This method is called Round Robin DNS. For more information
on this, please visit
this page.
AAAA RecordsIPv6
Address (AAAA) records work the same as an A record. The difference is
that an A record is used for IPv4 addresses, while the AAAA record is
used for IPv6 addresses.
For more information on the new IPv6 protocol, please visit DNS Record Types.
TXT recordsText
(TXT) records are used often with other protocols or systems. For
instance, the SPF system uses TXT records to hold its information.
Another use is for domain verification. Sometimes when a website needs
to validate the owner of a domain, they ask the owner to create a TXT
record with some information in it. It is then checked, and if the
correct record is found, the domain owner can be verified.
SRV recordsService (SRV) records provide information on available services for your systems. A SRV record has a unique system for naming.
The SRV record also has the following fields:
- Name
– The naming system is an underscore followed by the name of the
service, a period, an underscore, the protocol, a dot, and then the name
of the domain (the name of the domain you do not need to include in DNS
Made Easy of course).
- Host – The system that will receive the service.
- Priority
– This acts the same way as the MX Level / preference in the MX record.
The lower the number in the priority field, the more desirable the
associated target. 0 is the highest priority (lowest number).
- Weight
– Allows the zone administrators to distribute load to multiple targets
(load balance). It is basically used to determine relative capacity and
load between two SRV fields within the priority. Hits will be assigned
proportionately by weight. This allows the administrators to have a
powerful and a weak server, and share the appropriate loads between
those systems. 0 is the lowest load.
- Port – the actual port of the service offered.
Example:
_http._tcp.example.com. SRV 0 0 80.
www.example.com.
This would make the web requests for “
example.com” go to “
www.example.com.”. 0 is the highest priority (lowest number) and 0 is the highest weight (lowest number).