SPF Record Syntax: Mechanisms, Qualifiers, Modifiers, and Macros

I'm sorry this page needs to exist, it's partly my fault. I created the first "large scale" SPF record (for eBay and PayPal), and agreed that this was the best way to do it. I guess the people after me agreed too, because 20 years later it's still pretty much the same shape as when I made it!

But I don't have any regrets, the format was pretty straightforward and offered a lot of flexibility. The biggest issue was the parsing libraries handling all of the "include" statements correctly.

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YesThatTom2 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

SPF flattening is difficult to get correct and then you have to check it every so often to update it.

DNSControl automates this. https://docs.dnscontrol.org/language-reference/domain-modifi...

(It’s open source)

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dan_sbl 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> SPF record syntax follows one shape:

The first six words do not scream "human written" to me.

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ddevnyc 6 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The overall structure of the document is no different than any other tech reference or RFC that I've read over the decades

	▲	kronk 4 hours ago \| parent [-]
		True. It's a 25 minute read instead of 1hr+

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TZubiri 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

I could tell before opening the link, but the pill tags and neon color palette are also a huge signal.

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ksajadi 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

That’s obvious. But a genuine question: why does it matter? This seems to be a detailed reference document for a very technical purpose (and SEO juice for the company I guess).

	▲	teddyh 5 hours ago \| parent [-]
		If that’s what you want, you would be better served by RFC 7208: <https://www.rfc-editor.org/info/rfc7208/>