SPF softfail dragging me to an abyss

StackOverflow https://stackoverflow.com/questions/19222958

  •  30-06-2022
  •  | 
  •  

Question

Mail sent from my PHP is not delivered to some clients and this I am suspecting could be due to SPF test returning a softfail with domain of transitioning . The message details are below: 

Delivered-To: eric.clapton@gmail.com
Received: by 10.50.73.42 with SMTP id i10csp74854igv;
    Mon, 7 Oct 2013 03:21:52 -0700 (PDT)
X-Received: by 10.68.44.33 with SMTP id b1mr2455965pbm.53.1381141311313;
    Mon, 07 Oct 2013 03:21:51 -0700 (PDT)
Return-Path: <craig@abc.com>
Received: from mtarelay2.ops.gq1.yahoo.net (mtarelay2.ops.gq1.yahoo.net. [98.136.240.39])
    by mx.google.com with ESMTP id f6si4349525pba.278.1969.12.31.16.00.00;
    Mon, 07 Oct 2013 03:21:51 -0700 (PDT)
Received-SPF: softfail (google.com: domain of transitioning craig@abc.com does not     designate 98.136.240.39 as permitted sender) client-ip=98.136.240.39;
Authentication-Results: mx.google.com;
   spf=softfail (google.com: domain of transitioning craig@abc.com does not designate 98.136.240.39 as permitted sender) smtp.mail=craig@abc.com
Received: from p10db3.geo.gq1.yahoo.com (p10db3.geo.gq1.yahoo.com [67.195.61.18])
by mtarelay2.ops.gq1.yahoo.net (Postfix) with ESMTP id 764E0511EB
for <eric.clapton@gmail.com>; Mon,  7 Oct 2013 10:21:35 +0000 (UTC)
Received: (from root@localhost)
by p10db3.geo.gq1.yahoo.com (8.14.4/8.14.4/Submit) id r97ALZiJ005899;
Mon, 7 Oct 2013 03:21:35 -0700
Date: Mon, 7 Oct 2013 03:21:35 -0700
Message-Id: <201310071021.r97ALZiJ005899@p10db3.geo.gq1.yahoo.com>
To: eric.clapton@gmail.com
Subject: Client invoice
From: craig@abc.com
MIME-Version: 1.0

SPF settings for my domain is: 

v=spf1 a mx ~all
Was it helpful?

Solution

Check what IPs are allowed to send emails from the sender domain. This website lets you see all allowed IPs: http://spf.myisp.ch

If the sender IP does not match any IP or IP range it shows you then you might need to edit the SPF settings.

OTHER TIPS

One thing that stands out are Received: (from root@localhost), which is bound to give an error. Many spam blockers, including googles, doesn't allow localhost to be inside the HELO string. I just had the same error on a Ubuntu Server using Postfix, and the solution was to edit /etc/postfix/main.cf to have:

myhostname = abc.com

and then restart the postfix service.

sudo nano /etc/postfix/main.cf
sudo /etc/init.d/postfix restart
Licensed under: CC-BY-SA with attribution
Not affiliated with StackOverflow
scroll top