This is normally controlled by a flag in your DMARC setup, and it varies across DMARC packages. SPF neutral can be interpreted in DMARC as either pass or fail (!), depending on how you set up DMARC on your email server. When this mechanism is evaluated, any IP address will cause SPF to return a neutral result. This is typically implemented by appending a ?all mechanism to an SPF record. SPF neutral means the SPF record on the domain has explicitly stated that it is not asserting whether the IP address is authorized.
How to Add SPF Record in Namecheap: Namecheap SPF Setup Guide.How to Add SPF Record in Bluehost: Bluehost SPF Setup Guide.How to Add SPF Record in Cloudflare: Cloudflare SPF Setup Guide.How to Add SPF Record in GoDaddy: GoDaddy SPF Setup Guide.To rectify this, simply publish a valid SPF record on your domain: This means if DKIM authentication fails too, it fails the final DMARC authentication. SPF none is treated as fail in DMARC: the SPF authentication check fails. In other words, if there is no SPF record on the domain, SPF none is returned. unable to find the SPF record on the domain.When the server tries to resolve the domain for SPF authentication, it returns none as the SPF result if either of the following is true: We are going to explain each of them below. When any of the above is true, one of the following SPF authentication results is returned and then passed along to DMARC: the number of void lookups involved in a single SPF check exceeds 2.the number of DNS lookups involved in a single SPF check exceeds 10.the IP address is not on the list specified in the SPF record.
the SPF record is not syntactically correct.multiple SPF records found on the domain.unable to find the SPF record on the domain.unable to resolve the domain name in the DNS.Here is the list of common reasons that cause an SPF authentication check to fail: However, it gets a bit tricky when SPF authentication fails, for various reasons. It's straightforward enough in the pass scenario when everything goes well: the SPF record exists, is syntactically correct, and the IP address in question appears on the list. If the IP address is listed, the SPF check passes, otherwise not.įor more information, refer to: How SPF works. the receiving email server checks the connecting host's IP address to see if it's listed in 's SPF record published in the DNS.the receiving email server extracts the domain name from the envelope from address e.g.,.
When a host tries to deliver an email to the target mailbox: What are SPF authentication results?Īn SPF authentication result is the outcome of an SPF authentication check performed on the receiving email server. This article is going to take a deep dive into these topics. DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting and Conformance) specifies these possible errors (non-pass) in SPF (Sender Policy Framework) authentication: none, neutral, fail (hard fail), softfail (soft fail), temperror (temporary error), and permerror (permanent error).įor anyone who isn't well-versed in SPF and DMARC, this can be confusing as to why these errors occur in SPF, how they are interpreted in DMARC, and what action to take to fix them.