Email from new domain bounces sometimes

[gsteinbach]

I registered a new domain recently, with email forwarding to sonic.net. In Thunderbird I defined an identity with the new domain, using smtp.sonic.net for outgoing mail. Mostly that has been OK but today for the 2nd time in a few weeks an email bounced with the message:

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(reason: 550 5.1.1 64.142.111.50 is not allowed to send from <new.domain> per its SPF Record. Please inspect your SPF settings, and try again. IB508 <http://x.co/srbounce>)

I'm not sure whether this is a problem with Sonic, with the domain host, or with the recipient's ISP. My address is not 64.x of course, it's in the standard 173.x Sonic range.
Whom do I have to contact to update "SPF" settings?
Thanks

[chirano]

The SPF record is provided by the name server for your domain. Who provides DNS for your domain?

[gsteinbach]

The domain is hosted by dreamhost.com. I assume hosting means they do the DNS service?

[joemuller]

I took a moment to look at the bounce example you sent to our support team -- it looks like incoming/outgoing email for your new domain is handled by Dreamhost, so you need to configure your email client so the identity/profile for your email address for the domain is using the Dreamhost-provided servers.

The MX Toolbox website has an excellent tool for examining SPF records and what they allow/deny. You can try entering your domain name at this page:
https://mxtoolbox.com/spf.aspx

-- Joe M
Sonic System Operations

[chirano]

The domain is hosted by dreamhost.com. I assume hosting means they do the DNS service?

It's possible and perhaps likely, but not necessarily true either.

The registrar for the domain will let you set which name servers to use. If you used Dreamhost to register the domain when you set up the hosting, it's almost certain the company set up your domain to use its name servers. If you used a different company, like NameCheap, to register the domain, you need to log into your account there and check the settings to see what name servers are authoritative for your domain. You can also change them if it turns out you need to.

If you have a decent host for the name servers, you should be able to edit the SPF record to authorize mail from a different server.

[gsteinbach]

OK, I found the DNS record at Dreamhost.com and they even have a page about adding a custom SPF record for the case of sending mail through another host's server - exactly my case. So I added this record:

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v=spf1 mx include:netblocks.dreamhost.com include:smtp.sonic.net -all

They say it may take up to 6h to propagate, so here is a question: Is smtp.sonic.net the right address here? Or should it be just sonic.net? Or something else - they have an example that adds

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_spf.google.com

which they say "Includes all of the SPF records from Google" - does Sonic have a similar catchall record?
Thanks

[bjeung]

https://help.sonic.com/hc/en-us/article ... ected-Mail

[chirano]

So I added this record:

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v=spf1 mx include:netblocks.dreamhost.com include:smtp.sonic.net -all

They say it may take up to 6h to propagate, so here is a question: Is smtp.sonic.net the right address here? Or should it be just sonic.net?

I came here to post that it's been ages since I last looked at SPF and couldn't answer your question with confidence, but fortunately, bjeung has posted a link with the answers to your questions.

[gsteinbach]

Thanks everybody, this confirms what I figured and the SPF record I listed above works.
I consider the question answered.