Need to add _dmarc TXT record to DNS hosted by Sonic

[charliefenton]

I have a paid Mailchimp account which I want to use to send a party announcement from my domain cfenton.com. I have domain registration and email hosting with Sonic. To use my domain as the From address, Mailchimp requires me to go through the series of steps described here: /https://us17.admin.mailchimp.com/account/domains.

I have successfully added the 2 new CNAME records described in step 3 using Sonic member tools "Modify host records". But I don't see a way to do step 4: add a new DMARC DNS TXT record with name _dmarc and value "v=DMARC1; p=none;". The "Modify host records" tool always adds the domain name to the record name, so the name would be _dmarc.cfenton.com instead of just _dmarc.

I sent a request to Sonic Support (Sonic #7767778) and received this reply after almost 5 days:

as webhosting is primarily a legacy service we cannot add a new DNS record for you.

but this is not web hosting, and https://members.sonic.net/websites/hosting/type/ says:

Please note: Domain registration services and DNS are not legacy and will continue to be supported.

In fact, I transferred my domain registration and DNS hosting just 5 months ago, further showing it is not legacy.

The reply from Sonic Tech Support suggested posting to the forum, so I am doing that here.

The DMARC record I am asking you to add to the DNS listing for my Domain is effectively the same as the one Sonic already has in your DNS for email addresses using the sonic.net domain, and for sonic.com, according to https://mxtoolbox.com/dmarc.aspx. I am just asking Sonic to bring my DNS which you host in conformance with the one you use for email addresses in the sonic.net <http://sonic.net/> domain.

This seems basically the same as part of what Joe Muller did in this forum exchange: viewtopic.php?t=15696

It has been 5 days now since my initial request and I need this resolved as soon as possible.

[conradpino]

The Mailchimp admin URL provided requires authentication; not asking for credentials; just letting you know we can't view.

• Modern email services require DMARC which brings in DKIM and SPF as well.
• This Mailchimp page Set Up Email Domain Authentication covers DKIM and DMARC but ignores SPF.
• This EasyDMARC page Mailchimp Authentication Setup: Step by Step covers DKIM and DMARC and says "MailChimp does not support SPF alignment" which IMO is less than ideal.

I don't know how Sonic Host Records editing tool works but your post makes clear CNAME records are supported. Can I safely presume TXT records are supported?

When domains are queried for DMARC the query key is "_dmarc.cfenton.com." (trailing period included) so DMARC issue reported may not be an issue at all. Please add DMARC TXT record so I can verify it is correct.

[conradpino]

Domain level DNS records follow:

Code: Select all

dig cfenton.com any

; <<>> DiG 9.16.50-Debian <<>> cfenton.com any
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 45081
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 8, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232
; COOKIE: 9c2a504048c37aae0100000067daad71d40e963aea24e99b (good)
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;cfenton.com.                   IN      ANY

;; ANSWER SECTION:
cfenton.com.            6753    IN      SOA     ns1.sonic.net. hostmaster.sonic.net. 2025031903 3600 300 1209600 3600
cfenton.com.            6753    IN      TXT     "v=spf1 include:mail.sonic.net ~all"
cfenton.com.            6753    IN      MX      10 mailin-01.mx.sonic.net.
cfenton.com.            6753    IN      MX      10 mailin-02.mx.sonic.net.
cfenton.com.            6753    IN      NS      b.auth-ns.sonic.net.
cfenton.com.            6753    IN      NS      a.auth-ns.sonic.net.
cfenton.com.            6753    IN      NS      c.auth-ns.sonic.net.
cfenton.com.            6753    IN      A       209.204.175.65

[conradpino]

If you provide the Mailchimp CNAME record values, I will query those records for you.

[joemuller]

I have a paid Mailchimp account which I want to use to send a party announcement from my domain cfenton.com. I have domain registration and email hosting with Sonic. To use my domain as the From address, Mailchimp requires me to go through the series of steps described here: /https://us17.admin.mailchimp.com/account/domains.

I have successfully added the 2 new CNAME records described in step 3 using Sonic member tools "Modify host records". But I don't see a way to do step 4: add a new DMARC DNS TXT record with name _dmarc and value "v=DMARC1; p=none;". The "Modify host records" tool always adds the domain name to the record name, so the name would be _dmarc.cfenton.com instead of just _dmarc.

The name column always has the domain name included (in your case, cfenton.com). I can assure you that adding a record called '_dmarc' (no quotes) with type TXT and the value you provided (with double-quotes) is correct and what you want.

I've updated your DNS records for cfenton.com to what I hope are the correct values based on the example from Mailchimp and additional information I found from MXToolbox here.

If you need assistance adding/modifying additional records, let me know. Presumably all the necessary parts are in place for Mailchimp to work with cfenton.com.

-- Joe M

[charliefenton]

The issue is the _dmarc record (step 4) not the CNAME records, which I have already implemented:

cfenton.com. 7200 IN SOA ns1.sonic.net. hostmaster.sonic.net. 2025031905 3600 300 1209600 3600
cfenton.com. 7200 IN A 209.204.175.65
cfenton.com. 7200 IN MX 10 mailin-01.mx.sonic.net.
cfenton.com. 7200 IN MX 10 mailin-02.mx.sonic.net.
cfenton.com. 7200 IN NS a.auth-ns.sonic.net.
cfenton.com. 7200 IN NS b.auth-ns.sonic.net.
cfenton.com. 7200 IN NS c.auth-ns.sonic.net.
cfenton.com. 7200 IN TXT "v=spf1 include:mail.sonic.net include:servers.mcsv.net ~all"
ftp.cfenton.com. 7200 IN CNAME ftp.sonic.net.
k2._domainkey.cfenton.com. 7200 IN CNAME dkim2.mcsv.net.
k3._domainkey.cfenton.com. 7200 IN CNAME dkim3.mcsv.net.
net23._domainkey.cfenton.com. 7200 IN CNAME net23._domainkey.sonic.net.
www.cfenton.com. 7200 IN CNAME cfenton.com.
_dmarc.cfenton.com. 7200 IN TXT "v=DKIM1; p=none;"

The CNAME records I created for Mailchimp are k2._domainkey.cfenton.com and k2._domainkey.cfenton.com. Note that the attempt to add a _dmarc TXT record created _dmarc.cfenton.com not the required _dmarc.

The Mailchimp admin URL provided requires authentication; not asking for credentials; just letting you know we can't view.

That page is a bit tricky because it allow you to expand the instructions for only one step at a time. I have attached the two most relevant screenshots:

Domains-Mailchimp-1.png (1.16 MiB) Viewed 7301 times

Domains-Mailchimp-2.png (1.11 MiB) Viewed 7301 times

[joemuller]

I've updated the _dmarc record for you - copy/paste error on my part for the contents. MXToolbox shows that there is now an active DMARC record published. It's going to look like _dmarc.cfenton.com because we always show the fully-qualified name under the Name field and in the Export Zone output. (you may sometimes see this short-handed as '@' by some providers or they list everything relative to the domain)

[conradpino]

I see same data as in your last posting. IMO you look good to go:

Code: Select all

dig cfenton.com any

; <<>> DiG 9.16.50-Debian <<>> cfenton.com any
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 8486
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 8, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232
; COOKIE: b9e99c9b8f0b29b00100000067db46937116d17ec4588d7d (good)
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;cfenton.com.                   IN      ANY

;; ANSWER SECTION:
cfenton.com.            7200    IN      SOA     ns1.sonic.net. hostmaster.sonic.net. 2025031905 3600 300 1209600 3600
cfenton.com.            7200    IN      TXT     "v=spf1 include:mail.sonic.net include:servers.mcsv.net ~all"
cfenton.com.            7200    IN      MX      10 mailin-02.mx.sonic.net.
cfenton.com.            7200    IN      MX      10 mailin-01.mx.sonic.net.
cfenton.com.            7200    IN      NS      b.auth-ns.sonic.net.
cfenton.com.            7200    IN      NS      a.auth-ns.sonic.net.
cfenton.com.            7200    IN      NS      c.auth-ns.sonic.net.
cfenton.com.            7200    IN      A       209.204.175.65

dig _dmarc.cfenton.com any

; <<>> DiG 9.16.50-Debian <<>> _dmarc.cfenton.com any
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 56430
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232
; COOKIE: 5ad9dbcd2aa5a2980100000067db46a84507678298c3f978 (good)
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;_dmarc.cfenton.com.            IN      ANY

;; ANSWER SECTION:
_dmarc.cfenton.com.     7200    IN      TXT     "v=DKIM1; p=none;"


dig k2._domainkey.cfenton.com any

; <<>> DiG 9.16.50-Debian <<>> k2._domainkey.cfenton.com any
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 12957
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232
; COOKIE: 4d2c10a4eac4bd460100000067db46e4357c8edcd87e2748 (good)
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;k2._domainkey.cfenton.com.     IN      ANY

;; ANSWER SECTION:
k2._domainkey.cfenton.com. 7200 IN      CNAME   dkim2.mcsv.net.

dig k3._domainkey.cfenton.com any


; <<>> DiG 9.16.50-Debian <<>> k3._domainkey.cfenton.com any
;; global options: +cmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 28538
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 1, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 1

;; OPT PSEUDOSECTION:
; EDNS: version: 0, flags:; udp: 1232
; COOKIE: 03c6f74d91f211970100000067db46f235c10703d5bc1bfe (good)
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;k3._domainkey.cfenton.com.     IN      ANY

;; ANSWER SECTION:
k3._domainkey.cfenton.com. 7200 IN      CNAME   dkim3.mcsv.net.

[conradpino]

@joemuller does Sonic user interface for @charliefenton support domain level TXT record edits?

[charliefenton]

It's going to look like _dmarc.cfenton.com because we always show the fully-qualified name under the Name field and in the Export Zone output. (you may sometimes see this short-handed as '@' by some providers or they list everything relative to the domain)

@JoeMuller: Thank you. I'm not sure that it will meet Mailchimp's requirements with the .cfenton.com extension, because the emails will be sent from Mailchimp not from my domain. I will check with them