On October 8, 2004 10:28 am, Thomas Zehetbauer wrote: > If I understand this correctly you have a domain and your web hoster > runs a smtp relay. That's fine, just list your hoster's smtp in the SPF > record. OK, I don't understand how to implement your suggestions so I'll first just verify that I have been clear about my situation. My domain, haligonian.com, is likely what is called a "vanity domain". It was originally a business domain name but I do little business these days. I am the only user with any access to email addresses at haligonian.com. I do not host the domain; I pay a small company in Quebec, Canada to host it. They provide for me mail and web servers. My ISP is a local company, Aliant, which is the telco in Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, PEI and Newfoundland, Canada. They are a large-ish company. They are the people that connect me to the Internet at home. When I'm at home, and I try to send mail through my haligonian.com smtp server (hosted in Quebec, remember), I can not succeed (can't recall the error and I'm not home now). The only mail server I can get through to is Aliant's. When I'm at school, my "ISP" is the university I attend (Dalhousie). When there, I can send through my haligonian.com smtp server. So, if I understand SPF correctly (and I may not), the procedure is to list the (IP) addresses of machines that may be running SMTP servers through which I may ever legitimately send an email. These include "my own" server (which I use when I'm at school) -- no problem there since my mail/web hosting provider certainly knows and can keep track of the address of the smtp server it runs for me -- AND any and all SMTP servers that my telco (when I'm at home) might run and allow me to use. Now, I have no idea how many of those servers there are or what their addresses are. Certainly I have no hope of getting the telco to report that information whenever it might change to either me or my web/mail hosting company so that my web/mail hosting company can update their SPF records accordingly. I don't see how the SPF process could work for me, unless I misunderstand the process which, again, is admittedly possible. UNLESS -- SPF only needs simple records (not IP addresses) like: mail.haligonian.com smtp1.ns.sympatico.ca which may change over time, but not often and since there are only 2, I could manage the reporting of such changes to my hosting provider (assuming I convinced them to set up SPF). So I guess my question is, which scenario is it? Should I pester my hoster or not? And what about the reports that Microsoft's patents (pending) make the whole system suspect? -- Trevor Smith // trevor@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
