SPF, DKIM and DMARC are DNS records that prove your emails really come from you. Gmail, Yahoo and Microsoft check them. Emails that fail are more likely to land in spam or be rejected.

These steps assume your domain uses PaduHost's nameservers. If your DNS is hosted elsewhere, such as Cloudflare, add the same records there.

SPF

An SPF record is created automatically when you add a domain in DirectAdmin. To check it:

1. Log in to DirectAdmin.
2. Go to Account Manager > DNS Management and choose your domain.
3. Look for a TXT record for your domain that starts with v=spf1.

If you also send email through another service, such as a newsletter provider, add it to the same record. For example, for Mailgun:

v=spf1 a mx ip4:your-server-ip include:mailgun.org ~all

Keep what's already in your record and add the other service's include: before ~all. A domain must only have one SPF record.

DKIM

1. In DirectAdmin, go to E-Mail Manager > E-Mail Accounts.
2. Below the list of email accounts, check whether DKIM is enabled. If not, click Enable DKIM.

DirectAdmin creates the DKIM record for you. It's a TXT record called x._domainkey. If your DNS is hosted elsewhere, copy this record from DNS Management to your DNS provider.

DMARC

Add a TXT record in DNS Management:

Replace the email address with one where you'd like to receive reports.

p=none only monitors your email, so nothing is blocked while you check everything is set up correctly. After a few weeks, if the reports show your genuine email passing, change it to p=quarantine, which sends failing emails to spam. Later you can move to p=reject to block them completely.

DMARC reports are technical files. Free online DMARC report services can turn them into readable summaries.

Checking it works

Send an email to a Gmail address, open it in Gmail and choose Show original from the message menu. You should see PASS for SPF, DKIM and DMARC. You can also send a test email to mail-tester.com for a score and suggestions.