It's just come to my attention that emails sent to my wife's address via our domain hosted on ZoneEdit are now being bounced by Hotmail as suspect spam. I wonder if this is something to do with the new Windows Live Hotmail service.

Of course they're not spam, and this threw me for a bit.

The bounced emails contain a link to various resources about how to fix the problem.

A quick search of Google on "hotmail zoneedit" hinted that it might be possible to add extra detail to DNS to placate hotmail.

I then found Microsoft's Sender ID Framework SPF Record Wizard, which builds a SPF record for your domain.

In Step 1, I entered my domain - gardiner.net.au

In Step 2, it confirmed that A and MX records are available but no SPF record was found.

In Step 3, I checked the following options:

  • Domain's inbound servers may send mail(and checked both email servers listed)
  • All addresses listed in A records may send mail (and checked both IP addresses)
  • Discouraged; mail may legitimately originate from IP addresses not identified above, however, use of such IP addresses is discouraged and may not be permitted in the future.
  • Scope: Both

I'm not completely sure that this is correct, but it seems the best choices at first glance. I de-selected the "All addresses listed in A records may send mail" option, as as far as I can tell, the IP addresses in the A records for gardiner.net.au don't resolve back to the email servers.

Step 4 then generates the SPF record, which you copy to the clipboard.

Back in ZoneEdit, you can add a TXT record to contain the SPF data via the Advanced Records heading.

So now, I sit back and wait and see if Hotmail is any happier.