Enabling DMARC, SPF, and DKIM DNS Records

Setting up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC on your domain is an essential step in enhancing email security and deliverability. Implementing these three standards not only fortifies your email security but is also required by some recipients that use services like Gmail and Yahoo.

SPF (Sender Policy Framework) helps in validating that outgoing emails from your domain are sent from authorized mail servers, thereby reducing the chances of your emails being marked as spam. DKIM (DomainKeys Identified Mail) adds a digital signature to your emails, ensuring that the content remains unaltered during transit. Lastly, DMARC (Domain-based Message Authentication, Reporting, and Conformance) aligns SPF and DKIM authentication, providing instructions to the receiving mail servers on how to handle emails that fail these checks.

Setting up SPF, DKIM and DMARC is easy. In fact, most EPhost clients will find that these services have already been enabled for you if your domain is pointed to the DNS service for your hosting plan. However, if you are using one of our Smartermail  plans (email only), you are using our original DNS servers (ns1.ephost.com & ns2.ephost.com), or you are using a 3rd party DNS service like CloudFlare then you may need to make the DNS entries manually below.

EPhost Clients: Editing your DNS Records

To enable SPF & DMARC DNS for all SmarterMail, cPanel (Linux), and Plesk (Windows) plans:

1. Please login to your DNS provider's Zone Editor / DNS Manager.
2. Add or edit the following DNS entries in your DNS provider's Zone Editor:

yourdomain.com    IN     TXT         "v=spf1 +a +mx include:ephost.com ~all"
_dmarc.yourdomain.com    IN     TXT    "v=DMARC1; p=none"

* You may need to merge your existing SPF record with the one above. Usually this means adding "include:ephost.com" to your SPF record. The control panel may show different values than shown above. We recommend that you merge both the values from the control panel and the ones above.

To enable DKIM for SmarterMail plans:

1. Login to to your account at EPhost.
2. Click the Green Control Panel button to login to SmarterMail as the Domain Administrator.
3. Click on the Domain Settings Icon (cog with world icon).
4. Click on the General link on the left menu.
5. Click Enable under Email Signing and create the DNS TXT record it provides.
6. Come back to the Email Signing and Press Enable again to activate.

To enable DKIM for cPanel plans (Linux):

1. Login to to your account at EPhost.
2. Click the Green Control Panel button to login to cPanel.
3. Click on the Email Deliverability icon.
4. Click Repair or Add the DNS entries shown to your DNS provider's Zone Editor.

To enable DKIM for Plesk plans (Windows):

1. Login to to your account at EPhost.
2. Click the Green Control Panel button to login to Plesk.
3. Click on the Email in the left hand manu.
4. Click on the domain you wish to configure.
5. Click on Mail Settings.
6. Confirm "Use DKIM spam protection system to sign outgoing email message" is checked.
7. Add the DNS entries shown in the "How to configure external DNS" section to your DNS provider's Zone Editor.

Note: SPF and DKIM is enabled by default on all cPanel (Linux) and Plesk (Windows) hosting plans if you are using your hosting plan's DNS servers.