SPF and DKIM Records

Please note: These instructions are of a technical nature and are written for administrators who have the ability to alter their own DNS records (or have them altered).

Overview

iBex sends out emails to customers for different reasons. The address these emails are sent from are whatever is entered in your operator/property pages. This can cause issues with some email clients as they may identify emails sent from our system as spam. In some cases, they may prevent links in messages from being clicked (until approved), in other cases they may be sent straight to the spam folder.

To get around this a Sender Policy Framework (SPF) record needs to be added to the Domain Name System (DNS) of the email address. So if the emails are being sent from [e-mail] then you need to add the record to example.com’s DNS. This is something Seekom cannot do for you, only the person in control of your DNS can make this change. (For our CMS website customers whose DNS is run by us, we are able to set this up for you - just contact us to arrange).

This diagram created by Microsoft illustrates what happens with email SPF records.

1. The sender (Seekom) sends the email saying it’s from the address [e-mail] to [e-mail]
   
   
2. Jane’s email host (anotherserver.net) checks the email as it comes in. They see that the email says it’s from [e-mail] but realize that it’s really from [e-mail]
   Jane’s server then looks up example.com’s SPF record
3. If the lookup passes (the example.com record says Seekom is allowed to send email for them) then it’s marked as accepted. If the lookup fails, then the email may end up in the junk folder or labelled as spam.

We use this method to send emails so customers can get their notifications from you directly. If they’re booking with myfancyhotel.com then they expect emails sent to them are from myfancyhotel.com and not seekom.com (or our server address).

To prevent your customers from receiving warnings you need to add an SPF record. (This can either be a TXT or SPF record, depending on what your domain registrar provides). If you’re unable to add either kind of record to your domain, please contact them for assistance.

iBex's SPF Record

To indicate that iBex may send mail on behalf of your domain, you will need to include our SPF record.

The SPF record you need should look like the following:

"v=spf1 include:spf.ibexres.com ~all"

Note: We use ~all as it indicates “there may be other servers that you use to send email which are not listed” while -all means “these are the only allowed servers”.

Your own Domain

If you know what server(s) your own emails are sent from, you can add them as well. For example, if I use smtp.example.com to send my emails my record would look like the following:

"v=spf1 mx a:smtp.example.com include:spf.ibexres.com ~all"

Note: If you have an existing SPF record containing +a:seekom-alb-smtp02.digiweb.net.nz
you may remove this part, as this is no longer required.

Additional Information

We don’t provide support for adding SPF records, that’s something you need to contact your DNS provider for assistance with. (For our own hosted websites you can raise a ticket with us.)

You can read up about SPF records at the following sites:

• http://www.openspf.org
• http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sender_Policy_Framework

DKIM Signatures

DKIM signing provides an additional layer of validation that emails sent by Seekom are genuine. Doing this largely avoids emails ending up in guests spam folders.

To enable DKIM signing of outgoing email, please ask your IT people to do the following:

1. Create a new TXT record in the DNS for the domain
2. Let Seekom Support know once the DNS has been updated so we can configure our systems accordingly.

Details

The following DNS TXT record will need to be created for your domain:

ibexres1._domainkey.<your.domain.name> 

This TXT record must have the following value:

"v=DKIM1; k=rsa; p=MIGfMA0GCSqGSIb3DQEBAQUAA4GNADCBiQKBgQCttslt8GvRqKTo/K5Mvf8/qu/HQq97K3SYg7YPsoF/6/l5RrtzG2tLFBpEpBzpyF4BnE4o+SwhOEyqTic371KyXyZIU0afcVIQL/pyiIRxs/0HJFi6nUzOn7U2m3jt62qlUu/yOjzGGoIAs+wqx8MR5VEoWNdrvn5REkdQnv4pVwIDAQAB" 

Note: Email will not be signed by our servers until the corresponding configuration has been added by Seekom, so please remember to let us know when you've made the change.