Setting up SPF records for Google Apps and Postini

[Sam Dickinson]

To whom it may concern,

I am the administrator for our Google Apps/Postini system (Premier
Edition) and I need some assistance with setting up SPF records to
eliminate some of the spam which we are currently receiving.

Here is the current situation: -

- We have no existing SPF records set up
- All of our email traffic passes exclusively though Postini and into
Gmail accounts
- We access Gmail using web browsers, mobile phones and IMAP (Outlook)
but I believe that this will still mean that all out email traffic
still passes through the same mail server(s)
- We currently have 6 domains associated with our Google Apps account
(swiftaircraft.co.uk, swiftaircraft.com, swifttg.co.uk, swifttg.com,
swifttgsolutions.co.uk and swifttgsolutions.com)

I have read the help sections on the Google Apps help pages regarding
the SPF records but I am not sure how to construct the SPF record and
I am not confident that the information in these pages is 100%
accurate for our situation.

I believe that we will need exactly the same SPF record for each
domain but I would like help constructing that record.

Thanks in advance,

Sam Dickinson

[FrankM - Power Poster]

I just checked your SPF for swiftaircraft.co.uk and it is fine and
will work for all the domains. You will want to setup in your Google
Mail dashboard under Service settings -> Mail -> Inbound Gateway, the
Postini IP for system 7; 64.18.0.0/20

Also check the box, "Only let my users receive email from the email
gateways listed above. All other mail will be rejected".


FrankM



On Nov 14, 8:28 am, Sam Dickinson <samdickins...@googlemail.com>
wrote:

[Sam Dickinson]

Thanks. I added the current SPF records shortly after I posted the
message above.

On Nov 14, 2:15 pm, FrankM - Power Poster <Frank.M...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[ben benson]

I am new to postini but I was assured that I'll get good support when I sign up. What is your experience with Postini phone/email support?

Did you have any problems activating your account?

[Sam Dickinson]

No problems signing up and activating but I have had a couple of
issues since then.

I must admit that the most critical of these issues is of my own
making :-( and you can see more about that in the thread "Unable to
log in to Message Security and Discovery console".

http://groups.google.com/group/PostiniSupportForGoogleApps/browse_frm/thread/840acf5af64e7b7a/8a429af63b3b4b60#8a429af63b3b4b60

The key with this is not to mess with your administrator account!!!

Haven't used phone support because I'm in the UK and I haven't got my
"IT administrator time" window to overlap with when support is open
(I'm juggling 2 jobs right now).

Otherwise it seems much like any other IT support... great when you
finally get to talk to the right guy (and I'd like to add FrankM as
one of those "right guys").

Cheers,
Sam

On Nov 15, 5:12 pm, "ben benson" <benson....@gmail.com> wrote:
> I am new to postini but I was assured that I'll get good support when I sign
> up. What is your experience with Postini phone/email support?
>
> Did you have any problems activating your account?
>

> On Fri, Nov 14, 2008 at 7:28 AM, Sam Dickinson <samdickins...@googlemail.com

[Sam Dickinson]

As recommended I entered "64.18.0.0/20" into the Inbound Gateway field
however would it be better to use a FQDN rather than an IP?

I have also been reading http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=100354
(which I was pointed to by Google Apps support) and this seems to
imply that I need separate SPF records for the inbound and the
outbound SPF configuration. Is this right? If so, how does the system
distinguish between inbound and outbound SPF records?

On Nov 14, 2:15 pm, FrankM - Power Poster <Frank.M...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[FrankM - Power Poster]

No. In 2004, Postini moved from system-specific IPs to a portable
address space. An additional benefit is that future changes, such as
changing data centers or migration to a new system, will be
transparent and will not require your intervention.




On Nov 17, 6:02 am, Sam Dickinson <samdickins...@googlemail.com>
wrote:

> As recommended I entered "64.18.0.0/20" into the Inbound Gateway field
> however would it be better to use a FQDN rather than an IP?
>

> I have also been readinghttp://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=100354

> > > Sam Dickinson- Hide quoted text -
>
> - Show quoted text -

[Sam Dickinson]

Sounds good... not quite sure that I know what a "portable address
space" is but if it means that I never have to change anything in the
future then I guess that makes thing much easier.

On Nov 17, 2:53 pm, FrankM - Power Poster <Frank.M...@gmail.com>