SPF, which is an acronym for Sender Policy Framework, is an email protection system, that is is intended to validate if an email message is sent by an authorized server. Using SPF protection for a particular domain name will prevent the counterfeiting of emails generated with the domain. In layman's terms: enabling this attribute for a domain creates a particular record in the Domain Name System (DNS) that contains the IP addresses of the servers which are allowed to send e-mails from mailboxes under the domain. Once this record propagates worldwide, it will exist on all the DNS servers that direct the Internet traffic. Every time an e-mail message is sent, the initial DNS server it goes through verifies whether it originates from an official server. When it does, it is sent to the destination address, but when it doesn't come from a server listed in the SPF record for the particular domain, it is rejected. In this way nobody will mask an email address then make it appear as if you are sending spam messages. This approach is also called email spoofing.
SPF Protection in Web Hosting
SPF protection can be activated for every domain hosted in a web hosting account on our cloud hosting platform with only a few clicks. The feature is accessible in the Emails section of our leading-edge Hepsia Control Panel and all it takes to use it is to select one of your domains from a drop-down list and type in the hostnames along with the IPv4 or IPv6 addresses of the mail servers that will be approved to send email messages from your emails. As an additional option you can even restrict the messages to be sent from your domain only when it has our MX records, in other words when our servers manage the e-mail addresses for it, not a third-party provider. This feature gives you the best level of protection, but it is not applicable when only your website is on our servers while the email addresses for the domain name are taken care of in another place. Either way, the SPF protection service will keep your emails safe from being used for spam or scam purposes.
SPF Protection in Semi-dedicated Hosting
When you have a semi-dedicated server account from us, you will be able to protect your email addresses by enabling the SPF protection service for any domain name hosted in the account with only a few mouse-clicks. You can do this through the Emails section of our Hepsia Control Panel that is provided with the semi-dedicated accounts and even in case you have no previous experience with these matters, you won't have any problems to enable the protection. The only things that you'll have to do will be to pick a domain from a drop-down menu then type the mail server hostname and IPv4 or IPv6 address. As soon as the new record propagates, messages from your e-mail addresses will be mailed globally only if they're sent from that specific server. When your e-mail addresses are handled by us and not by a third-party provider, you can also use an option for email messages to be sent only if the domain contains our MX records and the latter is the safest option. Should you have any questions regarding thisfeature, you can contact our support team 24/7.