Recommendation: Create SPF record for the new server (maybe after it becomes webwork.maa.org)

[taniwallach]

Some mails from the new server are being rejected as potential spam.

SPF records help prevent spam, and the SPF records are checked by many popular email systems (ex. Gmail) when the decide whether to accept an email or not.

So is having a reverse DNS entry.

This probably is worth doing only once after the new site becomes webwork.maa.org.

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Google and many other systems are in a battle against spam, and multiple technologies were created and adopted over time to try to reduce spam, including SPF and DKIM. The old webwork server already has a SPF record, but as I mentioned in some prior recent correspondence - test1.webwork.maa.org does not.

One issue which may be impacting the "spam reputation" of webwork.maa.org is the manner in which it sends mails in the name of the original authors.

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Among the advice Google gives at https://support.google.com/mail/answer/81126 to try to prevent message being detected as spam are:

1. Set up valid reverse DNS records of your IP addresses that point to your domain.
2. Don’t impersonate another domain or sender without permission. This practice is called spoofing, and it can cause Gmail to categorize the messages as spam.
3. Publish an SPF record for your domain. SPF prevents spammers from sending unauthorized messages that appear to be from your domain.

It also recommends DKIM (and DMARC) which are harder to set up.