Mandrill SPF Error for Domain

1
votes

Attempting to setup my sending domain with Mandrill. I have successfully verified the domain and DKIM settings.

However, I am still getting the following SPF error:

Your SPF record requires more than 10 DNS lookups to process. This could be caused by including domains that require multiple lookups. Try simplifying your SPF record by removing any unnecessary parts.

Here's what I currently have for my TXT record:

v=spf1 a mx ptr include:bluehost.com include:spf.mandrillapp.com ?all

Is the issue with my TXT record? Or could it be something else.

*Update: Needed to decrease my domain's DNS lookup count; solution in comments of answer below.

1
dnsmandrillspf

1 Answers

3
votes

Yep! The issue is with the TXT record (it's okay to have a matching SPF and TXT records, but Mandrill will only look at your TXT record to verify/validate sending domains so you want to make sure that one is correct).

Each part of the TXT record, a, mx, ptr, include:bluehost.com, and include:spf.mandrillapp.com, count as one or more lookups, but the spec for SPF records (or in this case, TXT records that contain SPF information), limit you to 10 lookups total.

You can use a tool like this one to see which parts of the record have the most lookups: http://emailstuff.org/authentication (use the "Check a published SPF record" option) and maybe check out something like this to flatten the record: https://github.com/jsarenik/spf-tools.