Comments on: Too many DNS lookups in an SPF record

By: LeeWalton70

LeeWalton70 — Wed, 24 Aug 2016 16:42:00 +0000

There IS, hidden within the SPF specification, a Macro Language that allows substitutions to be used in the generation of the SPF record that would point to other records dynamically, alleviating the issue all together.

By: @apoguy

@apoguy — Tue, 28 Oct 2014 04:32:37 +0000

I trying the following SPF, which still tells me too many dns lookups:
v=spf1 a include:sendgrid.com include:_spf.google.com -all

Hoe come those are too many?

By: Hemant Chavan

Hemant Chavan — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 05:36:14 +0000

Josh, just went through your blog. You are doing great things. Keep it up.
I have just added my query and would like to here from you.

adding my query again.
Where is the limit of 10 mentioned. I am getting error that "Results – PermError SPF Permanent Error: Void lookup limit of 2 exceeded". My SPF record looks like
v=spf1 a mx ip4:203.199.60.24 mx:drmail.ltindia.com mx:mail.ltindia.com
mx:mail1.ltindia.com mx:Mail2.Ltindia.com
ip4:125.18.18.171 ip4:203.199.60.171 ip4:125.18.18.115 ip4:203.199.60.115
ip4:125.22.40.109 ip4:203.199.60.132 ip4:125.18.18.132 -all

Can you help me find how many DNS lookups this SPF record will require and how can I increase the DNS lookup limit to 10.

By: Hemant Chavan

Hemant Chavan — Wed, 20 Aug 2014 05:18:21 +0000

Where is the limit of 10 mentioned. I am getting error that "Results – PermError SPF Permanent Error: Void lookup limit of 2 exceeded". My SPF record looks like
v=spf1 a mx ip4:203.199.60.24 mx:drmail.ltindia.com mx:mail.ltindia.com mx:mail1.ltindia.com mx:Mail2.Ltindia.com ip4:125.18.18.171 ip4:203.199.60.171 ip4:125.18.18.115 ip4:203.199.60.115 ip4:125.22.40.109 ip4:203.199.60.132 ip4:125.18.18.132 -all

Can you help me find how many DNS lookups this SPF record will require and how can I increase the DNS lookup limit to 10.

By: HMA

HMA — Fri, 23 May 2014 12:46:28 +0000

Thanks Josh,

It's so amazing and really helpful. I was facing the same issue and probably the right way but struck at a few steps before to complete. Your post helps me a lot and now I finally did it.

By: Proven Web

Proven Web — Wed, 26 Feb 2014 11:51:05 +0000

Thanks for recommending SendGrid. I signed up with them because of this article. You should include a link as they give you $20 for each referral

By: Josh Fraser

Josh Fraser — Sun, 21 Jul 2013 21:34:16 +0000

In reply to Tom Fletcher. The other 3 come from looking up the hostnames: aspmx.googlemail.com, authsmtp.com & salesforce.com

By: Tom Fletcher

Tom Fletcher — Wed, 22 Aug 2012 14:01:56 +0000

Where do you get the first "7" from? I count:
SPF request
TXT request
A request
MX request.
That comes to 4, not 7, no?

By: ravisorg

ravisorg — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 20:49:41 +0000

Awesome, I didn't realize this either but it explains a few issues.Awesome, I didn't realize this either but it explains a few issues.

May I suggest you use ? on your third party services (eg: ?include:_spf.google.com). Without the ? you're saying "anyone using google is authorized from my domain", which is probably not what you want. Adding the ? changes it to mean "anyone using google MIGHT be authorized from my domain, don't ban them with the -all, but you should use other methods to ensure that they're not spammers".

By: ColdFusion Developer

ColdFusion Developer — Mon, 21 Mar 2011 19:55:02 +0000

Good article. I didn't realize there is a cap of 10 lookups. This makes setting up SPF records for people that use Google Apps, blackberries, and web servers that send out emails need to really pay attention to this kind of stuff! I agree that the SPF standard needs some work in order to meet real-world needs.