Setup Manual SPF Record Flattening

AutoSPF can be used to manually flatten and aggregate SPF records. There are two approaches to AutoSPF setup for a domain:

• AutoSPF-hosted flattening — AutoSPF generates flattened records and serves them from its own DNS infrastructure. Your domain's SPF record uses an include: that points to AutoSPF's DNS space, so updates are applied automatically when you save changes in the UI.  This is our recommended and most commonly used configuration.
• Self-managed flattening — Use the AutoSPF UI to view and reconstruct flattened records, then copy the IP ranges and structure directly into your own DNS as standard TXT records — with no dependency on AutoSPF's DNS infrastructure. This is useful if you want full control over your DNS and don't want third-party includes in your SPF record.

Both approaches support automated alerts via email or webhook when upstream provider SPF records change and your flattened records need to be updated.

Sign up for a trial

Sign up for a trial account at https://autospf.com/pricing

Add domain

After registering, add any domains whose SPF you want to flatten / manage. A domain must have an existing valid SPF record in order to be added:

In this example, we add the "amazon.com" domain, and use AutoSPF to "flatten" its various records. (Note that in manual mode, no DNS changes are made or served by AutoSPF, meaning the tool is only used for flattening, and effecting change depends on the domain's DNS administrator — this is why we can use amazon.com for our example without impacting the real amazon.com)

Import DNS SPF record into system

The current DNS-based SPF TXT record is displayed. As per the illustration below, change the slider from Use domain record to Use saved record to unlock the ability to edit the record. Make any necessary changes, and click the green "Save" button:

Having saved, you're now able to view both the SPF record retrieved from DNS, and the static version of this record as saved within AutoSPF's system. Note that toggling checkboxes for the various includes only changes the content of the SPF record saved in AutoSPF's system.

Update DNS records with flattened records

Note: If you are using self-managed flattening, copy the IP ranges and mechanisms from the flattened records shown in the AutoSPF UI and reconstruct them as standard TXT records in your own DNS — do not use the include: statements that point to AutoSPF's DNS space. If you are using AutoSPF-hosted flattening, follow the steps below using the generated records as-is.

Depending on the size of your flattened SPF records, AutoSPF will generate one or more SPF records, each record concluding with an include statement for the next. (This is necessary to address byte-size restrictions in the DNS query response).

For each flattened SPF record, copy/paste the record data into a corresponding TXT record for your domain, with your DNS provider.

Note: Examples for 2 popular DNS providers are provided below. The exact process to add/update DNS TXT records will vary based on your DNS provider.

In the example below, two SPF records are created — amazon.com, and _s0.amazon.com. DNS TXT records must be created for both of the flattened records.

Example of amazon.com via CloudFlare DNS:

Example of _s0.amazon.com via Amazon Route53 DNS:

Making intentional changes

To update your SPF record (adding a new include for salesforce.com, for example) use the AutoSPF UI to manually add IP ranges or includes, and save your changes. After having saved changes, repeat the updating of DNS records with copied data from the flattened SPF record as described above.

Updating following provider updates

If you're using includes within your SPF record to include provider IP ranges, you'll need to manually update your flattened records whenever the provider updates their SPF records. AutoSPF will monitor the content of your SPF includes, and can alert you via email / webhook if change to your own DNS records is required. (For example, your provider may have added a new network block which needs to be added to your flattened records)

Setup alerts

Click "Alerts" on the left-hand panel to create your first alert (or to edit existing alerts)

Name the alert, then select the domain to monitor, and the destination email (or webhook) for alerts: