Add support for DKIM ("DomainKeys Identified Mail")

[Vinayak]

+1 for DKIM integration.

[mykkal]

Is this feature anywhere near being implemented in Edge? The last Cpanel response was in November of 2009. I'm sure its far away from a current release.

DKIM would be awesome. I wish there were plugins for it at least.

[cPanelDon]

As you may be aware, the latest Exim versions (4.70 and 4.71) include native DKIM support, but this is implemented in a different manner than before where it formerly used an external library; additionally, Exim also dropped all support of Yahoo DomainKeys in favor of switching to native DKIM support. It is my understanding that given this information and status of Exim, we would also need to drop support of Yahoo DomainKeys in favor of switching to the new implementation of Exim's native support of DKIM.

Given the significant work I believe this request will require I am not sure how soon DKIM support can be implemented; the earliest version ETA I am aware of at this time may be in cPanel 11.26, but please be aware this is only a rough estimate and is subject to change (cannot be guaranteed) as it is too early to know with sufficient certainty.

I am curious to know if anyone has any suggestions for how you would prefer this change be handled; we are still looking into possible options and evaluating the feature request and what is involved to properly implement.

Do you currently depend upon Yahoo DomainKeys in any form? Would switching to DKIM and dropping support of DomainKeys (as necessitated by Exim) satisfy any requirements you may have, or would it pose any problem for you? To my knowledge DKIM is more advanced than Yahoo DomainKeys, thus, I believe DKIM can be considered a full replacement for Yahoo DomainKeys.

To reiterate, we very much want to hear your ideas, thoughts, and suggestions, for how you would like to see this request implemented and how you would like to see it move forward. As an example, are there any changes you want to see made with an official DKIM option that may differ when compared with the current option for using Yahoo DomainKeys?

[Spiral]

Just a side footnote to the conversation ....

Though DKIM is technically somewhat more reliable than SPF as a sender verification technology, it is still very much in the minority use among most of the servers out there and would be a good idea to support outbound just to say you did but no where near what I would call a "necessity" yet.

SPF on the other hand is directly in use and "required" by many mail servers out there for mail acceptance so that one I think should be enabled in the DNS zones for all hosted domains.

[yayyo]

Our cPanel controlled server has achieved a https://senderscore.org/ reputation rating of 100.

We operate a large, strictly double-opt-in confirmed mailing/member list. See Digital River as suggested by SpamCop.net - Beware of cheap imitations

We have SPF and DomainKeys enabled.

The main email ISP's are switching more and more to a "user reporting" reputation system.

We have FeedBack Loops (FBL's) established with the main email ISP's and a few smaller ones.
The FB's we do get are roughly split 95%/5% between people who accidentally clicked 'report as spam' and 5% who either forgot they had signed up or couldn't be bothered to click 'unsubscribe'

The reason I mention the few snippets of information above is that DKIM is NOT going to be a "Silver or Magic Bullet" that resolves all your email deliverability problems at a stroke. I am not aware of any solution that doesn't involve hours of research, self-education, and hard work.

Information I am getting from one email ISP is that they prefer DKIM over DomainKeys.

so +1 for DKIM from me.

Now if that means disabling DomainKeys in favour of a working DKIM, then so be it, but some emails are arriving here with both. So it is possible.

[Kent Brockman]

+1 for DKIM from me too.

We have several hundreds domains, and all of them are DomainKeys/SPF powered.

Due to the aformentioned, if the plan is to fully support DKIM, you cPanel guys should provide WHM with a solid conversion system to erase all the old configurations for DomainKeys, and easily deploy the setup to replace them with the new DKIM dataset.

Hope to hear more news about this topic soon.
Regards

[mykkal]

We are still considering native DKIM support, but I have no ETA on implementation. Let me see what I can do to give this a "nudge" though .

So...How did that "nudge" work out? lol...This feature is so important to those wanting to use cpanel/WHM as a enterprise level service.

Seriously the latest stable exim release is 4.71 and cpanel only still supports 4.69. When will cpanel support the newest version. I suspect cpanel won't support DKIM until then. But where are we?

DKIM is needed...strongly. We're a more than a year behind the other platforms.

[mykkal]

Appreciate all of that knowledge... However we just want to nudge cpanel to get DKIM support release as quickly as possible. lol... We've been begging since 2009.

Don't give them an excuse to make us wait til 2011

Our cPanel controlled server has achieved a https://senderscore.org/ reputation rating of 100.

We operate a large, strictly double-opt-in confirmed mailing/member list. See Digital River as suggested by SpamCop.net - Beware of cheap imitations

We have SPF and DomainKeys enabled.

The main email ISP's are switching more and more to a "user reporting" reputation system.

We have FeedBack Loops (FBL's) established with the main email ISP's and a few smaller ones.
The FB's we do get are roughly split 95%/5% between people who accidentally clicked 'report as spam' and 5% who either forgot they had signed up or couldn't be bothered to click 'unsubscribe'

The reason I mention the few snippets of information above is that DKIM is NOT going to be a "Silver or Magic Bullet" that resolves all your email deliverability problems at a stroke. I am not aware of any solution that doesn't involve hours of research, self-education, and hard work.

Information I am getting from one email ISP is that they prefer DKIM over DomainKeys.

so +1 for DKIM from me.

Now if that means disabling DomainKeys in favour of a working DKIM, then so be it, but some emails are arriving here with both. So it is possible.

[cPanelDavidG]

So...How did that "nudge" work out? lol...This feature is so important to those wanting to use cpanel/WHM as a enterprise level service.

Seriously the latest stable exim release is 4.71 and cpanel only still supports 4.69. When will cpanel support the newest version. I suspect cpanel won't support DKIM until then. But where are we?

DKIM is needed...strongly. We're a more than a year behind the other platforms.

Work is in progress, but I have no ETA for DKIM support yet.

[mykkal]

It is my understanding that given this information and status of Exim, we would also need to drop support of Yahoo DomainKeys in favor of switching to the new implementation of Exim's native support of DKIM.

Given the significant work I believe this request will require I am not sure how soon DKIM support can be implemented; the earliest version ETA I am aware of at this time may be in cPanel 11.26, but please be aware this is only a rough estimate and is subject to change (cannot be guaranteed) as it is too early to know with sufficient certainty.

I don't understand. Exim supports DKIM so why would Cpanel need too? If you want to build an interface to help manipulate that then great... But right now we are stuck at exim 4.69.... That's many revisions behind the current 4.72 version.

I think we've reached the point where cpanel needs to step up or begin to lose customers. I pay for this solution... COME ON.

[yayyo]

Appreciate all of that knowledge... However we just want to nudge cpanel to get DKIM support release as quickly as possible. lol... We've been begging since 2009.

Don't give them an excuse to make us wait til 2011

[sarcasm]Nudge? Do you mean line up all the Dev management against a wall with blindfolds on and... ?
Now they need an excuse to proceed at snail's pace? Well that's new! :P[/sarcasm]

cPanel: if we didn't laugh, we'd cry. (and stamp our feet and stuff). You have been warned!

Seriously I don't know what's up with cPanel Inc. right now, but it's not looking good to me Manpower shortage? in a recession? when good Dev's are probably two for a penny? Natch, it can't be that. I believe Smart Corp's are HIRING now for the rebound.

Short answer: +1 (again) for Exim latest and DKIM

Marty

C'mon people, if you want this, let cPanel know you do! Replying here with a simple +1 is all it takes.

[cPanelDavidG]

I don't understand. Exim supports DKIM so why would Cpanel need too? If you want to build an interface to help manipulate that then great... But right now we are stuck at exim 4.69.... That's many revisions behind the current 4.72 version.

As mentioned above, Exim 4.72 does not natively support DomainKeys. It was asked above if you would be willing to foresake DomainKeys functionality for expedited DKIM support. You have not stated that would be an acceptable solution. In fact, only one member of this thread so far has stated that would be acceptable.

We are working to maintain DomainKeys support in Exim 4.72 despite Exim 4.7x's lack of native support for it. This is not a trivial task to accomplish in a manner sufficiently reliable to meet our quality standards.

[yayyo]

Hi David,

(Did I ever mention that I once moderated at a 50,000+ member forum? No, I'm not volunteering )

You probably know that there is tendency for some people to read the first post in a thread and then hit the reply button without reading further. (On our forum software I removed the top reply button and only showed the one at the end of the last page - it helped a little )

May I suggest that you start a new Poll topic with the specific question, "Would you be willing to foresake DomainKeys functionality for expedited Exim upgrade and DKIM support?"

HTH,
Marty

p.s. for the record, Yes I would but because I run just one, mission critical, web/email server with a dozen of our own sites I have full authority to make that decision. I fully understand how hosting co's with hundreds or thousands of sites/customers may think differently.

[sawbuck]

May I suggest that you start a new Poll topic with the specific question, "Would you be willing to foresake DomainKeys functionality for expedited Exim upgrade and DKIM support?"

Good idea.

I'd vote to drop DomainKeys in favor of expedited (how would cPanel define expedited?) DKIM support.

[mykkal]

As mentioned above, Exim 4.72 does not natively support DomainKeys. It was asked above if you would be willing to foresake DomainKeys functionality for expedited DKIM support. You have not stated that would be an acceptable solution. In fact, only one member of this thread so far has stated that would be acceptable.

We are working to maintain DomainKeys support in Exim 4.72 despite Exim 4.7x's lack of native support for it. This is not a trivial task to accomplish in a manner sufficiently reliable to meet our quality standards.

Hey there... My apologies of course we would be OK with losing Domain keys because DKIM is the newest specification and the most standard.

we would like to keep it but if its going to cause us to be a many year behind the other mail authentications... no

Unfortunately when mailing in bulk the ISPs do not cut anyone slack. It's horrendous to be dubbed spam or get a bad reputation when your content is good. We have to have the basics...

DKIM is a basic and the thread views on this thread are huge... so there is large interest! Obviously we need more verbal support instead of lurkers to get CPANEL to jump on it