Email forwarding SFP fail. Definite solution?

[nunogato]

Hi Everyone.

We used to use email forwarding so that we could receive emails to @customdomain.com to be forwarded to, for example @gmail.com

The issue is that gmail always filters this emails as spam due to SFP fail. Google says that our server IP is not allowed to send emails on behalf of the original sender. This is correct as our server is not on the original sender SPF record.

Spent a lot of time here on the forum trying to find a solution. Many say to activate SRS but that's already active.

What's the REAL solution for this?

Thanks in advance!

 

[cPRex]

Hey there! Just to confirm, you have the SRS option enabled in WHM >> Exim Configuration Manager, correct? If so, that's all I would expect is necessary to resolve this issue. We have more details about how that tool helps with this exact problem:

https://support.cpanel.net/hc/en-us/articles/4402359283223-How-does-cPanel-s-SRS-Sender-Rewriting-Scheme-feature-work-

If that isn't working correctly, it might be best to create a ticket so we can confirm the SRS functions are adding the correct detail to the headers.

 

[sparek-3]

For Gmail - the better solution is to have all of the mail to all of your @yourdomain.com email addresses collected into a single mail account on yourdomain.com and then configure Gmail to POP that mail from your server.

Email forwarding - at least forwarding to another server - is a bad idea. It's always been a bad idea, it just didn't have a lot of meat behind it to explain why it was a bad idea. But now with a huge focus on SPF and negating email spoofing, the issues with forwarding mail off of the server is being portrayed as the bad idea it always was.

Band-aid solutions like SRS are just that, band-aids. Until people realize that "I used to do it this way" is a hurdle to advancing technologies and methodologies for fighting spam, then we're going to continue to have a spam problem.

Simply put - if remote email forwarding went completely away and every really understood SPF and set their SPF record accordingly - that would effectively rid the world of email spoofing and in turn A LOT of spam. But remote email forwarding limits the ability of mail server administrators to really reject SPF failed mails (well... I guess Gmail is doing it) and adoption of SPF is so misunderstood that mail server administrators are afraid to take a strict -all SPF failure as a reason for straight out rejection.

SPF was a great invention... until it was realized that nobody understood it completely and people were going to live and die with their email forwarders.

Of note - email forwarding within the same domain or even the same server is still fine, the messages never leave the server so there's no remote element. Forwarding off of the server - or to another remote mail server - is where the issues start.

 

[nunogato]

@cPRex Yes, SRS is active but issues still persist.

@sparek-3 This is what I suspected that had to do.

I just think that cpanel/whm should mention this on their guides, to avoid forward to outside as eve with the SRS mails may be marked as spam.

 

[cPRex]

We'd like to see a ticket on this if you could submit one.