SPF TXT records

Hi - I am trying to understand how to create an spf txt record. I am using the wizard as per the article on the support site. Can anyone just confirm the following please?

Regarding Outbound email:


1. Are the only servers/IP addresses that send outbound email the ones listed in the article 'Outbound email IP addresses' article?

2. Can I also confirm are smtp.mydomainname.com and sm12.internetmailserver.net (this appears on my default MX record as my mail server) only used for inbound email, can they be used for outbound email? i.e. do they need adding to the txt record?
3. This is the SPF record I have created so far. Does this look OK (this is basically the list of outbound mail servers)?

v=spf1 ip4:216.32.60.10 ip4:216.32.60.11 ip4:216.32.60.20 ip4:64.209.134.6 ip4:64.209.135.7 ip4:64.79.170.124 ip4:64.79.170.125 ip4:64.79.170.150 ip4:64.79.170.151 ip4:64.79.170.152 ip4:89.187.101.80 ~all

Cheers Mark

 

Well...as the KB article says, "This list is subject to change," so we usually don't recommend using IPs. But you are issuing a "soft fail" (~all) so it shouldn't cause too much of a problem. With a soft fail you may have some of your mail flagged as spam, but at least it won't (shouldn't) bounce if the IP list in your SPF record becomes out of date.

As you may have gathered, SPF is a complicated issue, so we try to stay away from giving much in the way of specific advice or instruction. It's easy to really screw up your mail with SPF, and you'd be surprised at the large companies that have done it in the past.