DKIM, SPF, SpamAssassin Email Validator | Hacker News Reader

DKIM, SPF, SpamAssassin Email Validator

dkimvalidator.com

61 pointsmooreds18 comments

Really horrible UX.

You send a mail to an address - and then need to click "View Results". This sends you to "https://dkimvalidator.com/results" with a message of "I haven't received an email recently to....".

They do catch Ctrl-F5 keypress for reload. But if you just go to the URL bar and press enter you are returned to the front page with a new ID. You can paste the old address and then get the results but not a nice experience.

So. Nice domain name and points for effort. But a far cry away from https://www.learndmarc.com/ and the old dog https://www.mail-tester.com/ which both are really great. Less battery included but MxToolbox Supertool is still preferable to this (https://mxtoolbox.com/SuperTool.aspx).

Even shivdeepaks weekend project (https://dmarcverified.com) is more straight-forward and to the point.

So not to be a party pooper but as this was not a "Show HN" this is not really worth your time.

Personally I have been using https://www.appmaildev.com/en/dkim most frequently as it allows direct input rather than sending mail which is often more convenient (ex: I am looking at a failing message).

My only complaint is that for direct input it will say passed if any DKIM signature is valid, instead of reporting each. This often results in an AWS SES signature hiding the result of the one for the correct domain.

I built something similar a few months back.

link -- https://dmarcverified.com

TBH. Not very difficult to build. I am pretty much piggybacking on AWS SES's ability to provide results of all the checks for a received email.

What I found is, it really hard to make a someone send you legit emails for spam check. Usually people send one email with a sample subject line.

What I instead see is - more spam. It essentially became a honeypot. :)

https://www.learndmarc.com/ is very similar but it's a bit easier to read and interpret.

I am seeing a trend here. Does everyone have a pet project like this? :)

Oh, this is fabulous!

I used these tools in the past:

https://mxtoolbox.com/

https://www.mail-tester.com/

  0.0 RCVD_IN_ZEN_BLOCKED_OPENDNS RBL: ADMINISTRATOR NOTICE: The query to zen.spamhaus.org
                                                             was blocked due to usage of an
                                                             open resolver. ...

FYI: you'll need to run your own local resolver if you want to perform DNSBL queries with Spamhaus. Unbound (https://nlnetlabs.nl/) is an excellent and easy-to-configure choice for solving this problem.

Even running your own local resolver, if you generate enough traffic they'll still block you. I think their definition of open relay is based on traffic volume.

(which is their right, of course - just a warning that might help someone not find this out at 4am like I did)

Yes, because Spamhaus is a commercial enterprise. My own experience with their "free tier" limit is that it's generous and sufficient for personal use.

Oh sure, and their service is great and very much worth paying for.

Looks similar to https://www.mail-tester.com/ which I've been using for many years as an email self-hoster to make sure I'm 10/10.

Still can't email my mom though because charter is still blocking the entire IP block that my email server VM lives on.

Yes.

Self-hosted email is basically a thing of the past, because you can't do anything about IP-based blacklists, and they are in widespread use.

This also rather implies that all these mechanisms which are available to hosters, DMARC and SPF and what-not, are not actually adequate.

I used to self-host, and I still host my own POP, but I now pay 5 USD a month for a commercial SMTP account, just to use their SMTP server to send email, so that I can send from their IP rather than mine.

> "Self-hosted email is basically a thing of the past, because you can't do anything about IP-based blacklists ..."

It's certainly a hassle when using some of the large providers who don't care to keep tidy premises, but absolutely neither impossible nor a thing of the past.

Does this mean you self-host your MX, but use a different host for relaying your email to the outside?

Yes.

I posted this link too.

"entire IP block that my email server VM lives on."

Try emailing an email from t-online.de good luck!

https://discourse.mailinabox.email/t/rejected-by-german-isp/...

I had a similar idea few months ago....didn't know so many people have the very same idea :)

Can you guys share a few examples so I can see how mail results look like?

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