spf records for google apps

Yes, that spf record should be correct.

Another thing to do, is log into your google app panel, and go into Advanced Tools and turn on DKIM authentication. Generate a key and add that to the TXT records in the DNS manager. This will authenticate that it's coming from your domain. I have both the SPF and DKIM records set up, and my sent mail never hits a spam or junk mail folder.

Thanks for the tip. The spf is now working.

I just set up the DKIM, but when I put this name in the linode manager, for the TXT record (google._domainkey), it gave me an error?

So, I just left the name blank, pasted the key as new TXT record and click to verify in Google Apps adv settings area, said not authenticating but may take 48 hours.

Is this all normal? If the TTL on that record is 15 min should it usually verify after 15 min?

Thanks again.

Usually about 15-30 minutes and you can hit the Start Authenticating button and it will work. If you entered the name of the text record exactly as "google._domainkey" (without quotes, of course), it should not give an error, I would try again to edit that record and add the name.

Thanks for clarifying that. I reloaded the page and when back and forth and now it's saving. It's still saying it needs more time to propagate after 5min TTL, but it's saving, so that's better.

Opps was trying to verify an alias, that's probably why …