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Publish a DMARC record

Add a DMARC TXT record to your domain so receiving servers know what to do with mail that fails SPF and DKIM, and so you get reports about it.

Publish a DMARC record for your domain. Applies to any domain with DNS managed in cPanel.

DMARC builds on SPF and DKIM. Those two say whether a message is authentic; DMARC tells receiving servers what to do when it is not, and asks them to report back.

Before you begin

DMARC does nothing without SPF and DKIM in place first — a DMARC record on a domain with no SPF will start failing your own legitimate mail.

Check both show as valid under cPanel → Email Deliverability before continuing.

Add the record

  1. In cPanel, open Zone Editor under Domains.

  2. Select Manage beside your domain.

  3. Add a record:

    FieldValue
    TypeTXT
    Name_dmarc
    TTL3600
    Valuesee below
  4. Select Add Record.

Choose a policy

Start permissive and tighten later. A strict policy published before you know what is sending on your behalf will silently reject your own mail.

Start here — monitor only, changes nothing about delivery:

v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:dmarc@example.com

Then, once reports show only legitimate sources failing:

v=DMARC1; p=quarantine; pct=100; rua=mailto:dmarc@example.com

Finally, when you are confident:

v=DMARC1; p=reject; pct=100; rua=mailto:dmarc@example.com
TagMeaning
p=noneTake no action, just report
p=quarantineDeliver failures to spam
p=rejectRefuse failures outright
rua=Where aggregate reports are sent
pct=Percentage of mail the policy applies to

Do not start at p=reject. Marketing platforms, invoicing systems, CRMs and helpdesks commonly send as your domain. Any that are not covered by your SPF and DKIM will stop being delivered the moment you publish it — with no bounce you will see.

Check it worked

dig +short TXT _dmarc.example.com

Your record should come back. DNS changes take up to an hour to propagate.

You can also confirm it under cPanel → Email Deliverability, which validates SPF, DKIM and DMARC together.

Reading the reports

The address in rua= receives daily XML reports from receiving providers. They are not readable by hand — paste one into any free DMARC report analyser, or use a monitoring service.

You are looking for sources that are sending as your domain and failing. Each is either something legitimate you need to add to SPF, or someone spoofing you.

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