[Techtalk] spf records stuff

[Maria McKinley]

Hey there,

On this page there are several spf tests:

http://www.kitterman.com/spf/validate.html?

If I do the first test, I get an SPF record:

Input accepted, querying now...

SPF records are primarily published in DNS as TXT records. The TXT 
records found for your domain are:

'v=spf1 ip4:128.208.108.0/25 ip4:140.142.32.135 ip4:140.142.33.4 
ip4:140.142.32.166 ip4:140.142.32.178 ip4:140.142.32.134 ip4:1


SPF records should also be published in DNS as type SPF records. This is 
new and most implementations do not support it yet.
No type SPF records found.

Checking to see if there is a valid SPF record.

No valid SPF record found of either type TXT or type SPF.

I know I don't have type SPF record, but I think that shouldn't matter. 
But if I do the Test an SPF record on the bottom of the page, using my 
mail server ip, I get:

Results - none

And it appears the I don't have an SPF record is the norm:

ella] rejected a message that claimed an envelope sender address of 
peterm at shadlen.org.

ella] received a message from m0d0e36d0.tmodns.net (208.54.14.13) that 
claimed an envelope sender address of peterm at shadlen.org.

The domain shadlen.org has not published an SPF policy. It is possible 
that the receiving mail server refuses all mail from domains that do not 
have an SPF policy.

My question is, why aren't many servers (including apparently my own - 
ella!) not seeing my SPF policy. I have two domain servers, and they 
both have SPF records. I can't imagine all of these servers are looking 
for type SPF records, or are most places now using them? I have tested 
my SPF records, and they are valid. I don't mind setting up type SPF as 
well as type TXT, and will, but I don't believe this will solve my 
problem, and it is not clear to me how the syntax for the type SPF is 
different (is it?) from the type TXT. Can I just re-write the same line, 
except with SPF where TXT was?

any insight?

thanks,
maria