E-mail Authentication (DKIM) - Google Apps Setup

If you use Google Apps for your business e-mail, you should consider setting up e-mail authentication (DKIM).  Many major ISPs use this form of authentication to help determine if your message is really coming from your organization, improving your chances of delivery.

If you're familiar with the Google Apps admin interface, this should be fairly easy to setup.  It's not always obvious where to find these settings, so I've created a step-by-step outline of what to do.

How DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM) works:

Your outgoing mail server uses a private key to generate a digital signature and embeds that signature in your message.  The recipient's mail server grabs the public key from DNS and uses that public key to verify your signature.

Step 1:

Login to your Google apps admin console and click on the Google Apps icon.

Step 2:

Select Gmail.

Step 3:

Select Authenticate email.

Step 4:

Under Authenticate email, select the domain you want to authenticate.  The current status next to the domain will be Not authenticating email.

Click on the Generate new record link.

Step 5:

In the pop-up box, the Prefix selector will default to the word Google.  You can use any prefix, but leaving the default is fine.

Click the Generate button.

Step 6:

Copy the key.

Step 7:

Create a new TXT record for your domain.  In this example, we're creating a new TXT record for Google._domainkey.hedgehoghosting.net

If you don't manage your own DNS, ask your provider to create a TXT record for the hostname Google._domainkey using the key you just generated.

Step 8:

After your TXT record has been created, click on the Start authentication button.  You should now see Status: Authenticating Email next to your domain name.

That's it.  Your e-mails will now have a digital signature that all DKIM enabled mail servers can use to authenticate your message.