Verifying domains in Amazon SES for sending emails

Amazon Simple Email Service (SES) requires that you verify your domain, to confirm that you own it and to prevent others from using your domain. When you verify an entire domain, you are verifying all email addresses from that domain, so you don't need to verify email addresses from that domain individually. For example, if you verify the domain vannstudios.com, you can send email from user1@vannstudios.com, user2@vannstudios.com, or any other user at vannstudios.com.

Amazon SES Dashboard 

After verification we can manage each domains by using the Amazon SES console or the Amazon SES API. Before we start we will see what are the DNS records we need to update for our domain. 

Domain covered in this tutorial

1. NeamCheap
2. BigRock
3. Godaddy

What is a CNAME record?

CNAME stands for Canonical Name. CNAME records can be used to alias one name to another. For example, if we have a server where we keep all of our photos online, it might normally be accessed through images.example.com. You may also access it through photos.example.com. One way to make this possible is to add a CNAME record that points images.example.com to photos.example.com. When someone visits images.example.com they will see the exact same content as photos.example.com.

What is a TXT record?

A TXT records hold free form text of any type. A fully qualified domain name may have many TXT records. The most common uses for TXT records are Sender Policy Framework (SPF), DomainKeys (DK), and DomainKeys Identified E-mail (DKIM). TXT records historically have also been used to contain human readable information about a server, network, data center, and other accounting information.

What is an MX record?

Mail Exchange (MX) records are DNS records that are necessary for delivering email to your address. In simple DNS terms, an MX record is used to tell the world which mail servers accept incoming mail for your domain and where emails sent to your domain should be routed to. If your MX records are not pointed to the correct location, you will not receive email.

Steps to verify domains in Neamcheap for Amazon SES

1. Login to Amazon AWS Console

2. Search for Simple Email Serivce (SES) in AWS services

3. Click on section Domain and add the domain to verify.

4. Download Record Set TXT and DKIM as CSV

5. Sign in to Neamecheap and Go to Advanced DNS Management

6. Add TXT and CNAME records downloaded from Amazon AWS Console

Sample Code

Host Name            IP Address/URL              Record Type     TTL
name1._domainkey     value1.dkim.amazonses.com.  CNAME (Alias)   1800
name2._domainkey     value2.dkim.amazonses.com.  CNAME (Alias)   1800
name3._domainkey     value3.dkim.amazonses.com.  CNAME (Alias)   1800
_amazonses           someDomainRecordSet         TXT Record      1800

Instead of name1._domainkey.test.com we changed it to name1._domainkey. There is no need for the domain test.com at the end of the line.

Also we removed test.com from _amazonses.test.com as namecheap's dns will append it upon save.

To verify MX Records, add Custom MX records

Host 	Value    		     Record Type    Priority       TTL
@ 	smtp.secureserver.net        MX Record      0		   1/2 Hour
@	mailstore1.secureserver.net  MX Record      10		   1/2 Hour

Steps to verify domains in Godaddy for Amazon SES

1. Login to Amazon AWS Console

2. Search for Simple Email Serivce (SES) in AWS services

3. Click on section Domain and add the domain to verify.

4. Download Record Set TXT and DKIM as CSV

5. Login to Godaddy and Go to Domains DNS Management

6. Add TXT and CNAME records downloaded from Amazon AWS Console

Sample Code

Host                Points to                  Record Type     TTL
name1._domainkey    value1.dkim.amazonses.com  CNAME (Alias)   7200
name2._domainkey    value2.dkim.amazonses.com  CNAME (Alias)   7200
name3._domainkey    value3.dkim.amazonses.com  CNAME (Alias)   7200
_amazonses          someDomainRecordSet        TXT Record      7200

 To verify MX Records

Host 	Points to                    Record Type    Priority       TTL
@ 	smtp.secureserver.net        MX Record      0		   1/2 Hour
@	mailstore1.secureserver.net  MX Record      10		   1/2 Hour

Steps to verify domains in BigRock for Amazon SES

1. Login to Amazon AWS Console

2. Search for Simple Email Serivce (SES) in AWS services

3. Click on section Domain and add the domain to verify.

4. Download Record Set TXT and DKIM as CSV

5. Login to BigRock and Go to section DNS Management

6. Add TXT and CNAME records downloaded from Amazon AWS Console

Sample Code

Host Name            Value                      Record Type     TTL
name1._domainkey     value1.dkim.amazonses.com  CNAME (Alias)   7200
name2._domainkey     value2.dkim.amazonses.com  CNAME (Alias)   7200
name3._domainkey     value3.dkim.amazonses.com  CNAME (Alias)   7200
_amazonses           someDomainRecordSet        TXT Record      7200

Hope this tutorial helped you. Cheers!.