Hotmail wants me to modify my SPF record

Solution 1:

In your case, the same string you're using minus the ptr should do the trick.

v=spf1 a mx ~all

Solution 2:

The first question you need to ask yourself is, "From how many domains am I sending email from?".

In this case, you are only sending email from one domain, namely monstermmorpg.com. The "@" in your screenshot refers to the ORIGIN, which is the domain that your zone file covers (presumably also monstermmorpg.com). The next question you ask is, "Do the A/MX/etc. records associated with the name that your TXT SPF record is pointing to point to the IP that sends mail?" For example, let's say your DNS zone looks like this...

$ORIGIN monstermmorpg.com.
 ... 
monstermmorpg.com. A      85.17.154.139       ; this points directly to an IP, and will be the final destination in the DNS lookup chain
www                CNAME  monstermmorpg.com.  ; www.monstermmorpg.com will look up the A/CNAME record for monstermmorpg.com
mail               MX     monstermmorpg.com.  ; mail.monstermmorpg.com points to and will look up monstermmorpg.com
@                  MX     monstermmorpg.com.  ; email looking for monstermmorpg.com will look up the A/CNAME record for monstermmorpg.com
@                  TXT    "v=spf1 a mx ptr ~all"

In this case, if 85.17.154.139 is the public IP for the server that sends mail, you can change your SPF record to this...

"v=spf1 a -all"

This means that it takes the A record that corresponds with the TXT record and checks to see if it matches the IP in the emails supposedly sent from your domain. If it's a match, awesome! It goes through. If it doesn't match, it means some spammer is masquerading as your domain, and it will be dropped. You don't need to put redundant A and MX references in the SPF record if there's only one server sending mail, and both records ultimately point to the same IP. Another (more efficient, because it doesn't require a DNS lookup) option is as follows...

"v=spf1 ip4:85.17.154.139 -all"

If your mail server IP rarely changes, this may be a good solution. It's also much easier to understand from your (the admin's) perspective.

The hard -all is preferred over the soft ~all because some mail servers like to be 100% certain that the mail is really coming from you.

Solution 3:

if you're not familiar with creating spf records i'd recommend a tool that does it for you based on a series of questions. for example, http://unlocktheinbox.com/spfwizard.aspx