# Bulk MTA-STS & TLS-RPT Checker (`bene123/email-transport-security-auditor`) Actor

Audit up to 1,000 public domains for MTA-STS policy reachability, MX coverage, TLS-RPT, DMARC enforcement, SPF record count, MX, and BIMI readiness.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/bene123/email-transport-security-auditor.md
- **Developed by:** [Ben E](https://apify.com/bene123) (community)
- **Categories:** Developer tools, Automation, Business
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $2.00 / 1,000 email transport-security audits

This Actor is paid per event and usage. You are charged both the fixed price for specific events and for Apify platform usage.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are web data automations that power AI and operations. They run on the Apify platform to scrape websites, process data, connect APIs, and automate workflows.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

- **AI agents and MCP clients** — the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp.md) at `https://mcp.apify.com` (remote, streamable HTTP, OAuth on first use).
- **Agentic workflows and local Actor development** — [Agent Skills](https://apify.com/.well-known/agent-skills/index.json) with the [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md): `npm install -g apify-cli`, then `apify login`.
- **JavaScript/TypeScript projects** — the official [JS/TS client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md): `npm install apify-client`.
- **Python projects** — the official [Python client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md): `pip install apify-client`.
- **Any other language** — the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).

# README

## Email Transport Security Auditor

Bulk-check public domains for the email transport and authentication records that are easy to misconfigure across a client portfolio:

- MX inventory
- SPF record count
- DMARC policy and enforcement posture
- MTA-STS discovery TXT record
- pinned HTTPS retrieval of `/.well-known/mta-sts.txt`
- MTA-STS version, mode, `max_age`, MX patterns, and live MX coverage
- SMTP TLS reporting (`TLS-RPT`) version and aggregate report destinations
- optional default-selector BIMI record and DMARC enforcement prerequisites

The Actor writes one deterministic dataset row per unique valid domain and a run summary to `OUTPUT`.

### Why this Actor

MTA-STS uses both DNS and a fixed HTTPS policy endpoint. A record can exist while its policy is unreachable, malformed, served with the wrong content type, left in testing mode, or missing a live MX host. TLS-RPT is a separate DNS policy. This Actor checks those pieces together without asking for DNS credentials, mailbox access, private reports, or account data.

### Input

```json
{
  "domains": ["gmail.com", "yahoo.com"],
  "maxDomains": 100,
  "fetchTimeoutSecs": 15,
  "includeBimi": true
}
```

Enter domain names only. URLs, email addresses, IP addresses, and private hostnames are rejected. Duplicate domains are audited once. Malformed inputs are reported in `OUTPUT` and are not charged as domain audits.

### Output

Each row includes stable issue codes, error/warning counts, MX hosts, MTA-STS record and policy fields, uncovered MX hosts, TLS report destinations, DMARC posture, SPF record count, BIMI URLs, and audit time.

Useful issue codes include:

- `MTA_STS_NOT_CONFIGURED`
- `MTA_STS_POLICY_UNREACHABLE`
- `MTA_STS_POLICY_HTTP_STATUS`
- `MTA_STS_POLICY_MX_NOT_COVERED`
- `MTA_STS_TESTING_MODE`
- `TLS_RPT_NOT_CONFIGURED`
- `TLS_RPT_INVALID_RECORD`
- `DMARC_NOT_FOUND`
- `DMARC_MULTIPLE_RECORDS`
- `SPF_MULTIPLE_RECORDS`
- `BIMI_DMARC_NOT_ENFORCED`

### Pricing

Pay per event:

- `$0.00005` per Actor start
- `$0.002` per unique valid domain audit (`$2 per 1,000 domains`)

### Standards and boundaries

- [RFC 8461 — SMTP MTA Strict Transport Security](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8461)
- [RFC 8460 — SMTP TLS Reporting](https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc8460)
- [BIMI Group implementation guide](https://bimigroup.org/implementation-guide/)

This is a public DNS and fixed-endpoint technical preflight, not a security certification, deliverability guarantee, mailbox-provider logo guarantee, legal review, or substitute for controlled rollout and monitoring. DKIM is not tested because selectors are not discoverable reliably without user input. BIMI logo and certificate files are not downloaded.

### Network safety

The Actor never fetches a user-supplied URL. It constructs only the RFC-defined `https://mta-sts.<domain>/.well-known/mta-sts.txt` endpoint, resolves it first, rejects private/reserved addresses, pins the public IP for the TLS request, validates the hostname certificate, rejects redirects, limits responses to 100 KB, and never returns secrets.

# Actor input Schema

## `domains` (type: `array`):

Public domain names to audit, one item per domain. Do not enter URLs, email addresses, IP addresses, credentials, or private hostnames.

## `maxDomains` (type: `integer`):

Maximum unique valid domains to audit in this run.

## `fetchTimeoutSecs` (type: `integer`):

Seconds to wait for each fixed mta-sts.domain policy endpoint.

## `includeBimi` (type: `boolean`):

Check the default BIMI selector and DMARC enforcement prerequisites. Logo and certificate files are not downloaded.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "domains": [
    "gmail.com"
  ],
  "maxDomains": 100,
  "fetchTimeoutSecs": 15,
  "includeBimi": true
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

One deterministic result per unique valid public domain.

## `summary` (type: `string`):

Pass, warning, error, invalid-input, and issue-code counts.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("bene123/email-transport-security-auditor").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = {}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("bene123/email-transport-security-auditor").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print("💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/" + run["defaultDatasetId"])
for item in client.dataset(run["defaultDatasetId"]).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{}' |
apify call bene123/email-transport-security-auditor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=bene123/email-transport-security-auditor",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/zJ2yTS6rghCbHJ81U/builds/xmX0B64VkYQp6gCww/openapi.json