New Server Coming Soon

[Xepher]

Psychobob: Yeah, that's often a problem. I've patched together a bunch of different packages -- forum here, webmail there, some custom scripts, etc. -- and people often assume they're all connected or related. I need to do something about that in the future, but I'm not sure what exactly. I don't really want to write my own webmail client from scratch.

[psychobob]

well I finally got xepher mail rerouted to my yahoo one so hopefully its ok

[Silverfoxr]

had to sign up again to let ya know i am alive
my xepher mail is clogged with spam  its impossible to get it to redirect at the moment
but my current email is working fine

[Databits]

man, spam??

Yeah Xeph, about your question on a mail server, I'm finding that Exim4 is friggin hot.

[Xepher]

Really? I'll have to look into Exim again. I haven't gotten to mess with the new server for over a week now. Real life is hectic at the moment. I've spent both saturday and sunday working until 9pm this weekend. Oi! Good news is that the hard drive that failed its self test on the old server is now passing it again. Looks like it may have been a transient error.

[Databits]

Yeah the only issue I'm having is sending out to Hotmail. AOL, Yahoo, Gmail... all receive fine from my mail server... but NOT Hotmail. They just silently drop it. It never gets to the destination inbox, and your server never gets a delivery failure warning.

It has something to do with extra configs I have yet to look into or set up, but as a heads up it's detailed here (from when I contacted MSN tech support): http://postmaster.msn.com/Troubleshooting.aspx

It doesn't matter what mail server you set up, if it doesn't follow those guidelines your mail will not get into Hotmail, MSN, or Windows Live email accounts... and you'll never know cause you'll never get a response. :-(

[Xepher]

Well, thing is, xepher.net does meet all of those guidelines. I have reverse DNS, SPF, etc. It's a real IP, and I can connect/send to hotmail. I've only had occasional problems with hotmail, lots of people here use them, and they usually get through. Gmail on the other hand auto-marks it as spam until the user puts a xepher.net email in their contacts. Weird.

[sabao]

I think I may have deleted my confirmation email along with the 3452 spam messages I received on my neglected Squirrelmail account. For some reason, the spam filter labels spam messages as such, but doesn't move them to the spam folder like I had set them to.

For the record, the account sabao is still somewhat active. Same goes for Yanilyn, since I manage her site.

[Databits]

>.<

[Xepher]

Well, first off, no confirmation emails have been sent out yet, so you haven't missed it. Also, squirrelmail is somewhat, shall we say, "buggy." If you want automatic spam filtering, login to your account settings at https://xepher.net/index.php?page=account and use the email settings there to filter spam to another folder or just have it deleted. Please note, the settings there (and the filtering system they control) are COMPLETELY independent of squirrelmail. Those control/filter email for your whole account, whether or not you use squirrelmail, outlook express, thunderbird, etc. Squirrelmail functions simply as an email client (the same as outlook or thunderbird would) and thus, handles stuff after the mailsystem itself has processed/delivered it.

Looking at the system settings for your account, you have it set to filter spam (spam control = "on") and have it set to put spam in a folder (spam fate = "move to folder...") but you've left the "Spam Folder:" setting blank, so it defaults back to your inbox. If you put a folder name it there, it will dump the spam in that folder. Alternately, you can set "spam fate" to "delete" and it will just trash it all for you.

I hope that helps clarify things a bit.

[fesworks]

is there an approximate time of arrival for the new server?

[Xepher]

Well, I'm moving to a new apartment about the last week of may, and I promised everyone at least two weeks notice... And even though I think I'm just about ready, two weeks from now would put me too close to my move (where I may be without net access for a few days.) So I'm thinking it may be better to do after my move, to make sure I'll have internet running at my new place, as well as give people plenty of notice. Right now, I need to create an account confirmation script/page/email system to let people verify their accounts. I also need to figure a few more details of the email system. To be tentative, I hope to be sending confirmation emails at the end of this week or so, and aiming for the first week of june for the switch. I've got to confirm it with the datacenter, but I think I can get the move accomplished with near-zero downtime. It requires that the data center have room to keep both boxes online for a week or so while stuff transitions over. They're pretty crowded right now, so I've got to hear back from them first. Keep your fingers crossed. If it works out, there should be only a few hours of downtime (read-only mode) rather than days.

[fesworks]

Sounds good I'm moving at the end of May too... but that's a whole 'nother story

[griever]

That's awesome, Xepher!  I'll keep an eye out for that email..I have gmail and sometimes, legit emails get shoved into the spam folder.  I hope the datacenter lets you do that because that would be so much better.

[Databits]

I still can't fathom how you afford this!

Man... servers are expensive, and having a server, even your own, in any data center is pretty damn expensive. I'm not sure how you do it, but damn I'd love to know!