Forum Email Fixed

[ad4mg]

The email server for the site stopped working somewhere around early April. The credentials on the SMTP server that we were pointing to had expired, and it was one of Jeff's accounts. I thought it would be a simple matter of switching back to the internal php mailer, but that also failed.

I asked Michael (KD8TUT) for assistance, but I couldn't get him access to the administrator control panel. My ability to edit staff (administrator/moderator) permissions was borked as well. Not wanting to make matters any worse, and because the both of us have been busy, we proceeded slowly. I pondered that it may have been caused by a configuration file that was replaced by a default version when we re-installed vBulletin during the migration. Michael made the necessary edits to this file, and we were back on track... he now had access to the control panel!

So, the site email seems to be working well again! Michael has us set up to use the gold standard of Linux mailers, "sendmail". Simple and fast, sendmail just works. So, the list of email functions that were previously affected are:

* member to member email (when the recipient allows it)
* site registration notifications to the staff
* the "Contact us" link
* The "Happy Birthday" emails sent by the board
* reported post notifications to the staff
* notifications to new members that their registration is complete
* notifications to new applicants that they were not approved (invalid email, username issues, etc)
* email confirmation messages to registered members who changed their email address listed here

Regarding member to member emails... you can initiate an email to another member through the board by clicking their user name and clicking "send email". If that member has chosen to not receive emails in this manner, you will not see this link. Be aware that your email listed with the site will be sent to the recipient.

Microsoft email accounts (hotmail, msn, etc) are probably not going to allow you to receive emails sent from the forum. This will be addressed soon. Microsoft is anal about this because they have never figured out how to control SPAM like, for example, Gmail has.

Thanks to Michael for the repair job! He will remain an Administrator to allow him access to the control panel for reasons just like this, so we also officially welcome Michael to the staff!

Please note any issues encountered with the forum's email feature here. I'll make this thread 'sticky' for a while.

Thanks!
Luke

[KG4CGC]

Who's Michael?

[ad4mg]

Who's Michael?

KD8TUT, our server genius and administrator. He's not interested in moderating, but requires access to the Administrator control panel to fix stuff that I'm too stupid to fix...

[KD8TUT]

KD8TUT, our server genius and administrator. He's not interested in moderating, but requires access to the Administrator control panel to fix stuff that I'm too stupid to fix...

Better drop that genius stuff. When I screw up you guys will be calling me "remember that admin we used to have who we thought was a genius?".

And it will happen.... (me screwing up)

[VE7DCW]

Who's Michael?

He's one of those 8 land hams ....... a little bit better than those 6 lander's but whatever you do,don't mention the war to him! I did it,but I think I got away with it!

[KD8TUT]

He's one of those 8 land hams ....... a little bit better than those 6 lander's but whatever you do,don't mention the war to him! I did it,but I think I got away with it!

[KD8TUT]

So, the site email seems to be working well again! Michael has us set up to use the gold standard of Linux mailers, "sendmail". Simple and fast, sendmail just works. So, the list of email functions that were previously affected are:

Um... err.... well there's some disagreement about that among admins.

Sendmail is not fast (but it's not slow).... it's not simple (but it's very powerful).... It just works (assuming you understand it's language)

The other competitors in open source SMTP servers are qmail and postfix. Qmail is fast and a pain in the ass. Postfix is slow (relatively) and easy to work with.

But sendmail can be secured against spam and viruses very well.... scanning for their presence on the fly (these features cost nothing). And since sendmail is *everywhere* almost all the outboard software you would use can talk to it.

So in a sense it is a "gold standard". It's been around since 1993. And more importantly... it can be configured into a pretzel if needed.

[ad4mg]

I've used sendmail to handle email from JNOS BBS systems to/from the internet back 'in the day'. I don't recall that it was particularly user friendly, but if you could get a JNOS BBS going, sendmail was a piece of cake!

I used to be one of the sysops for an emergency communication system for 12 hospitals. Voice and data... the latter via JNOS running on Slackware Linux. I still have all of the configuration files somewhere, but I doubt that I'd remember half of the stuff I used to know so well!

Um... err.... well there's some disagreement about that among admins.

Sendmail is not fast (but it's not slow).... it's not simple (but it's very powerful).... It just works (assuming you understand it's language)

The other competitors in open source SMTP servers are qmail and postfix. Qmail is fast and a pain in the ass. Postfix is slow (relatively) and easy to work with.

But sendmail can be secured against spam and viruses very well.... scanning for their presence on the fly (these features cost nothing). And since sendmail is *everywhere* almost all the outboard software you would use can talk to it.

So in a sense it is a "gold standard". It's been around since 1993. And more importantly... it can be configured into a pretzel if needed.

[KD8TUT]

I've used sendmail to handle email from JNOS BBS systems to/from the internet back 'in the day'. I don't recall that it was particularly user friendly, but if you could get a JNOS BBS going, sendmail was a piece of cake!

I used to be one of the sysops for an emergency communication system for 12 hospitals. Voice and data... the latter via JNOS running on Slackware Linux. I still have all of the configuration files somewhere, but I doubt that I'd remember half of the stuff I used to know so well!

Well the beauty in it for this situation is that Vbull expects to see sendmail. So in a sense it gets plug and play- at least in making the connection between the two.

The tricky bits that confuzzle new admins are all the little bits that go into being able to move mail out onto the internet successfully. Sendmail can be a bit arcane in that that department (and that's not taking into account all the RFC breaking changes in the "generally acceptable practices" now used on mail systems). There's the whole m4 language and sendmail.cf file which needs to be handled "just so". Then there's the milter interface for processing mail outside of sendmail (spam/virus checking) and the whole procmail delivery system.

But the big issue... are attacks against mail servers...

So when I config them I tie the whole works into fail2ban, DNSBL, and spamassassin. If you attack, port scan, spam, or have a history of spamming- poof... you cannot even connect to the server.

It requires a good bit of log parsing.

No idea why I wrote that much. I'm in the zone.

[KJ3N]

The other competitors in open source SMTP servers are qmail and postfix. Qmail is fast and a pain in the ass. Postfix is slow (relatively) and easy to work with.

Qmail is still around? I haven't used it since the mid 90s.

Briefly (well more like 3-4 years) had a free dyndns account and ran my own email server. For an idiot (barely understood Linux back then), I don't remember it being that hard to set up. Then again, that was 20 years ago and things have probably changed.