The best new features of Plesk 12 isn't really a thing :(

[AndorA]

One of the most promising new features of Plesk 12 (or rather, a long overdue bug fix...) appears not exist after all. The release notes of Plesk 12 announce:

Now mail service at each domain can be disabled, thus making it possible to use an external mail service such as Gmail.

Well, that is simply not true in version 12.0.18. At least not when you are using SmarterMail with Plesk (not sure how Plesk behaves around other mail servers).

If in Plesk 12.0.18 you create a domain based on a Service Plan that does not include mail, a mail domain is STILL generated and set active on the mail server. Like in earlier versions of Plesk, if you deselect the option "Switch on the mail service" in your Service Plan, all Plesk does is leave out the controls to manage the domain, incidentally preventing you from disabling the mail that shoudn't have been enabled in the first place. But the mail service WILL BE switched on. So for domains that use an external mailserver, with Plesk 12 you STILL need to log directly into the mailserver to remove the domains that Plesk stealthly created against your wishes. If you don't do that, people using a mail domain on your server will not be able to send mail to people with a Plesk domain on your server who use an external server/service for mail. These mails will be "delivered" locally by the mail server, effectively sending them to oblivion.

It's a bit disappointing; not having to go back and forth to SmarterMail was my biggest reason to upgrade, now it turns out this new feature/bug fix doesn't actually exist

 

[MisterU]

One of the most promising new features of Plesk 12 (or rather, a long overdue bug fix...) appears not exist after all. The release notes of Plesk 12 announce:

Now mail service at each domain can be disabled, thus making it possible to use an external mail service such as Gmail.

Well, that is simply not true in version 12.0.18. At least not when you are using SmarterMail with Plesk (not sure how Plesk behaves around other mail servers).

If in Plesk 12.0.18 you create a domain based on a Service Plan that does not include mail, a mail domain is STILL generated and set active on the mail server. Like in earlier versions of Plesk, if you deselect the option "Switch on the mail service" in your Service Plan, all Plesk does is leave out the controls to manage the domain, incidentally preventing you from disabling the mail that shoudn't have been enabled in the first place. But the mail service WILL BE switched on. So for domains that use an external mailserver, with Plesk 12 you STILL need to log directly into the mailserver to remove the domains that Plesk stealthly created against your wishes. If you don't do that, people using a mail domain on your server will not be able to send mail to people with a Plesk domain on your server who use an external server/service for mail. These mails will be "delivered" locally by the mail server, effectively sending them to oblivion.

It's a bit disappointing; not having to go back and forth to SmarterMail was my biggest reason to upgrade, now it turns out this new feature/bug fix doesn't actually exist

1. Plesk 12.0.18 + SmarterMail12
2. Create service plan with disabled mail service
3. Created customer with subscription based on the service plan
4. Checked SmarterMail

Actual result:

Domain is created in disabled state and renamed.

Could you provide us with more details to understand how you got problem?

 

[AndorA]

Hey Sergey,

Thanks for your response! Last night I actually restarted my server configuration (wasn't related to this but to getting ColdFusion to play nicely with Plesk). Based on your answer I tried it again with the new install, and it was working indeed! Now the big question is of what is different from what I've done with the install in the weekend. I'm not sure really. I did install a newer version of SmarterMail 12 (build 12.2.5269), but I doubt that would make the different as the version I used before was just one or two builds before this one. Other than that I couldn't really explain it.

But I'm very glad it's working... it was indeed one of the big improvements I hoped for in Plesk 12, and now it's working also on my machine. Will try with some different Service Plans when I'm ready with the complete configuration (my guess is there is some option in the plans that conflicts or something), and will take care to check if the problem occurs again. If so, I can hopefully say something more sensible about it. But for now you just left me happy

Tnx,
Andor

 

[AndorA]

Sergey, I think found it! Luckily... almost started to doubt myself. But also unfortunately, since I still need to go and delete a lot of domains in SmarterMail manually now...

If you create domains using the CLI, mail accounts will not be disabled automatically when you select a service plan that does not include mail. If you create a subscription using the same service plan, but through the web interface, the mail domain is automatically disabled. That explains why my little test today worked all of a sudden - I used the web interface, as I assume you did.

So it's a bug in the CLI I guess. Not sure how that works though, as I was under the impression that the web interface basically calls the CLI to perform operations?

I tried to bulk reset the domains created using the CLI by first enabling mail in the service plan, synch it with the subscriptions, then disabling mail again in the service plan, and synch again, but that doesn't work. The domains only get disabled in SmarterMail on creating of a new subscription, and only through the web interface. For every other scenario (CLI, service plan change...) it seems you still need to go into SmarterMail manually.

 

[Sad]

Hello AndorA. I managed to reproduce this problem. And we will fix it in one of the nearest Plesk updates. But the thing is not so bad, I can offer you a simple workaround. When you create a domain you need to specify mail service as disabled. Please see the example below

C:\Program Files (x86)\Parallels\Plesk\bin>domain --create test.domain -login <user> -passwd <password> -owner <owner> -ip <ip> -www-root /httpdocs -service_plan <service_plan> -mail_service false
SUCCESS: Creation of domain 'test.domain' completed.

As you can see when option -mail_service false is added, the domain is created with disabled mail service and you do not need to delete domains in SmarterMail.
As for the original issue, please wait for the official update which includes this fix.

 

[AndorA]

Thanks for your reply, Sad!

Later I figured that if the problem is only with the CLI, it is easy to fix. In fact, I ran an update statement, but great to see I can even use an attribute on the creation part itself. Initially I didn't realize the problem was with the CLI only. It's still tricky, since now I need to sort out the new accounts beforehand (which ones should and which shouldn't have email activated) and modifiy their scripts accordingly, as it isn't automatically triggered on plan selection. So.... still looking forward to the fix. But this works great for now.

Anyway, happy to see that this really is a thing and it's much easier now to manage DNS only domains, or other domains without mail. Cheers!

 

[AndorA]

Hi Sad,

I've found one more bug along these lines.

When a domain is disabled and you create a domain alias synched with mail, the alias is not renamed to .disabled. Thus, mails to the alias will still fail if it is hosted elsewhere. Given the new expected behavior where you can host your mail externally, this is not how it should work, I assume. You can only manually disable the alias in SmarterMail. Renaming the alias in Plesk doesn't work, since that would also mess up the web service alias.

I tried three things:

1. Create an alias using the CLI
2. Create an alias using the GUI
3. Set a disabled mail domain to enabled, and then back to disabled.

In none of the above cases the alias was renamed, as I would expect.

Plesk 12.0.18 #4, SmarterMail 12.2.5269

 

[Sad]

Hello Andora,
We tested this scenario and I can say that if a subscription was created with option "-mail_service false" then mail alias is created in disabled state as well (using CLI or UI, no matter). Also mail alias gets enabled/disabled according to parent domain mail service state. If you create subscription with option -mail_service false then it should work correctly. Could you please double check.

 

[AndorA]

Hi Sad,

Sorry if I wasn't clear. I'm not talking about mail aliasses, but about domain aliasses. If the parent domain is disabled, a domain alias should be disabled as well if it is synched with mail. If you create a domain alias for a domain at the time when it is disabled (which is not such a strange scenario if you bulk-prepare a lot of domains), the mail service is disabled, but the alias is not.

Regs,
Andor