Email Issues - Again. Please Help :(

[360webfirm]

Good day Lloyd.

May I ask a few more questions

1. Do you use and agree with the Plesk Firewall?

2. When I logon to my outlook email, I have to view certificate for the emails I set up under Imap on my plesk server, is this normal?

3. The plesk server comes with a self assigned ssl, is it normal to have to view certificate overtime I login to Plesk? Or should I actually get a full SSL?

4. I am getting server goes from Green to Red and back to Green all the time. Any suggestions? I turned on the monitor, so this is probably why I am seeing this now. Any ideas?

I am sorry to bombard you with questions, but you really helped me so much with my email and it seems you really know what you are doing with Plesk. Again, I am very good with WHM and C Panel and a little command line, but I am far from good with Plesk and I really appreciate your time an help.

Steve

 

[360webfirm]

Please also shoot me your Paypal email so I can buy you a coffee after this is all done. I hate asking people for help, but sometimes its the only way. I find the search in Google for results with Plesk are hard to find the correct answers and when reading stuff on the Odin website, it seems hard to understand. Thanks Mate!

 

[360webfirm]

I just found something else that looks really strange, http://mxtoolbox.com/productinfo/dn...utm_source=DNS+Zone+Protect&utm_medium=sitead

enter prepky.com - it shows so many sub-domains that are attached and it looks very weird. Any ideas?

 

[Lloyd_mcse]

Hi Steve,
of course mate, lets see...

1. Yeah I use the Plesk Firewall, it's basically a frontend for IPTables (someone correct me if I am wrong)
2. Yes this is normal, you can install/import the certificate on your PC (Windows Certificate store) so you don't get the warning everytime you open Outlook.
3. Yeah with the self-signed one used on the Plesk Panel you can install to your browser (Firefox) or import it to the Windows Certificate store (IE and Chrome) to get rid of the warning.
Saying that, if you are using Plesk 12.5 you can use the Let's Encrypt extension for a free cert, or with RapidSSL you can get a single domain SSL for 3 years at £27 I think it was which is nearly free lol.
4. Is that the Health Monitor yeah? You can download the cong file and edit the properties as some of the warning limits are quite low.

I hope that answers some of those questions
Any problems post back, always happy to help
Kind regards

Lloyd

EDIT: Note I haven't actually tried Let's Encrypt yet so that may not be a viable option as you'd have to copy the cert to the main server repository (Plesk -> Tool & Settings -> SSL Certificates every couple of months.)

 

[360webfirm]

Thanks once again Lloyd Can you look into this for me, I am stumped at why there are so many entries

I just found something else that looks really strange, http://mxtoolbox.com/productinfo/dn...utm_source=DNS+Zone+Protect&utm_medium=sitead

enter prepky.com - it shows so many sub-domains that are attached and it looks very weird. Any ideas?

It looks like Shadow Zone Filing. In my dns zone on Plesk, there are none of these entries, not sure why MXTOOLBOX is displaying them..

 

[Lloyd_mcse]

Thanks once again Lloyd Can you look into this for me, I am stumped at why there are so many entries

I just found something else that looks really strange, http://mxtoolbox.com/productinfo/dn...utm_source=DNS+Zone+Protect&utm_medium=sitead

enter prepky.com - it shows so many sub-domains that are attached and it looks very weird. Any ideas?

It looks like Shadow Zone Filing. In my dns zone on Plesk, there are none of these entries, not sure why MXTOOLBOX is displaying them..

Ahh, I see it's the *.domain.tld entries
Just tested two of my domains one with the * entry and one without, the one without came back with just what i have entered into Plesk/My name server.
No problem, happy to help mate
Kind regards

Lloyd

 

[360webfirm]

So its normal entries then?

 

[Lloyd_mcse]

Yeah, because we have the *.domain.tld (wildcard) DNS entries, when the mxtoolbox site looked for each of the entries it found it.
If you removed the wildcard entry it would only find actual entries.
I hope that's a bit clearer
Kind regards

Lloyd

 

[trialotto]

Good day Lloyd.

May I ask a few more questions

1. Do you use and agree with the Plesk Firewall?

2. When I logon to my outlook email, I have to view certificate for the emails I set up under Imap on my plesk server, is this normal?

3. The plesk server comes with a self assigned ssl, is it normal to have to view certificate overtime I login to Plesk? Or should I actually get a full SSL?

4. I am getting server goes from Green to Red and back to Green all the time. Any suggestions? I turned on the monitor, so this is probably why I am seeing this now. Any ideas?

I am sorry to bombard you with questions, but you really helped me so much with my email and it seems you really know what you are doing with Plesk. Again, I am very good with WHM and C Panel and a little command line, but I am far from good with Plesk and I really appreciate your time an help.

Steve

@360webfirm

In addition to the answers of @Lloyd_mcse, the following:

1: use it, always good (and it is more user friendly than just issuing iptables commands). However, enable Fail2Ban too, this add some additional functionality (and prevents you from continuously entering various bad IPs). Note that you have to tweak Fail2Ban a little bit, in order to get it functioning optimally.

4: no worries. However, have a look at what part exactly causes the "Red" status. It can be an indication of resource overusage due to a lack of resources (server is "too small") or an error in configuration, causing memory or disk consumption.

With respect to the above, just post questions and/or output in detail. I or @Lloyd_mcse can do a lot more with detailed output.

In addition to the other (DNS related) issues, one has to be aware of the following:

a) a DMARC record can do no harm, maybe you can consider to add this to your DNS: it is just adding a TXT record of the form

_dmarc.<domain>.tld TXT v=DMARC1; p=none; rua=mailto:<mail> (note that you can alter the p parameter and the rua parameter, or add other parameters)

b) you have a SOA Expire value issue: just try to set it at a value of 14 to 28 days.

To be honest, I personally would recommend to use the services of a domain registrar, a cloud based DNS service (Route53, Azure DNS) or Cloudflare DNS (fast and free), as opposed to using your own primary nameserver with Plesk.

The reason for that is twofold:

- maintaining a nameserver is a very specific expertise, requiring a lot of knowledge and infrastructure, (and)
- separating DNS servers (i.e. nameserver structure) from Web servers is good practice: when the web server goes down, the DNS server is not (allowing you to direct traffic to a server that is not down. Quite handy in case of maintenance or even a necessity in case of certain attacks),

and that is just a rough summary.

Regards....

 

[360webfirm]

HI Lloyd, may I ask you another question please? I am having MAJOR issues with uploading a database to phpmyadmin in plesk. It does not matter what program I use to copy the database and if its from an external website or a website in the plesk hosting. Using phpmyadmin and importing a website NEVER works as there is always an error such as syntax error. I know the database is fine because I use it on another hosting and no errors. I have always experienced major issues with plesk and importing databases.

Any ideas my friend?

 

[trialotto]

@360webfirm

Can you provide the syntax errors that are shown in phpmyadmin?

Regards....

 

[360webfirm]

Just another point. I exported the database from another website on the same plesk server. Website is working great and no issues. I used gzip, zip, and plain sql. Nothing will work. It always gives so many errors. This plesk is getting to be more than I bargained for. so many issues, it does not end..

 

[360webfirm]

there are so many..
Thats the issue. always a syntax error. I just tried again and this time the whole page is showing pink errors, lol Darn it, I export from the same server and import it, why is it not working.

Some errors last time I tried. Theer was the insert into errors which would have been way too long to enter, but this is some of the issues below.


1 errors were found during analysis.

Ending quote ' was expected. (near "" at position 23052)
SQL query:

MySQL said: Documentation

#1064 - You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'INSERT INTO `wp_options` (`option_id`, `option_name`, `option_value`, `autoload`' at line 111

 

[360webfirm]

This is not the only website as it happens every time I import and I have three servers and they all do the same thing. Running the latest PHP version and all is updated with server. I just dont understand this.

 

[trialotto]

@360webfirm

I do not understand why you would state

Just another point. I exported the database from another website on the same plesk server. Website is working great and no issues. I used gzip, zip, and plain sql. Nothing will work. It always gives so many errors. This plesk is getting to be more than I bargained for. No support, so many issues, it does not end..

In essence, if you go to phpmyadmin, you will have a number of databases, with

1 - some specific site information, concerning domains (i.e. sites), subscriptions and so on, stored in psa database: this database should not be touched.
2 - a database for a specific domain (if a site has an application that uses it´s own database): you can simply copy this database , let me explain below.

To copy a database with Plesk, which is the easy way, just follow the steps below

a) go to "Domains > [ domain ] > Databases (click)",

b) select copy in the database that you want to copy,

c) select "localhost:3306" (in most cases), choose the name for the new database and select "Create a full copy",

d) after creation of the database, you have to create database users,

e) after creation of the database, you can or have to assign the database to a site: it seems to be the case that Plesk only allows to assign a database to a domain and its subdomains

For the latter reason, a limitation in the possibility to copy database across sites, one can choose between two options:

1) create an export dump (go to "Domains > [ domain ] > Databases (click)") and import the dump in another site, OR
2) copy a database via phpmyadmin, after which the connection info has to be adjusted manually, in order to connect site applications with the database.

Note that there is a simple rule of thumb when choosing between the two methods: if the database is large, choose option 2 (faster), otherwise you can choose both options (similar).

To copy a database in phpmyadmin, just follow the steps below (in chronological order)

a) open phpmyadmin in your browser: go to "Tools & Settings > Applications & Databases > Database Servers (click) > click on the icon at the right, in the line containing "MySQL",

b) in the left pane: select the database you want to copy, simply be selecting (clicking on) it,

c) in the right pane: click on "Actions" and go to the window "Copy database to" and just change the name from the name of the database to be copied to the new database name,

d) just press start in the window "Copy database to" and that should be all.

Note that you have to point a site to the new database created, simply by adjusting the connection info manually.

I hope that the above helps a bit.

Regards..........

 

[trialotto]

there are so many..
Thats the issue. always a syntax error. I just tried again and this time the whole page is showing pink errors, lol Darn it, I export from the same server and import it, why is it not working.

Some errors last time I tried. Theer was the insert into errors which would have been way too long to enter, but this is some of the issues below.


1 errors were found during analysis.

Ending quote ' was expected. (near "" at position 23052)
SQL query:

MySQL said: Documentation

#1064 - You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near 'INSERT INTO `wp_options` (`option_id`, `option_name`, `option_value`, `autoload`' at line 111

@360webfirm

I am pretty sure that there is something wrong in the syntax of one of the FIELDS in the many rows that you try to import.

In the case of WordPress, this is quite a common thing, very often caused by bad plugins.

What you can do (or at least try) to work-around the syntax issue is the "phpmyadmin copy approach" that I described.

That should work like a charm.

Nevertheless, there still will remain a high degree of certainty that your issue will return, if it is caused by bad plugins or other bad code that enters values into MySQL that is not aligned with the MySQL syntax. So, I would strongly recommend to have a look at some of the obscure plugins and test whether the removal of these plugins removes the syntax errors.

Regards.......

 

[360webfirm]

Like I said, I cannot use DUMP, as soon as click this, there is an error. I export database via phpmyadmin and it gives and error when I import it. I have exported tons of databases in the past few years and never had issues to export and inport them. With my plesk, I cannot do it without errors.

 

[360webfirm]

If I was to have same website on c panel and wanted to copy over to another website ( clone ), I would simply export database and import and it would work. I am not sure wht trying to import databases from my plesk server or from another server, there are always issues.

 

[360webfirm]

Lloyd are you around? I am scared that with my websites, I cannot get a backup database to work properly. This is my worry.

 

[Lloyd_mcse]

Hi mate,
are you running Plesk Backups? (Plesk -> Tools & Settings -> Backup manager) this will backup all websites and databases, I find this the best solution.
Do you get any errors using that?

Or you can use the CLI, untill we can get phpmyadmin/the errors fixed.

Export:

# mysqldump -uadmin -p`cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow` yourDatabase > yourDatabase.dump

Import:

# mysqldump -uadmin -p`cat /etc/psa/.psa.shadow` yourDatabase < yourDatabase.dump

I'll be online all day tomorrow if you need any help.
Regards

Lloyd

EDIT: Did you try exporting via Plesk...
Plesk -> Domains -> yourdomain.tld -> Databases -> Export
That's probably the easiest.