Going from Postfix to MSMTP

[Bytech]

Hello Odin Users and Devs,


I'm running Plesk 12.0.18, Ubuntu 14.04.4. Recently, our Emails from Plesk started coming through as 'unverified sender' when viewing in Gmail. Having done so for a few other services, I want to switch Plesk to use an external SMTP instead of using built in PHP Mail/SMTP.

To that end I found an article at http://download1.parallels.com/Ples...inistrator-guide/index.htm?fileName=72346.htm with a section titled "Using an External SMTP Server for Outgoing Mail (Linux)." However, when I follow the instructions, I get this message:

The following components depend on the components you are going to remove or conflict with components you are going to install: Courier IMAP server, Mailman mailing list manager support, Parallels Premium antivirus

To complete the removal or installation, additionally remove the dependent or conflicting components. To cancel the removal or installation of certain components, select the corresponding option from the actions list.​

I'm most concerned about the Courier IMAP portion, and wondering if disabling it until I've made the switch from Postfix mailserver to "MSMTP relay only mailserver (SMTP client)" is the thing to do. From the docs, it sounds like the mail data will be kept through the process, but I'm overall a bit anxious just leaping in.

Any advice on making the leap to external SMTP is much apperciated.


Slawomir

 

[Bytech]

Bump.

 

[bulent]

Hi,
as far as I understand you need to go to Add and Remove Product Components - SMTP servers and select MSMTP (relay only)

 

[Bytech]

When I enable MSMTP it disables Postfix, which is when I get the warning in my original post.

 

[trialotto]

@slawomir borkowski

It is completely unnecessary (and not wise) to use the MSMTP option.

I can only recommend that you, in order to use external mailservers, change the MX records to point to (the IP of) the external mail server.

That is all you have to do, an installation of MSMTP and/or a removal of Postfix/Qmail is not required at all.

Hope this helps a bit.

Regards....

 

[Bytech]

The reason I want to make the switch is that our system Emails started coming across as 'unverified sender' when viewing in Gmail. Any ideas how to resolve this issue without going to MSMTP? I've setup a Amazon SES account to do our Email delivery which solved the same problem for us in other areas.

 

[bulent]

The reason I want to make the switch is that our system Emails started coming across as 'unverified sender' when viewing in Gmail. Any ideas how to resolve this issue without going to MSMTP? I've setup a Amazon SES account to do our Email delivery which solved the same problem for us in other areas.

Do you have correct SPF record?
You shoud have something like v=spf1 +a +mx -all +a:<hostname> in your DNS template.

 

[trialotto]

The reason I want to make the switch is that our system Emails started coming across as 'unverified sender' when viewing in Gmail. Any ideas how to resolve this issue without going to MSMTP? I've setup a Amazon SES account to do our Email delivery which solved the same problem for us in other areas.

@slawomir borkowski

You should have a look in Gmail, open the "View original" option and you will see the actual mail, as it is coming from your server.

Having the "unverified sender" notification is probably associated with the lack of a domain in the "Received: from ..." field (of the "View original" option).

Can you post that "original view" of the mail? That would help a lot.

Regards......

PS I would recommend to send a test mail (without content) to a Gmail account and post the original contents thereof.

 

[HostingNet]

Hi @slawomir borkowski,

You say i have to hange the MX records to point to (the IP of) the external mail server.
I have a plek install and have multiple domains on the install.
I like to have that domain_a send SMTP to a external SMTP ( Spam filter solution )
And domain_b send local.

My question how do i get domain_a to send all SMTP mail to the external SMTP.
For domain_a the incoming mailbox is still on Plesk local mailbox IMAP.

Can you help me on this?

Regards
John

@slawomir borkowski

It is completely unnecessary (and not wise) to use the MSMTP option.

I can only recommend that you, in order to use external mailservers, change the MX records to point to (the IP of) the external mail server.

That is all you have to do, an installation of MSMTP and/or a removal of Postfix/Qmail is not required at all.

Hope this helps a bit.

Regards....

 

[trialotto]

@HostingNet,

You stated

I like to have that domain_a send SMTP to a external SMTP ( Spam filter solution )
And domain_b send local.

and immediately, I asked myself the question whether you are using a basic external mail server or are using a specialized spam filtering solution.

It seems to be the case that you are using a SpamExperts spamfilter, correct?

That is a simple setup, but somewhat different from configuring a basic external mail server.

Anyway, I will start a private conversation, with the associated advantage that we can correspond in Dutch.

Regards....

 

[SylvioB]

I wonder why no body try to fix the original problem. I have the same problem and am loosing time to fix it !
It tells me I have to remove quite all components including plesk to change the mail server... well ok I did try (it s a new vps I can try everything)... except that I can't reinstall plesk with custom settings using the web installer / updater because it tells me I have to install Plesk Web Server but this component is not displayed in the list !!!!
I m a bit fed up loosing time to setup a VPS using plesk web installer

 

[Jono_Hayes]

Hi

I had a similar problem;

We host Plesk inside Microsoft Azure, by default Microsoft will black list its own IP inside Office365 and outlook.com.
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ma...m-azure-compute-resource-to-external-domains/

We don't run any email services on our Plesk server as we resell Office 365 and Google for work. We installed MSMTP and relayed all emails from our Plesk server to Google for Work. This seems to work fine for us, server and web emails (.php forms) all work fine.

 

[trialotto]

Hi

I had a similar problem;

We host Plesk inside Microsoft Azure, by default Microsoft will black list its own IP inside Office365 and outlook.com.
https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/ma...m-azure-compute-resource-to-external-domains/

We don't run any email services on our Plesk server as we resell Office 365 and Google for work. We installed MSMTP and relayed all emails from our Plesk server to Google for Work. This seems to work fine for us, server and web emails (.php forms) all work fine.

@Jono_Hayes

The article you are referring to is somewhat off-topic and does NOT imply that the MSMTP option is required.

After all, Microsoft is not blacklisting any IPs, it is just adding IPs to (amongst others) the Spamhaus PBL (Policy Block List), which is NOT a blacklist.

Moreover, consider the fact that the Spamhaus PBL has the so-called "IP Address Self-Service Removal Mechanism", which mechanism essentially suppresses blocks of specific IPs.

The key thing to remember is that

a) relaying mail is not changing any entry in PBLs (or similar lists), implying that can still be blocked by "external" domains using those PBLs, (and)

b) any relay of mail is often viewed as "less trustworthy", increasing the chance on mail being blocked, (and)

c) any relayed mail not being blocked is simply the "end-result" of the source mail server (from which the relay server "receives" mail) being configured properly, in such a way that the "external" domains (to which the relay server "serves" mail) accepts the (relayed) mail as trustworthy.


In short, you can imagine by now that a mail relay is not strictly necessary: a good configuration of the mail server(s) on the Plesk instance would also suffice.

A final note though: fixed IPs on Azure are not added to PBLs of any kind, implying that adding a fixed IP to Azure based mail servers are more effective than opening a mail relay, which mail relay exposes a greater attack surface for (amongst others) spamming purposes.

Hope the above explains a bit.

Regards.........