Resolved Plesk migrator will re-create deleted email account

[nethubonline]

Username:

TITLE

Plesk migrator will re-create deleted email account

PRODUCT, VERSION, OPERATING SYSTEM, ARCHITECTURE

Plesk Obsidian v18.0.69
AlmaLinux release 9.5

PROBLEM DESCRIPTION

When a user creates an email account in Plesk, the option "Can be used to log in to Plesk" is selected by default, resulting in the creation of a Plesk user. If the user deletes this email account, the associated Plesk user remains.

During migration to a new Plesk server, the migrator will unexpectedly recreate this deleted email account, raising security concerns.

Additionally, if the subscription has reached its email account quota, recreating deleted accounts will prevent the creation of new ones, as the quota will be full.

STEPS TO REPRODUCE

1. In old server: create an email account with "Can be used to log in to Plesk", delete this email account afterwards
2. In new server: Use migrator to migrate this subscription

ACTUAL RESULT

Deleted email account will be re-created in new server

EXPECTED RESULT

Deleted email account will not be re-created in new server

ANY ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

(DID NOT ANSWER QUESTION)

YOUR EXPECTATIONS FROM PLESK SERVICE TEAM

Confirm bug

 

[Hangover2]

@nethubonline

The migrator still has many silly bugs and missing features that make migrating mailboxes a real headache. Besides the one already mentioned, be aware that webmail contacts and settings (e.g., from Roundcube) are not transferred. So, if your users are enthusiastic webmail users, you can expect a lot of support requests after migration.

Another bug — which has existed for us for years (though we haven’t submitted an official bug report yet) — concerns the critical DNS entry for the DKIM key. After migrating a domain, the public/private key pair becomes invalid, and signed outgoing emails can no longer be verified by the recipient. The best solution is to regenerate the keys after each migration by toggling DKIM support off and on in the email settings.

There are also additional bugs, particularly affecting users who utilize the "External email address" feature, as well as missing configuration data after migration and other issues. It’s actually quite unfortunate that the migrator is so buggy — not just in email handling, but in other areas as well — because it could be a great help for admins migrating customers between servers. However, at this point, we no longer use the tool. We prefer a manual approach, as the cleanup and verification effort would be required anyway. By handling the entire process ourselves, we can ensure that everything is correctly in place, just like before.

 

[Sebahat.hadzhi]

@nethubonline thank you for the report. I attempted to reproduce the issue, however, I am unable to do so. The account and the user are not recreated on the destination server. Is there any specific in the configuration of the account/subscription? If not and if you have the option, could you please open a ticket and provide our team with direct access to the server?

@Hangover2 I will take a look on that tomorrow and follow-up with more details.

 

[nethubonline]

@Sebahat.hadzhi

I guess it is because about the old Plesk bug - if the email account is deleted, the associated Plesk user remains. However I found that in the updated version of Plesk the associated Plesk user will be deleted too.

Since those email account was deleted a long time ago, I can't find the version at that moment.

If this is the case, I think that there is no need to fix this problem, thank you.

 

[Sebahat.hadzhi]

@nethubonline , thank you for the confirmation the issue no longer persists.

@Hangover2 , this is indeed quite an old bug. We have a case logged couple of years ago. It was recently brought up and reviewed by our engineers again. Unfortunately, due to its nature the solution is rather complicated and there's no easy fix they can apply. With that said, a fix will not likely be introduced very soon. The workaround suggested is the one you already figured out, to disable and enable the "Use DKIM spam protection" option. There's a forum thread, I will update with more details when such are available.