Upgrade Feedback (7.1.6 -> 7.5.2)

[matt.simpson]

Here's the story, and it's a sad one basically.

Some friggen spammer is basically sending spam through my server using bounce messages which is very very common now as I understand. Well, today was the day I got friggen blacklisted by SpamCop and since I'm currently running Plesk 7.1.6, there's nothing I can do really to stop this because SMTP Reject is a "feature" of Plesk 7.5.

So, against my better judgement, I think my only option is to upgrade to Plesk 7.5 (although I'd be happy to hear other suggestions).

----

Has anyone done this that has some valuable feedback for me? I've upgrade Plesk since 1.30 and every time it's gotten more and more scary every release.

I'm currently suffering the problem as well that my system has the newest version of rpm and db4 installed, so I guess I have to downgrade that as well.

I'm getting so fed-up with this **** these days, between Plesk, Redhat, Spam and viruses... it makes for a real living server-hell.

P.S. I realize there is this thread: http://forum.plesk.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=21769 however, I'm looking for specific stuff to look for or do prior to upgrading or other specific info / gotchas.

~Matt

 

[steve0]

Matt i realise you are asking for feedback on upgrading, but may i suggest you just use the bit bucket for bounces for the time being while you try the upgrade on a test server?

 

[matt.simpson]

Hey Steve,
Can you please explain "bit bucket"?

Thanks for your suggestion.

~Matt

 

[steve0]

sorry i mean send it to dev null, or the trash can.

I have been doing this for all my domains since i realised that the spammers were actually using the bounce mechanism to relay through the server.
I think it has been discussed on the boards here before somewhere, perhaps a search on devnull may produce something.

This is what i have done if it is of any use:
I created an email user through plesk called devnull and gave it a .qmail file (or through plesk a forwarding account not a pop account) within the .qmail file i simply put # and saved the file. Once i had done that i was able to set [email protected] as the catchall for any domain on the system. Any mail going to that address simply goes straight to the trash can. You can verify by doing a tail -f on your mail log to see all the spam hitting that account and disappearing ...

Although my mail server still has to process the mail i am able to keep myself off of the blacklists until i have finished testing plesk on my test server.

Oh this is on FreeBSD but it is qmail so should be the same on Linux. .. not pritty but it works.

 

[matt.simpson]

Oh yeah, that's exactly what I just had setup today. I run that with qmhandle, although I expect I won't have to run qmhandle now.

I've attached a graph to this message, check it out. It's crazy.

Basically, I had qmhandle running every 2 hours to remove all messages with "failure notice" in the subject line and you can see exactly where it ran for the past week. You can also see today when I implemented the catch-all to a trapped address that just deletes the messages. Crazy crazy.

Anyways, hopefully I'll get delisted from Spamcop shortly. I didn't implement this on all 240 domains, only the top 16 according to isoqlogger. It should work though.

Take care,
Matt Simpson

P.S. I guess SWsoft doesn't allow attachments, so it's not here... but trust me, it's a crazy graph.

 

[steve0]

Don't see the graph

But except for getting delisted sounds like you are geting things under control.

I think trashing the bounces rather than delivering them is a little easier than fixing a broken Plesk server. Always best to upgrade your test server first ..

 

[Whistler]

Just to make sure I understand this concept correcdt: using this method - disable the *@domain.com method but dosen't help much if send using an existing mail-account (ie. postmaster etc.) on the system?

(many many spam users tend to use existing mail adresses so if I understand correct, that won't solve that part of the problem?)

 

[Linulex]

I have a setup that automagicly deletes all bounce messages on our server. This is what i do:

- I have a subdomain for administration on every server, lets call it sub.domain.com
- at that subdomain i create a mailbox [email protected]
- i never bounce mail. All mail to a non existing mailnamen is forwarded to [email protected]
- in the domain sub.domain.com i create that mailbox but with no features. Plesk will then scream that mail will not be delivered because it is neither a forward or a real mailbox. But that is just what i want.

- in /var/qmail/control i create 2 files, one with the name doublebouncehost this file has the name of the local bounce domain, in this case sub.domain.com
one with the name doublebounceto and the mailbox name, in this case nomail
- all double bounces are now delivered to [email protected] ... and disapeare into the big black nothing

I do this because people can always changes there catch-all setup by login in in the control panel.

FYI: i am using plesk also from 1.3.1 and am at this moment using 7.0.4 and am not planning on upgrading anymore because off there license key pollicy. If i pay for something an unlimited price , i want to use it unlimited and not have to renew the key every 6 months. What happens if sw-soft goes out of bussines ? or they are bought out? or even the license server is unavailable for a week?
I am even planning on writing my own control pannel because of the way plesk is following these days.

regards
Jan

 

[matt.simpson]

Jan, that's funny about what you said, "I am even planning on writing my own control pannel". We've considered doing this _so_ many times now it's not even funny. Every time we put it off because we have so much else on our plate. Some day... some day...

~Matt

 

[Linulex]

They are not just plannes. I going to be finished by the end of the year. upgrade to ES4 and start offering MySQL 4.1, or 5.0 by that time.

ES4 has arrived and plesk is not supporting some critical software (MySQL 4.1) month after this software went out of beta.

I am getting more and more an M$ feeling with Plesk: lots off features nobody wants or needs, everybody has to pay for them and have of them don't even work and mess up the features that where working in previous versions.

have a look at http://www.webhost-panel.net/download.php

a few changes and improvements (i.e. qmail instead of postfix), better looks, etc... and 1.0 pannel is ready. Most of the important code is already there.

regards
Jan

 

[matt.simpson]

Emm. I like Plesk, I love the interface, I love the ease-of-use, I love the support, hell, I love these forums. The thing that pushes my buttons are the pricing (but every company has to make money), the buggy upgrades that cause problems (their QA team seems to be slackers) and one thing that drives me insane is the "support packages". As a developer, I never understood this. Why in the hell are support packages so much money? And why on earth would I pay for a support package or even per-incident for that matter, when the reason I'm calling support is because of a problem with an upgrade or a problem with their software. I guess that's it really.

I mean, I'd prefer an open source interface to allow me to add / remove / and most importantly fix bugs... but whatever I guess.

Overall, I'm happy with Plesk and probably wouldn't move to anything else, and in the end I probably wouldn't write my own control panel because the time it would take me just wouldn't be worth it.

I'm rambling...

~Matt

 

[Linulex]

My job is running a hosting company. We have over 30 servers and this year i must upgrade about 15 servers from redhat 7.3 to ES3 because progeny is stopping 7.3 support. Plus i must answer dozens off mails from clients asking when mysql 4.1 or php5 or whatever is supported.

I like the ease that plesk provides, having people create there own mailboxes etc... What i don't like is every upgrade is a major pain and people be able to brake more and more. i.e.: i once got a call from a client that an ip address on his server was not reachable. Turned out another client just added that ip address to his server trough plesk. Sometimes things that worked for year sudenly don't work anymore (remember the autoresponders in plesk 6?).

People don't need zillions of features, they want the features they need on a server that has 100% uptime. Thats why i am going to do it.

I'll still be using plesk for people that want it, but i beleave most of them are not even going to notice the difference.

regards
Jan