Hello All,

I''m having some problems with my present host and am thinking of switching.
I need a host that does outgoing mail, preferably with php/mysql and a fair amount of space. I like http://www.linuxwebhost.com/ but they don't have outgoing mail.
Has anyone tried FatCow -- their claims look good. Thanks for any help,

mgbIII

Originally posted by malcolm:
Hello All,

I''m having some problems with my present host and am thinking of switching.
I need a host that does outgoing mail, preferably with php/mysql and a fair amount of space. I like http://www.linuxwebhost.com/ but they don't have outgoing mail.
Has anyone tried FatCow -- their claims look good. Thanks for any help,

mgbIII

This has been one of my big hosting problems...My ISP refuses to allow me to use their SMTP unless I host with them @ 30$ a month per domain!..let me think! NO LOL

My current host provided me with all the features you are looking for http://www.veoweb.net

Good Luck
Dana

Originally posted by malcolm:
http://www.linuxwebhost.com/



Although Ive never used them they are owned by the same man who owns http://www.sitehost4u.com now I have had a problem with them...My computer crashed I was offline for 7 months I kept having my friends email them and I kept calling no reply they closed my account and when I did come back my domain was being used by another person..meaning sitehost4u had it so that when you typed my domain it went to another domain..it was a mess and Ive seen alot of bad reviews about them (sitehost4u.com)since Id be careful if I was you.


[This message has been edited by Dana (edited 08-13-2000).]

Hi Dana,

Thanks for a quick reply. I'm looking at Veo now. Their control panel is almost exactly the same as linuxwebhost and most of the features look the same too. You're sure they provide outgoing mail? They are slightly more expensive but do offer more space. Another feature I'd like is more than one ftp access. I'd like my users to be able to upload their own files to their own directories i.e. ftp://user@domain.com, and to be able to restrict them by setting their ftp root directory.

I think your problem with host4you or whatever was unique. Not that I don't agree they did you wrong. I am still on the fence, but at this point it seems I may have to leave Webhosting.com.

Thanks again for your replies, they are helpful. I'll wait for a few more before
jumping.

regards,

mgbIII

Originally posted by malcolm:
Hi Dana,

Thanks for a quick reply. I'm looking at Veo now. Their control panel is almost exactly the same as linuxwebhost and most of the features look the same too. You're sure they provide outgoing mail? They are slightly more expensive but do offer more space. Another feature I'd like is more than one ftp access. I'd like my users to be able to upload their own files to their own directories i.e. ftp://user@domain.com, and to be able to restrict them by setting their ftp root directory.

I think your problem with host4you or whatever was unique. Not that I don't agree they did you wrong. I am still on the fence, but at this point it seems I may have to leave Webhosting.com.

Thanks again for your replies, they are helpful. I'll wait for a few more before
jumping.

regards,

mgbIII

Yup Im sure they do because I use the out going mail from my domain(s) ..you could always email support@veoweb.net to confirm they also make coustom plans.

Good luck in your decision ..I know how hard it can be Ive gone through 9 hosts in 20 months.

Malcolm, Veo has most of their plans hosted on an Alabanza server, like linuxwebhost, which is why so many things might look familiar to you. :) Outgoing SMTP has always been a sticking point with any Alabanza-based host, due to the version of sendmail installed. However, the new boxes setting up at the Alabanza NOC have the newer version, which allows outgoing mail to be sent after your mail is checked. Older boxes will also be upgraded starting very soon, according to some info, so after a bit it won't be an issue. Additionally, while some hosts won't do it, outgoing relays can be set up manually for individual users. Unfortunately, this gets rather tedious after awhile if there are a large number of them to set up, which is why some hosts just won't.

If you're otherwise happy, you might want to ask them if they'd set up outbound for you manually until any upgrades are complete.

------------------
Annette
Hosting Matters, Inc.
http://www.hostmatters.com

[This message has been edited by Annette (edited 08-13-2000).]

Originally posted by Dana:
[B] This has been one of my big hosting problems...My ISP refuses to allow me to use their SMTP unless I host with them @ 30$ a month per domain!..let me think! NO LOL
-------------------------

@home doesn't allow it either ,afaik
------------------


My current host provided me with all the features you are looking for [URL=http://www.veoweb.net]http://www.veoweb.net

One trouble here ... no php ? </?>

regards


mgbIII

Originally posted by malcolm:
Originally posted by Dana:
[B] This has been one of my big hosting problems...My ISP refuses to allow me to use their SMTP unless I host with them @ 30$ a month per domain!..let me think! NO LOL



At the bottom of the index page at Veo it says powered by PHP3 if you have questions you could send mail to them to confirm :)

I just asked Tech support and they said they do support PHP their email address is support@veoweb.net


[This message has been edited by Dana (edited 08-13-2000).]

Originally posted by Annette:
Malcolm, Veo has most of their plans hosted on an Alabanza server, like linuxwebhost. Outgoing SMTP has always been a sticking point with any Alabanza-based host, due to the version of sendmail installed. However, the new boxes setting up at the Alabanza NOC have the newer version, which allows outgoing mail to be sent after your mail is checked. Older boxes will also be upgraded starting very soon, according to some info, so after a bit it won't be an issue. Additionally, while some hosts won't do it, outgoing relays can be set up manually for individual users. Unfortunately, this gets rather tedious after awhile if there are a large number of them to set up, which is why some hosts just won't.

If you're otherwise happy, you might want to ask them if they'd set up outbound for you manually until any upgrades are complete.


Thanks Annnette,

Sendmail should have always been that way anyway.

I just looked at veo and was disapointed to not find php. Do you know of any providers
using the new servers you speak of?
Do you know anything about FatCow.com?
They talk a good game.

regards,

mgbIII

Well, sendmail (like everything else) is always a work in progress. :)

POP auth before SMTP didn't come along until 8.10, though, so it's hard to choose between a wide open relay that any spammer could use, and closed relays by default, which was instituted in 8.8, I believe. Closed relays are definitely better, in my opinion. I don't mind opening relays manually if that is what it takes to stop spammers.

php3 is currently available on any Alabanza host. php4 w/Zend is becoming available on the newer boxes. Off the top of my head I'm not sure who is on the new boxes and who isn't.

FatCow I've never heard of, but I like the name. :) Looking at their site, it appears that they require a one-year minimum contract, which is something that a lot of people would object to. On the other hand, they aren't offering "unlimited" traffic, which is good, since there is no such thing.

------------------
Annette
Hosting Matters, Inc.
http://www.hostmatters.com

Originally posted by Dana:
when I did come back my domain was being used by another person..meaning sitehost4u had it so that when you typed my domain it went to another domain..

I just wanted to comment that although you said they never returned your friend's emails nor your calls (this isn't good at ALL!), most likely there was no evil plot to take over your domain.

Chances are, they deleted your account off the server, *but* forgot to delete the entry off their nameservers. The new domain was simply using your old account's space.

Again, not to take away from bad customer service that would have avoided this, just wanted to let you know I doubt this was part of the evil plot to ruin you :)

I just asked Tech support and they said they do support PHP their email address is support@veoweb.net


[This message has been edited by Dana (edited 08-13-2000).][/B][/QUOTE]


Thanks again Dana,

I was looking at the August special offer
and it doesn't mention php. I've written to
support with a few questions. Thanks for your help.

Originally posted by Chicken:
I just wanted to comment that although you said they never returned your friend's emails nor your calls (this isn't good at ALL!), most likely there was no evil plot to take over your domain.

Chances are, they deleted your account off the server, *but* forgot to delete the entry off their nameservers. The new domain was simply using your old account's space.

Again, not to take away from bad customer service that would have avoided this, just wanted to let you know I doubt this was part of the evil plot to ruin you :)

I thought that that to untill inspecting this "other" domain that you were sent to when you typed in my domains letters but if you looked on their page they actually were using my domains letters not just the IP they had links on their site using my domains letters to pages on their site. IT was a mess...oui! it still hurts my head :P

Originally posted by Annette:
Well, sendmail (like everything else) is always a work in progress. :)

POP auth before SMTP didn't come along until 8.10, though, so it's hard to choose between a wide open relay that any spammer could use, and closed relays by default, which was instituted in 8.8, I believe.

Minor points: it was sendmail 8.9.3 where closed relays became the default and POP authorization before SMTP is possible with it. DI has 8.9.3 (though I upgraded mine) on their servers and has POP before SMTP. Closed relays are definitely better as they thwart the efforts of the majority of spammers. According to the Internet Mail Consortium, in January 1998, 55% of Internet mail servers were vulnerable to unauthorized third party relay (relay rape). By July, that was down to 36%. A year later, July 1999, it had dropped to almost 17%.

Progress is being made. The majority of open relays seem to be in servers in Asia and Europe, especially in China (Taiwan), Japan and Korea. No doubt, they account for a large share of the 17% of servers that are still vulnerable.

I did some poking around about FatCow I dont know what it means but here is what I found out.

When I used my little program(ghost) to see who FatCow's IP belonged to I got dummy.nwrks.net

so I went to http://www.nwrks.net/

and its a Host so Im thinkin FatCow is a reseller :)

Hope it helps :)



[This message has been edited by Dana (edited 08-13-2000).]

Originally posted by Duster:
Progress is being made. The majority of open relays seem to be in servers in Asia and Europe, especially in China (Taiwan), Japan and Korea. No doubt, they account for a large share of the 17% of servers that are still vulnerable.

And Now that anyone can get free server software and install it is adding to the problem I knew a person that installed a free server sofware pakage and world client for email I tried to tell him that he needed to clost the SMTP or restrict it to the users IP # he didnt think it a problem untill I sent mail through his SMTP from an account off his network to prove my point....I ran into a problem when I was hosted at nomonthlyfees (Yikes just realized Ive had 10 hosts in 20 months not 9 ya know its bad when you cant count how many hosts youve had LOL) where somewhere called Orbs (I think that was its name) had the SMTP coming from that IP blocked...it took months to fix it and I was high and dry. Im really happy there is a way to offer SMTP now :)

Originally posted by Duster:
Minor points: it was sendmail 8.9.3 where closed relays became the default and POP authorization before SMTP is possible with it. DI has 8.9.3 (though I upgraded mine) on their servers and has POP before SMTP.

Thanks, Duster - 8.9.3. Couldn't remember which release that was. However, looking over the material at hand, and reading Claus, et al in comp.security.sendmail did not lead me to believe that POP auth was feasible in 8.9.3. Can you point me to some docs for that? Thanks.



------------------
Annette
Hosting Matters, Inc.
http://www.hostmatters.com

The only thing I have, Annette, is this from DI's FAQ:
In order to prevent spammers from using your server to spam other people on the internet, we have implemented what we call the "POP-AUTH" authentication scheme to manage who gets to send email out through your email server.

In order to send email out, you must have previously authenticated with the mailer daemon. In order to do this, check your email via POP3, and wait 60 seconds for the mailer daemon to update. Once the 60 seconds are over, anyone connecting from your IP address will be able to use the mailer daemon as a relay for a period of two hours. After two hours, the IP address wlil be "unauthenticated", and you will have to repeat the procedure.


They are still using 8.9.3 and I had it until recently, when I upgraded.

Dana,

You have it right. ORBS is another organization that aids in blocking spam. Their service is similar to MAPS RSS and RBL with an important distinction. MAPS only lists open relays that have spammed. ORBS includes all open relays, whether or not spam has spewed from (or through) them.

Incidentally, that was a personal observation of mine regarding spam from Asia and Europe. Until I enabled MAPS features nearly two weeks ago, most of the spam I had received of late was from Taiwan, Japan, Korea, and mostly Easter European countries (though I got one spam from Germany). Only once have I gotten a legitimate e-mail from the .jp (Japan) country domain. Never have I gotten any from Taiwan or Korea, only spam. I know some servers block all mail from Taiwan, which is a bit drastic, though I can understand their feelings.

Malcolm,
Please let us/me know how you made out...finding a host can be a very frustruating task .

olm Originally posted by Dana:
Malcolm,
Please let us/me know how you made out...finding a host can be a very frustruating task .

Hi Dana,

I sure will Dana. I do appreciate your input and like this forum too. I'm still looking at FatCow. They are running Qmail
and smtp is no problem. Looks good so far, some questions are in to support about the transfer. I'll let you know what happens.

Does Qmail pose a threat to Sendmail, both seem to similar in spec although Qmail boosts more security.

Originally posted by Admin:
Does Qmail pose a threat to Sendmail, both seem to similar in spec although Qmail boosts more security.

An increasing number of people (and server companies) are opting for qmail over sendmail. It is much more secure. Red hat ships sendmail but uses qmail for themselves. What does that tell you?

I think the problem with some of the old programs currently in use is that they were designed when security was not a big issue, when the Internet user was a computer guy and cooperation was commonplace. Patching and updating is not as effective as designing a whole new program with intrinsic security.

I'm no expert, but after my server was cracked, I've been doing a lot more research into security matters and this seems to be the opinion of many experts.

Duster, I should add as an erratum to your post on open relay servers that Australia also accounts for a large number of open relay systems (particularly the major telco in Telstra, Optus and many others), purely through lack of updated knowledge or un-awareness of their systems being vulnerable to spam relaying. My company used to be amongst that group too, but I've ordered POP before SMTP auth to be implemented so hopefully that should be fixed by now (fingers crossed).

Last time I heard figures quoted a few months ago, a newspaper stated around 50% of Australian mail servers as being open relay. That is just utterly astonishing.

Thanks, BC, that explains why I see so many complanints about Telstra in nanae. I agree that ignorance is undoubtedly the biggest problem (is no many things) and reason for so many open relays. I figure through upgrading mail transport programs and attrition, as well as learning the hard way (being mail bombed with rejected spam relayed through your server), that more relays will be closed. As new ones are hooke dup to the Internet, they are likely to use programs taht have relaying closed by default, so the problem should decrease with growth rather than increase.

That is a high percentage for Australian servers, and it can be cut drastically in just a few months. Look how much it was cut in a few months in 1998, from around 55% in January to aboput 36% in July, and then cut in less than half a year later (to 17%). That's progress. Unfortunately, the remaining percentage is still a large number of servers letting a large amout of spma spew through it, like a sewage pipeline that was meant to carry something else not malodorous.

Just a note. Going with a reseller is not necessarily a bad thing. Some reseller's offer better support than the host themselves. Don't get rocked by the term "reseller".

------------------
Mike Astin
WebAuthorities
http://www.webauthorities.com
http://www.resellerinfo.com - A free reseller information site (coming soon!)

Originally posted by MikeA:
Just a note. Going with a reseller is not necessarily a bad thing. Some reseller's offer better support than the host themselves. Don't get rocked by the term "reseller".



This is very true the only reason I brought it up was so he could look into the main hosts records see how they have been :)

Anyone who plans on using a web host for e-mail services needs to make sure that their ISP does not block port 25. Some provider such as all the free ones that I have seen and EarthLink/Mindspring block that port. If port 25 is blocked, you cannot send e-mail through a standard SMTP server.

This may not apply to you, but I have received many e-mails from customers who could not send mail because of their ISP.

Best regards,
Frank Rietta


------------------
AtlantaWebhost.com – Web Solutions that Work
Phone: 770-623-2059
Fax: 770-495-0914
E-Mail: websolutions@rietta.com

Originally posted by AtlantaWebhost.com:
Anyone who plans on using a web host for e-mail services needs to make sure that their ISP does not block port 25. Some provider such as all the free ones that I have seen and EarthLink/Mindspring block that port. If port 25 is blocked, you cannot send e-mail through a standard SMTP server.

This may not apply to you, but I have received many e-mails from customers who could not send mail because of their ISP.

Best regards,
Frank Rietta




Thanks Frank,

I guess I'm lucky there. I haven't had those troubles (yet).

To Dana:

Thanks buddy, and thanks to all others who have helped.

I decided to check out FatCow.
So far, about four hours, all seems to be working as advertized. Email won't work yet, of course, but I seem to be getting proper
error messages from the mail daemons. HTTP, PHP and FTP started literally in minutes. Their control panel is pretty nice.
I didn't do the transfer yet. It a new domain. This cost $100.00 +- but losing email for a few days would be worse.

Again, Thanks to all,

mgbIII

Frank and Dana,

Thanks for the info, it's good stuff to know. Learn something new every day! :)


------------------
tk

Whoops! There goes another $.02!

Originally posted by malcolm:


To Dana:

Thanks buddy,

*G* Buddy? ..its nice to be one of the boys ...when your a girl :P

Originally posted by tk:
Frank and Dana,

Thanks for the info, it's good stuff to know. Learn something new every day! :)



See I was born for this tech support stuff LOL. Im very glad to have a place like to to learn from and share my experiences in :)

Originally posted by Dana:
*G* Buddy? ..its nice to be one of the boys ...when your a girl :P


Genderless 'buddy'; as is 'guys'
as in 'Thanks to all you guys'
no offense

mgbIII

Originally posted by malcolm:
Genderless 'buddy'; as is 'guys'
as in 'Thanks to all you guys'
no offense

mgbIII

Guys is not genderless. Ever hear of guys and gals?

Buddy, however, is genderless. A dive buddy, as an example, can be male or female.

Some people do use "guys" in a genderless fashion, and these are probably the same people who misuse many other terms.

However, helping people is the thing. Anything else is a triviality or detail.