What it seems you are saying is I should have clients send from their ISP's SMTP server and change their Reply-To on their emails to point to their domain.

This won't work for clients using AOL and several of my smaller clients do and are quite happy with AOL. Not everybody is a professional webhound like us. I specialize in working with small businesses and non-profits - the technically-challenged, so to speak.

With the new Sendmail, you must check your messages first, thereby authenticating yourself by logging in with your username and password, and then you are allowed to send through your domain. This is what I currently have at Advanced Internet Technologies (aitcom.net).

Annette, I appreciate your help and assistance. I have no complaints against you, your company or your service. You and Stephanie have answered all my questions in a timely and friendly manner. Thank you.

My statement is I am not happy with Alabanza POP services, that is all, and I am surprised that no one to date has mentioned it at all around here. Must be because they are all suffering from this same deficient sendmail service and never knew a better one existed.

I'd like members of this board to comment on their experiences and opinions with Alabanza POPs, whether I should be concerned, how I can work around it, what other Alabanza hosts may have upgraded their sendmail or whether I should go somewhere else or look at other options altogether, because to date - I find this a relative showstopper on putting my clients on an Alabanza server.

Am I making too much of it? Maybe I am. But I will be better informed when this thread is over and I'll feel more comfortable making decisions as steward for my clients, even if in the end I do decide to move them to an Alabanza provider.

Thanks in advance for your consideration to all concerned.

Sean P. Cover


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The Scarsdale Network: Online Home to Scarsdale, New York http://www.ScarsdaleNet.com
Scarsdale Technologies - Changing The World One Computer At A Time http://www.scarsdaletech.com

[This message has been edited by spcover (edited 08-01-2000).]

No worries, Sean - I had no doubt that the sendmail issue was the only one you were referring to.

This very issue has been discussed before by some of us a while ago, but not in this forum. The issue, of course, is not that there isn't something better out there, because there is: POP auth. The issue for those of us with Alabanza is getting the upgrade done without completely messing up everything in the controls that make life easy for clients. Those of us who are geeks (you, me, others) are not afraid to RTFM and do what needs to be done. Dealing with third party issues, though, sometimes makes it a bit tedious - especially since the opening of relays that we do right now for those who need it has to be done manually instead of allowing the software to control it as it should. That said, we have opened relays for various ipts on AOL, MSN, and blocks of other ISPs so that clients can use SMTP. I don't particularly care for doing it that way, as it adds an extra step to what is already a good process - thereby keeping it from being truly great.

Now if I could just get Alabanza to commit to a timeframe for sendmail 8.10 and php4, I'd be the happiest person alive. :)

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

I need some help understanding Alabanza support for POP3 accounts. Currrently I'm hosting my clients (mainly small businesses and non-profits) using a virtual server at Advanced Internet Technologies (aitcom.net). I don't have much to complain about there, but I'm not happy with their support of FP extensions on client accounts and some other things. It'd be a lot easier if each of my clients had their own proper IP address and hosting account.

Having haunted this board for some time now, I decided I'd like to move my clients to an Alabanza-serviced reseller. I love their Control Panel and think my clients would love them as well.

Here's the problem: POP3 Accounts.

I opened an account with one Alabanza-supported provider and was surprised that when I went to set up my email account its instructions read "The Outgoing Mail (SMTP) should be your ISP."

I emailed support and they said I should use my domain only for INCOMING mail, but should send all my OUTGOING mail through my ISP.

I've gone on to check some other Alabanza hosts and they seem to say the same thing.

Forgive me, but I can't possibly see how you can call it a proper POP3 account if you can't send email from it. It is more like an email alias to me, because the end result is the same - the client must send email out from his own ISP.

I find this wholly unacceptable. If a client is paying for his own hosting account, the least he should be able to do is receive and send mail from his domain.

Do all Alabanza providers have this same problem?

Anyone out there with a solution to this?

Any Alabanza hosts out there who have worked around this problem?

Personally, I'm confused. I thought I had found a great alternative to my current provider, but my clients just won't understand this stuff on the POPs.

Sean P. Cover


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The Scarsdale Network: Online Home to Scarsdale, New York http://www.ScarsdaleNet.com

Scarsdale Technologies - Changing The World One Computer At A Time http://www.scarsdaletech.com

[This message has been edited by spcover (edited 08-01-2000).]

All SMTP servers do is store and relay email messages to other servers and local users. When a customer sends an e-mail with their domain, but using their isp's SMTP server, it'll appear to come from their domain, and have no reference to their isp POP3 account.

*Somebody please write a better explanation, I'm not awake.*

JTY - on a cursory examination, that's true, but technically, you can trace back to the originating SMTP, which is part of the problem for some people.

Sean, I know you and I have discussed this previously. Unfortunately, as I mentioned before, you'll find that the relay issue is one that is not solely restricted to Alabanza-based hosts, for various reasons: primarily, since most hosts don't offer dial-up services, people generally have an ISP with SMTP already in place. Additionally, there is the entire spam issue, and quite a few hosts simply opt out of the whole thing by not allowing relaying through their servers, period. Some of us are working to get the newer version of sendmail in place (as you are aware) so that the second issue becomes a non-issue, and the first issue becomes a choice.

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

Thank you, Annette.

No problem - who besides geeks really look that deeply into the headers, anyhow? :)

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

Sean, I have never had a problem with Alabanza POPs.

Annette, add to that Zend Optimizer.

That, too, is on my list; although I neglected to mention that in my last email to Albza, I'm fairly certain that their people are looking at that as part of the package.

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

Annette,

I love reading headers!

...does that really make a geek..?

T-bear :-)

I also have opened the SMTP in some cases. I had to for myself since my ISP refuses to accept outgoing email with a non-network reply address. Like Annette said, this has to be limited in use and involves extra manual work. I don't mind doing so for resellers accounts though and I assume that there are other Alabanza hosts that would also.

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Chuck Fox
http://cfoxhost.com

Yes, we did some work with Albanza servers and ran into that same situation...couldn't send mail through their servers. Spam was the big issue and I can certainly understand that. And really, unless you're with AOL or similar service, it really is no big deal to use your isp since you've most likely already got an SMTP server at your disposal from having the dial-up account.

However, that being said....this sort of relates to another topic elsewhere on this board about the Cobalt boxes...

We use the RaQ and allow outgoing mail through our servers. However, the only way you can send email is if you check it first. Once you have checked your mail, you will be able to send mail for the next 15 minutes. We have our server setup this way so that spammers cannot access our smtp servers unless they have an account with us.

I thought that was a neat approach to the outgoing mail issue...

Thanks!
Ant
gorillahost.com

As i understand it, you can get SMTP (outgoing POP3) at Alabanza, it is just not standard, but some Alabanza hosts must have it.

Also, i have a few accounts with Alabanza clients, and i use the SMTP server to reply to any email that comes to that domain, i have never had a problem using their SMTP, even though they say you can't, so atleast try it!

Annette, Alabanza have already started using PHP4 + Optimizer on the new RH6.1 boxes, they also run sendmail 8.10.2 which will make a lot of people happy when they get the upgrade. I for one am very happy as the upgrade has also boosted the speed of the servers as well, I am seeing an extra 8-10% improvement.

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Karl Austin
KDA Web Services

Yep, someone else who just added a server indicated as much elsewhere. Good news, and also good news that they're going to be upgrading old boxes (so they say) first with sendmail, then a RH upgrade, then php4/Zend. At least we know that is doesn't destroy anything when the upgrade is done - one of the few worries I have on Alabanza servers. My heart pounds in anticipation. :)

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

Don't be to sure about not destroying everything, they deleted all my accounts when I moved to RH6.1

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Karl Austin
KDA Web Services

Hey Annette, and others, I was told you will have to ask for the upgrade to the new stuff... they just have it pre-set in the new boxes, but you have to tell them if you want your other machines upgraded.

I was told that by a level 2 tech supervisor.

However, they are trying to add more also, so a delay on requesting the upgrade may be a wiser choice ... less growing pains perhaps.

Tim L
superior-host.com

spcover,
I've been hosting on a very small scale as a reseller for about 6 years. On Sept. 1 we'll be going live with our site and using Alabanza. I've never had a client complain about having to use their ISP POP3 as apposed to one provided by the hosting service. I realize that there's a learning curve on the clients' part and some hand holding on our part, but it doesn't appear to be that big of an issue. In fact, most small businesses (including mine) just assumed that this is how it worked.

I think you'll find that it's just a matter of explaining (even to the AOL users) that they can use Outlook Express (or similar) client software for business communications. The client can put their domain email address in the return and if anyone looks at the header, big deal, they must see that stuff all the time.

Well, there's my two cents. I hope it makes some sense.



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Thomas
www.ez2ba.com & www.ourwebpage.net (http://www.ourwebpage.net)

I hope this helps answer the question. My letter followed by Alabanza's answer:

___
>I've been reading up on Alabanza in some online forums. Lot's of good things
>are being said. One item that has come up several times is that SMTP is
>turned off. Can we turn this on? Is it available? What's the policy on this?
>
>I don't much care either way, but it is one of those unmentionables that I
>didn't hear about during the sales pitch and I need to be honest and
>forthright with my clients during my sales pitches.
___

Thomas,
Your server actually has POP/AUTH e-mail already installed. What this means is that your server will accept mail sent as long as the e-mail sender verifies it's identity with the correct username and password. To be able to use this feature you would need to access the mail manager icon in the control panel of the domain that you would like to create the e-mail addresses for. Here you would create the address and also the username and password. Once this was complete you would then need to setup your e-mail software. For the POP3 and for the SMTP you would need to enter just the domain name. (ex.:ez2ba.com) Also include the username and password in the authentication section of your software for that specific e-mail address. Once these steps are completed you should be able to successfully send mail through your server. If you have any more questions please let me know. Thank you Thomas and have a great day!

Sincerely,
XXXXXXX XXXXXXX
Product Specialist
Alabanza Jumpstart Team
______
So there ya go. Glad I could help.