My Cpanel Default Mail Settings Keep Getting Reset

[ThatAdamGuy]

Hi there,

 

For the second weekend in a row, my cPanel default e-mail settings have been changed without my intervention or consent, causing me to lose e-mail.

 

Specifically, the default delivery location for one of my domains was changed from :blackhole: to :fail:. Why is this such a big deal? Well, when it's the latter, my e-mail filter rules are overwritten, and all specially tagged mail is then bounced back to sender.

 

At first I thought, hmm, maybe I just made the change without thinking about it. But now that this has happened for two weekends in a row, I'm absolutely positive that this is not my doing.

 

As you can imagine, I'm pretty upset. When I first signed up with TCH, I lost mail because the techie transferring my account did not warn me that he was creating a copy of my cPanel that would stay in my old account, pushing me overquota on my old host and causing all incoming mail to bounce.

 

The second time I lost mail with TCH, it was due to this change of my default mail address, though I originally thought it was a fluke.

 

Now this is the third time. Had I not been reading so much good stuff about this host, this would have been the third strike, and I'd be outta here. If it were a problem with occasional downtime, that'd be a bummer, but understandable. Losing mail... and repeatedly? Completely unacceptable.

 

I'm posting this here not to air dirty laundry, but rather in a plea that someone at TCH will figure out what's going on that's resulting in a reset of my cPanel each weekend, and find a way to stop it. And yes, I'll be filling out a support ticket, too (referencing this post).

 

(As you can imagine, I'll be changing the incorrect setting ASAP... so if any techs look into my cPanel and see that bladam.com is set to :blackhole:, you won't think I'm going crazy )

[TCH-Andy]

Hi,

 

Not one I've come across before - if any other users have had this happen, please let us know.

 

Can you submit a ticket to the Help desk please - and we'll take a look.

[ThatAdamGuy]

Andy, I just submitted a ticket, and Kris replied:

 

It seems that there is a cron job set on the server to convert all blackhole entries to fail. It is a server wide setting done to secure the server. It cannot be changed.

 

Even if you set black hole entry, you will not be receiving emails as it will be discarded. Please make the necessary changes if you want the emails to be delivered by modifying the blackhole entry.

Thanks for choosing TotalChoice Hosting

 

I'm really at a loss as to what's going on.

 

1) Why wasn't I notified about this after my mail was lost the 2nd time? More to the point, why isn't this announced clearly on the cPanel interface of ALL TCH users? I'm sure that there would be quite a few upset members if they knew their settings were being changed by cron jobs without their knowledge or consent.

 

2) What the heck is this policy about, and how does setting everyone's default mail settings to :fail: instead of :blackhole: enhance security?

 

3) How can I get a waiver for this? All I want to do is have all mail sent to [whatever]-foo@bladam.com get through to me, while all other mail to the domain is rejected. I've already established dozens of addresses this way (unitedairlines-foo@bladam.com, cnetnewsletter-foo@bladam.com, etc.), and I created a filter rule -- if header contains 'foo' then forward to 'impersonal' at the domain bladam.com -- and then I download my POP account 'impersonal'.

 

Weirdly, when the default address for a domain is set to :fail:, then my 'foo' rule is ignored, and *ALL* mail to bladam (except 'impersonal' directly) is bounced. But if I set the default address to :blackhole: then the filter rule works. Likely a bug in cPanel, but that's beside the point.

 

Thanks for consideration on this issue...

[TCH-Bruce]

Why don't you just create forwarders for each email address you do not want to create an account for? I do this all the time and I have never lost an email I intended to receive.

[TCH-Dick]

The reason for it is not so much a security issue as it is a server load issue. Servers get hammered with spam every day, having them fail reduces the load on the servers. Less load= better uptime and longer life for each server.

 

The amount of spam sent these days is unbelievable and it can seriously bring a server to a crawl. Bruces suggestion is one way around this. You can create a forward for an account that doesnt exist, then any e-mail sent to that address would be forwarded to wherever you wanted it.

[jslagle]

Mike, Thanks for the information.

 

I was using :blackhole because I made the assumption that it would be less server intense. I'll use :fail from now on.

[ThatAdamGuy]

Following up...

 

The reason for it is not so much a security issue as it is a server load issue. Servers get hammered with spam every day, having them fail reduces the load on the servers. Less load= better uptime and longer life for each server.

I don't get it. Why does having the server send a bounce message require less in the way of resources than simply sending it to /dev/null?

 

Why don't you just create forwarders for each email address you do not want to create an account for? I do this all the time and I have never lost an email I intended to receive.

Because, for the last few months, I've created many dozens of [sitename]-foo@**** addresses (e.g., amazon-foo@****, espn-foo@****, etc.). I don't remember 'em all, and would understandably be peeved to have bunches of mail returned to sender.

 

Along the same lines, it'd be a royal PITA to go into my control panel and add a new forwarding rule for every single new address I register. Aside from the annoyance each time, imagine scrolling through and maintaining such a list!

 

* * *

 

Other suggestions so far:

 

1) Have something on my account toggled which'd eliminate the changing of :blackhole: to :fail:, but would remove my ability to add forwarders and such on my own; I'd have to request assistance from tech support each and every time. Definitely not a feasible option for me.

 

2) Set up an "undo" cron job that resets the default from :fail: to :blackhole:. I haven't quite understand how I'm to set this up, and probably should follow up with the TCH tech person that suggested this option. In a worst case scenario, I end up missing e-mails that happen to arrive between 3:00 and 3:01, but I guess that's the best alternative so far.

 

Any other ideas?

 

Is there another way of mimicking the system I have in place to achieve the same ends without kludges? Specifically, being able to create [sitename]-foo@**** addresses on the fly, and then if any address gets on a spammer list at a later time, simply sending creating a rule to :fail: or :blackhole: that specific address.

 

Thanks! I appreciate the conversation and brainstorming here.

[ThatAdamGuy]

I'm also open to considering completely other anti-spam techniques, as I note here.

[MikeJ]

I was using :blackhole because I made the assumption that it would be less server intense.  I'll use :fail from now on.

Just a minor note on this (not directed at you Jim but in general)... make sure you use :blackhole: or :fail: (note the colon before and after the word). I see our queues get filled with messages all the time being sent incorrectly to ":blackhole" which the mail server doesn't know.

Edited November 23, 2004 by TCH-MikeJ

[Don]

The reason for it is not so much a security issue as it is a server load issue. Servers get hammered with spam every day, having them fail reduces the load on the servers. Less load= better uptime and longer life for each server.

 

The amount of spam sent these days is unbelievable and it can seriously bring a server to a crawl. Bruces suggestion is one way around this. You can create a forward for an account that doesnt exist, then any e-mail sent to that address would be forwarded to wherever you wanted it.

But wait! This is just the opposite of what you said here:

http://www.totalchoicehosting.com/forums/i...wtopic=8327&hl=

wherein you were encouraging the use of :blackhole: rather than :fail:

Color me confused.

[MikeJ]

But wait! This is just the opposite of what you said here:

http://www.totalchoicehosting.com/forums/i...wtopic=8327&hl=

wherein you were encouraging the use of :blackhole: rather than :fail:

Color me confused.

The reason is because cPanel changed the configuration of how email is handled. When that post was done, :fail: would accept the message, process it, then bounce it. Now the mail software refuses to accept the message which means the mail never is transferred to the server. This saves you bandwidth, and saves our servers some processing time.

[Don]

Gotcha. Thanks, Andy. And I'll use Bruce's technique for those I don't want to bounce.