RAHUL.NET FAQ

Rahul.Net Home :
Directadmin Environment

• Directadmin hosting: web, email, more.

  A rate schedule for the Directadmin environment may be found at:

  • http://www.rahul.net/dhesi/dahosting.html
  
  
• Subcategories:
  Accessing Directadmin
  Domains in DirectAdmin
  Detailed DNS Management
  Directadmin: Spam Filtering
  Virus Scanning in DirectAdmin
  MySQL in DirectAdmin
  SSL (https) access in a DirectAdmin Environment
  Cgi-bin Debugging in DirectAdmin
  Directadmin Default Mail Account
  Q. How do I Forward Mail?
  Q. How do I Forward an Additional Copy of Mail?
  Q. How do I Discard/Reject/Ignore All Mail Arriving for an Email Address?
  Q. How Do I Access my Mailboxes?
  Q. How Do I Access SquirrelMail?
  Installatron
  Majordomo Mailing Lists
  Disk Space Clean-Up
  Blacklist Failure when Posting to Web Site
  Migrating from Cpanel to DirectAdmin
  
• 2008-Apr-02 20:03

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment :
Accessing Directadmin

• You will receive a welcome email when your Directadmin account is created.

  Here is some of the essential information that you will find in the welcome email.

  You will always log into the Directadmin main menu by pointing your web browser to a URL that looks like this:

  https://HOSTNAME.rahul.net:2222/

  For the majority of customers the Directadmin host at this time is called "sunshine", so you will access your Directadmin account by pointing your web browser to:

  https://sunshine.rahul.net:2222/

  YOUR INITIAL WEB SITE

  Your initial (nearly-empty) web site home page is accessible at these URLs, where DOMAIN is the initial domain assigned to your account and USERNAME is your username.

  http://DOMAIN/
  http://www.DOMAIN/
  http://192.160.13.61/~USERNAME/
  http://sunshine.rahul.net/~USERNAME/
  

  MAIL SERVERS

  You may receive mail via POP or IMAP by connecting to mail.DOMAIN and you may send mail via SMTP by connecting to mail.DOMAIN. If you have difficulty sending mail, perhaps your high-speed connectivity provider filters out SMTP port 25 (which many do). In that case, enable authenticated SMTP. Then you may want to check to make sure your mail client is connecting to port 587, not port 25.

  You may connect directly to sunshine.rahul.net (instead of mail.DOMAIN) for sending and receiving mail.

  CONNECTING FOR FTP

  Use the ftp server: ftp.DOMAIN

  Some ftp clients will also accept an ftp URL like this:

  ftp://ftp.DOMAIN/~USERNAME

  If you wish to use a custom domain, please see also the FAQ entry Domains in DirectAdmin.

  
  
• 2007-Jan-20 01:14

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment :
Domains in DirectAdmin

• In most cases, you will want to add one or more custom domains of your own to your Directadmin account. You may register these domains yourself via any domain registrar of your choice. After registering a domain, you will need to make sure its nameservers are set to be the nameservers listed in your welcome email. In other words, the NS records for your domain should point to our nameservers. In most cases the name servers will be as listed below, but you should verify this from your welcome email.

  sunshine.rahul.net
  orange.rahul.net
  

  You do not need to add any A, MX, etc., records to the DNS for your domain. Once you have set the nameservers for your domain as above, the Directadmin environment automatically adds or removes DNS records as needed. (Note: If you wish to exert more detailed control over your domain's DNS, please see: Detailed DNS Management.)

  Directadmin treats all domains equally. No one domain is the main domain, and your Directadmin account is not permanently tied to any specific domain. (But see "Default Domain" below.) You can add and remove domains as needed. Removing all domains from your account will make the account temporarily non-functional until you add at least one domain to it.

  Although your Directadmin account will be initially configured with a default domain, usually of the form USER.onthisnet.com, you are not required to use this domain, and you may remove it from your account if you wish and use your own custom domain(s) instead. The USER.onthisnet.com domain is available for your use for so long as your Directadmin account remains active with our service.

  Default Domain

  Even though Directadmin treats all domains equally, it does have the concept of one default domain. This is the domain whose web site can be accessed via URLs like these:

  http://sunshine.rahul.net/~USER
  https://sunshine.rahul.net/~USER
  

  To tell Directadmin which of your domains should be the default domain, on the Domain Setup screen, select the checkbox for any one domain and click on the Set as Default button.

  From any Directadmin screen, click on the Help link to get other help.

  
  
• 2007-Jan-20 01:22

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment :
Detailed DNS Management

• For the majority of users, the automatic DNS management build into DirectAdmin will suffice. DirectAdmin automatically adds and removes DNS records as needed.

  Users who wish to do their own detailed management of their domain's DNS have two choices.

  DNS Management Within DirectAdmin

  If your account type includes DNS Management, it will be enabled if you so request. Then you can exert detailed control over your domain's DNS. After following the "DNS Management" link on the DirectAdmin control panel, you can add, remove, and modify DNS records of types A, NS, MX, CNAME, and TXT.

  Once we have enabled DNS management for your account, you become 100% responsible for providing your own technical support for all problems that are actually or probably related to your DNS.

  DNS Management Elsewhere

  If you wish, you may maintain your domain's DNS elsewhere. To achieve this, instead of having the NS records for your domain's nameservers point to our nameservers, simply maintain your own nameservers and add the DNS records as needed on your own nameservers. Although DirectAdmin will still maintain its own DNS records for your domain, these DNS records will remain as unused orphans, because no other nameserver will point to them. This strategy is believed to work correctly, but is not supported by us and is used by you entirely at your own risk. You can find discussion about this in the DirectAdmin forums, which you can access by following the Help link on your DirectAdmin control panel.

  Domains Hosted Elsewhere

  If you add a domain to your DirectAdmin account but you wish to keep any web site and mailbox(es) for that domain elsewhere, you may be able to do this with some care. You will need to manually make any A and MX records for that domain point to the appropriate servers elsewhere. Even then, however, any mail arriving for addresses in that domain will be delivered locally. Thus, if any user on the same DirectAdmin server sends mail to your domain, that mail will reach your DirectAdmin mailbox(es) on the same server and will not automatically go anywhere else. To make such mail go to your remote address anywhere else, you will need to explicitly forward each address in your domain.

  For example, suppose you wish to administer the DNS for the domain example.com on the DirectAdmin server, but keep its web site and mail on some other ISP's servers. After adding example.com to the DirectAdmin server here, you will need to do the following.

  • Change the MX record(s) for example.com to point to your other ISP's SMTP server(s).
  • Change the A record(s) for example.com, www.example.com, etc., to your other ISP's web server(s).
  • For each email address in example.com (e.g., postmaster@example.com, joe@example.com, sue@example.com, etc.), add a mail forwarding entry pointing to some remote mailbox. The remote mailbox name in the mail forwarding entry must NOT use the domain example.com (otherwise it will just loop back), but rather, should use some other name, such as the host name of the ISP's server on which the mailbox resides. This requires the other ISP's cooperation.
  
  
• 2006-May-30 17:45

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment :
Directadmin: Spam Filtering

• Spam filtering in the Directadmin environment can be done (a) on the server, or (b) in your mail client, or (c) at some third location.

  Spam filtering on the server can be done in two different ways.

  1. Greylisting and black lists work at the instant that some remote host connects to our server to try to deliver mail. If such mail appears to be spam, it is rejected by greylisting and black lists before it ever enters the system. Thus, such mail is never delivered to you. In very rare cases, if legitimate mail is incorrectly rejected, the sender will see an error message and he will know that the message never reached you. Thus, greylisting and black lists will never cause mail to be silenly lost.

  2. SpamAssassin operates on mail that has already been accepted by the server. If SpamAssassin decides that a message should be classified as spam, it will deliver the message in accordance with your instructions. The message may be silently deleted, or marked as spam and delivered into your inbox, or delivered into a spam folder. In a rare case, if a legitimate message is classified as spam, the sender will not know that his mail to you appeared to be spam. If you do not see this legitimate message (perhaps because SpamAssassin silently deleted it, or because it ended up in your spam folder), the message is silently lost and the sender will not know this.

  To minimize the risk of legitimate mail that is silently lost, you should be sure to allow greylisting and/or black lists to operate as a first-level defense against spam. You can then use SpamAssassin as a second-level defense against any spam that gets past the first-level defense.

  Following sections of this FAQ will show you how to configure all types of spam-fighting mechanisms mentioned above.
  

• Spam Filtering: On the Server: SpamAssassin
  Spam Filtering: On the Server: Greylisting
  Spam Filtering: On the Server: Black Lists
  Spam Filtering: In your Mail Client
  Spam Filtering: At some Third Location
  
• 2007-Jan-13 12:30

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment : Directadmin: Spam Filtering :
Spam Filtering: On the Server: SpamAssassin

• To configure spam filtering on the Directadmin server with SpamAssassin, from the main menu go to Spamassassin Setup.

  In response to 'Where do you want the spam to go?' choose one of the options, preferably 'Send the spam to the appropriate users's spam folder'. Note: if you select 'Inbox (don't block it)' then spam will continue to reach you without being blocked, but the full message headers will show a spam score.

  Adjust other options as needed.

  After selecting opttions, at the bottom of the screen click on Save.

  Then from the main menu go to the Catch-All screen for the domain, and make sure that the setting is "Fail". (See the Catch-All notes below for more about this.)

  If you have multiple domains, then from the Home page, click on each domain one by one and select the desired SpamAssassin Setup options for each one, and then also make sure as above that Catch-All for each domain is set to "Fail".

  When checking email, also check email in the spam folder occasionally, and purge the folder after looking for any non-spam email that was sent to the spam folder. If you forget to purge the spam folder you may eventually run out of disk space.

  From any Directadmin screen, click on the Help link to get other help.

  Catch-All Notes

  IMPORTANT: Leave the Catch-All setting at "Fail".

  If you set Catch-All for a domain to "Ignore" or "Address", two things will happen.

  1. SpamAssassin will not run when mail arrives for that domain.
  2. Directadmin will silently change the setting back to "Fail" during a nightly audit.

  The above is done this way to make the server more resistant to dictionary attacks from spammers.

  All settings other than "Fail" should be used only for brief periods of testing. Relying on any other Catch-All setting may cause loss of email.

  For example, suppose you do not set up any specific mailboxes or forwarders, but simply rely on the Catch-All feature to deliver all mail into your mailbox. After DirectAdmin automatically changes the setting to "Fail" some time later, all your mail will begin to bounce back to the sender and you will not receive any of it. To avoid this, be sure to set up a mailbox or forwarder for each email address in your domain at which you wish to receive mail.

  
  
• 2007-Jan-13 12:19

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment : Directadmin: Spam Filtering :
Spam Filtering: On the Server: Greylisting

• Greylisting deliberately delays incoming mail the first time it is received from an unrecognized sender sending from a specific machine. Subsequently, that sender's email is accepted without delay. Most spam is sent by machines that try only once. Greylisting eliminates such spam.

  Greylisting is automatically enabled by default for all your domains.

  To switch off greylisting for all your domains, simply create an empty directory, within your home directory, called by the following pathname:
  

    .spamcontrol/greylisting
  

  In other words, within your home directory create a subdirectory called ".spamcontrol" and within that subdirectory create another directory called "greylisting". As soon as you do this, no more greylisting will be done for any of your domains.

  After switching off greylisting as above, you can selectively re-enable it for any of your domains by creating a file with the same name as the domain name within your ".spamcontrol/greylisting" directory. For example, suppose you wish to switch on greylisting for a domain "example.com". To do this, create a file whose name relative to your home directory will be:
  

    .spamcontrol/greylisting/example.com
  

  Use all lowercase letters in the above filename. If you use any uppercase characters in the filename, the resulting filename will have no effect on greylisting.

  The directories and files above should be world-visible, i.e., the mail system should be able to test for their existence even if it runs as some username other than yours.

  The rule used by the mail system for deciding whether or not to use greylisting can be algorithmically stated as follows. Suppose mail arrives for you and the domain in the destination address is "example.com". Then:
  

    look within the user's home directory
    if a directory called .spamcontrol/greylisting DOES NOT exist then
      greylisting will be used
    else if a file called .spamcontrol/greylisting/example.com DOES exist then
      greylisting will be used
    else
      greylisting will not be used
    end if

  If you have encountered any spam problems, we recommend that you allow greylisting to remain active for your domains.

  More information about greylisting, and suggestions to minimize delayed mail, may be found on this page: Anti-Spam Techniques: How They Work .
  

• 2006-Dec-06 23:06

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment : Directadmin: Spam Filtering :
Spam Filtering: On the Server: Black Lists

• Black lists, also known as DNS black lists or DNSBLs, are lists of spam-friendly machines maintained by volunteers. By consulting these black lists, our servers can reject spam attempts from listed hosts. Black lists are automatically enabled by default for all your domains. Once a host is listed on a black list that we use, all mail from that host, whether spam or non-spam, will be rejected. The amount of non-spam rejected this way is generally very low. Almost all mail rejected due to the use of black lists will be spam email.

  To switch off black lists for all your domains, simply create an empty directory, within your home directory, called by the following pathname:
  

    .spamcontrol/dnsbl
  

  In other words, within your home directory create a subdirectory called ".spamcontrol" and within that subdirectory create another directory called "dnsbl". As soon as you do this, no more black lists will be used for any of your domains.

  After switching off black lists as above, you can selectively re-enable them for any of your domains by creating a file with the same name as the domain name within your ".spamcontrol/dnsbl" directory. For example, suppose you wish to switch on black lists for a domain "example.com". To do this, create a file whose name relative to your home directory will be:
  

    .spamcontrol/dnsbl/example.com
  

  Use all lowercase letters in the above filename. If you use any uppercase characters in the filename, the resulting filename will have no effect on black list use.

  The directories and files above should be world-visible, i.e., the mail system should be able to test for their existence even if it runs as some username other than yours.

  The rule used by the mail system for deciding whether or not to use black lists can be algorithmically stated as follows. Suppose mail arrives for you and the domain in the destination address is "example.com". Then:
  

    look within the user's home directory
    if a directory called .spamcontrol/dnsbl DOES NOT exist then
      black lists will be used
    else if a file called .spamcontrol/dnsbl/example.com DOES exist then
      black lists will be used
    else
      black lists will not be used
    end if
  

  If you have encountered any spam problems, we recommend that you allow black lists to remain active for your domains.
  
• 2006-Dec-06 14:28

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment : Directadmin: Spam Filtering :
Spam Filtering: In your Mail Client

• Many mail clients include some type of spam filtering. One highly-rated mail client is Thunderbird. See its web site at http://www.mozilla.org/thunderbird/. Thunderbird includes a learning filter that automatically detects your preferences and classifies spam accordingly.
  
• 2006-Apr-14 21:45

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment : Directadmin: Spam Filtering :
Spam Filtering: At some Third Location

• Simply forward your email to some other server. For example, you can get a free Google Mail account (see http://mail.google.com/mail/) and forward your email there. Then you can benefit from spam filtering at that location.
  
• 2006-Apr-14 21:46

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment :
Virus Scanning in DirectAdmin

• All incoming email is scanned for viruses before it is permitted into our DirectAdmin servers. If any virus is recognized, the email message is immediately rejected with an error message similar to:
  

    550 Virus Detected; Content Rejected
  

  If you are sending outgoing mail from your home or office machine through the DirectAdmin mail server, and if the send attempt fails with a message like the one shown above, it means that our server is detecting a virus in the email that you are attempting to send. Use an antivirus program on your home or office machine to clean it of any viruses and then try again.

  If anybody trying to send you email complains that his email to you is bouncing back with an error message like the one above, it means that our servers are detecting a virus in the email that he is trying to send to you. Ask him to use an antivirus program on his home or office machine to clean it of any viruses and then try again.
  

• 2006-May-15 03:47

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment :
MySQL in DirectAdmin

• Database creation and modification is done from the MySQL Management page. After creating the database you can update its password and its various privileges from the same page.

  The phpMyAdmin page will be used only after you have created the database from the MySQL Management page.
  

• 2006-Mar-02 04:34

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment :
SSL (https) access in a DirectAdmin Environment

• If your account type includes SSL access, and if you enable SSL for your domain from the Directadmin menus, then your web site will become accessible via an encrypted connection at this URL (where USERNAME is your own username):
  

    https://sunshine.rahul.net/~USERNAME
  

  You do not need to buy or install any SSL certificate. The server already has an SSL certificate installed in it.

  If a URL like the one above does not work, it may be the case that your default domain has not been set. Go to the DirectAdmin domain administration menu, and set your desired domain as the default. For example, if your web site is at www.example.com, then set example.com as your default domain. Now https://sunshine.rahul.net/~USERNAME will go to www.example.com.

  Don't try to access your web site via an SSL connection using your own domain name, as this will lead to a certificate mismatch and a browser warning.

  With the default domain set as above, the ~USERNAME syntax will always force a web access to that default domain.

  To use multiple domains with SSL, you will need to adjust a symblic link in your account.

  Using ssh, log into your account, and make sure there is a symbolic link called "public_html" in your home directory that points to 'domains'. For example:
  

    (log in with ssh)
    % rm -f public_html
    % ln -s domains public_html
  

  (The % is the shell prompt -- it might look different.) The second line above removes any old public_html symbolic link. The third line creates a new symbolic link called "public_html" in your home directory that points to 'domains'.

  The effect of doing the above will be that accesses to https://sunshine.rahul.net/~USERNAME will now let you access any of your domains. Simply append the domain name and another "public_html" to the above string. For example:
  

    https://sunshine.rahul.net/~USERNAME/example.com/public_html
    https://sunshine.rahul.net/~USERNAME/anotherexample.com/public_html
    ...
    https://sunshine.rahul.net/~USERNAME/yetanothreexample.com/public_html

  Normal http accesses to http://www.example.com/ etc. will not be affected by the above changes.

  If you want to shorten the URLs, you can create multiple symbolic links in your 'domains' subdirectory. This is for expert users only! For example, if you create a symbolic link in your 'domains' directory called 'e' that points to 'example.com/public_html', then the https URL for example.com becomes:
  

    https://sunshine.rahul.net/~USERNAME/e

  In the future, if you want https://sunshine.rahul.net/~USERNAME to always go to one specific domain, simply go to the DirectAdmin domain administratoin menu, and set a default domain. Then all accesses to https://sunshine.rahul.net/~USERNAME will go to the default domain.
  

• 2007-Apr-18 11:16

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment :
Cgi-bin Debugging in DirectAdmin

• General DirectAdmin Hints

  A discussion of cgi-bin issues in the Directadmin environment can be found in the Directadmin Knowledgebase at http://help.directadmin.com/. Of special interest is this entry:

    cgi files generate Internal Server Error
    at http://help.directadmin.com/item.php?id=6

  Note especially that not all cgi-bin errors will show up in the Apache logs that you can view from the Directadmin screens. In particular, if a cgi-bin program is owned by any user or group other than you, or if it or its containing directory is writable by anybody other than you, an suexec error will occur that can be found only in the /var/log/httpd/suexec_log file described in the Knowledgebase entry above. To view this log file you will need to ssh to the server, log in, and view the log from the command line. Also see other hints for accessing log files in the example debugging script discussed below.

  Example Debugging Script

  The script /usr/local/bin/printenv.cgi has been made available to help you debug cgi-in programs. Copy this script into your cgi-bin directory and follow the instructions inside the script.
  

• 2007-May-03 17:23

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment :
Directadmin Default Mail Account

• There is exactly one default mailbox that always exists in your Directadmin account. It cannot be deleted. It corresponds to the standard incoming mailbox that exists for each user on a Linux system. The name of this default mailbox on your E-Mail Accounts screen is USER@DOMAIN where USER is your Directadmin username and DOMAIN is the domain for which you have reached the E-Mail Accounts screen.

  If MACHINE is the name of the Directadmin server (e.g., sunshine.rahul.net) and DOMAIN is any of your domains, and USER is your Directadmin username, then mail arriving for any of these addresses will reach the same one default mailbox:
  

    USER@DOMAIN for each of your domains
    USER@MACHINE

  You may add forwarders for any or all of the USER@DOMAIN addresses. These forwarders will cause mail to be forwarded to some other address. No mail will then be saved in the USER@DOMAIN mailbox.

  However, mail arriving for USER@MACHINE can't be forwarded using a forwarder. You can forward all mail arriving for USER@MACHINE and USER@DOMAIN addresses by connecting to the Directadmin server using ssh, logging in, and creating a ".forward" file in your home directory.

  The .forward file must be writable only by your username and not writable group or world, otherwise it will not work. To set correct protections on the .forward file, you can use the following command from the Linux shell:
  

    $ chmod 600 .forward

  Spam filtering

  If you have enabled SpamAssassin, you may find that it is NOT active for mail arriving for your default mailbox. To cause SpamAssassin to filter mail arriving for your default mailbox, create some other mail account, and use a .forward file as described above to forward mail, which would have normally gone into the default mailbox, to go to that other mail account. Make sure that SpamAssassin has been enabled for that other mail account. When mail is delivered into that other mail account, SpamAssassin will be active at that time.

  Recommendation

  We recommend that the USER name for your DirectAdmin account be something you have not used as a username in any email address email in the past and will not use in any email address email in the future. This will minimize spam arriving for this name.
  For example, if you have used, or plan to use, joe@example.com as an email address, then your username should not be “joe”. It could be something slightly different, e.g., “joexyz” or “joe32”. If you don’t request otherwise, we will add two or three random digits to the username we give you.
  
  

• 2008-Apr-06 17:31

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment :
Q. How do I Forward Mail?

• Q. How do I Forward Mail?

  To forward mail in Directadmin, follow the sequence:
  

    Forwarders -> Create new E-Mail Forwarder
  

  Enter the Forwarder Name and Destination Email then click on Create.

  See also the DirectAdmin online help at:
  

    http://www.site-helper.com/email.html#forwarders
  

  The above URL will also tell you how to forward mail to multiple addresses.

  IMPORTANT: Leave the Catch-All E-Mail setting at "Fail". All other Catch-All settings will not work correctly and may cause mail to be lost. See also: Spam Filtering: On the Server: SpamAssassin.
  

• 2006-Nov-27 17:09

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment :
Q. How do I Forward an Additional Copy of Mail?

• Q. How do I Forward an Additional Copy of Mail?

  In the DirectAdmin environment, when both an email account and a forwarder exist for the same email address, mail will be delivered into the mail account and a copy of the same message will also be forwarded. Create both the email account and the forwarder from the DirectAdmin menus as follows.

  Create the mail account:
  

    E-Mail Accounts -> Create mail account
  

  Create the forwarder:
  

    Forwarders -> Create new E-Mail Forwarder
  

  Note: Although mail is normally both forwarded and delivered as above, see also the different behavior of the Directadmin Default Mail Account, in which case adding a forwarder causes mail to be only forwarded and not delivered to the mail account.

  See also the DirectAdmin online help at:

    http://www.site-helper.com/email.html#create
    http://www.site-helper.com/email.html#forwarders

  
  
• 2006-Apr-14 00:33

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment :
Q. How do I Discard/Reject/Ignore All Mail Arriving for an Email Address?

• Q. How do I Discard/Reject/Ignore All Mail Arriving for an Email Address?

  Simply add a forwarder for that email address and forward its mail to the special token:
  

    :fail:
  

  All mail arriving for that email address will be immediately rejected by our network with an SMTP error. No mail will be delivered to that email address even if a mail account exists for it.

  See also the DirectAdmin online help at:
  

    http://www.site-helper.com/email.html#forwarders
  

  IMPORTANT: Leave the Catch-All E-Mail setting at "Fail". All other Catch-All settings will not work correctly and may cause mail to be lost. See also: Spam Filtering: On the Server: SpamAssassin.
  
• 2006-Nov-27 17:09

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment :
Q. How Do I Access my Mailboxes?

• Q. How Do I Access my Mailboxes?

  In the DirectAdmin environment, each mail account that you create will automatically have certain mailboxes:
  

    INBOX
    INBOX.Drafts
    INBOX.Sent
    INBOX.Trash
    spam
  

  To access any of these, follow the "Webmail: Squirrelmail" link near the middle of the DirectAdmin main menu. When you see a login screen, log in using the name and password for the mail account that you wish to access. E.g., the login name might be joe@example.com. You will now be logged in using the Squirrelmail interface. You will see your mailboxes on the left-hand side of the screen. Click on any of them to see mail in that mailbox.

  To read mail in a different account, log out of Squirrelmail (with the "Sign Out" link), then log in again using the name and password for the other mail account.

  See also: Q. How Do I Access SquirrelMail?.

  Accessing Spam Folders

  If you have set up any filters on the "SPAM Filters" screen, and if you selected the "Send to spambox" option, then any matching email will be delivered into the "spam" folder listed above.

  If you have enabled SpamAssassin on the "Spamassassin Setup" screen, and if you selected the option "Send the spam to the appropriate users's spam folder.", then any spam that is detected will be delivered into the same "spam" folder mentioned above.

  If you selected "Redirect it to the catch-all ~/.spamassassin/spam folder" on the "Spamassassin Setup" screen, then any detected spam will go into a shared spam mailbox. To access this shared spam mailbox, you will log in as the DirectAdmin user that owns the domain (e.g., "joeuser" and not "joe@example.com) and then use Squirrelmail as described below.

  SPAM FOLDER WARNING

  If you are saving incoming spam into a spam folder as discussed above, be sure to check the spam folder about once a day or more often, and purge it of unwanted messages. Otherwise the spam folder will continue to grow bigger and bigger until it will use up all your available disk space.
  

• 2006-Apr-14 01:57

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment :
Q. How Do I Access SquirrelMail?

• Q. How Do I Access SquirrelMail?

  There are three ways of reaching SquirrelMail in the DirectAdmin environment.

  1. You can point your web browser towards your web site URL, and append "/squirrelmail" to that URL. You may use either "http" or "https" in the URL. For example, suppose your web site in the DirectAdmin environment is at:
  

    http://www.example.com/
  

  Then you can go to either of these URLs:
  

    https://www.example.com/squirrelmail
    http://www.example.com/squirrelmail
  

  Note: Even if your account type does not include SSL access for your web site, you will be able to use an https URL as above to access SquirrelMail.

  2. The second way of reaching SquirrelMail is exactly as above, but using the server name instead of your domain name. For example:
  

    https://sunshine.rahul.net/squirrelmail
    http://sunshine.rahul.net/squirrelmail

  3. The third way of reaching SquirrelMail is from within the DirectAdmin control panel. Simply follow the "Webmail: Squirrelmail" link near the middle of the main menu.
  

• 2006-Apr-14 11:42

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment :
Installatron

• If your account type includes the Installatron feature, you will be able to follow the "Installatron" link and install or administer a variety of software packages in your account. See the Installatron home page at http://www.installatron.com/.

  Many of the software packages installed by Installatron are written in the PHP programming language. See the PHP home page at http://www.php.net/.

  A few older programs require a certain peculiar setting in PHP. This is the register_globals flag. Normally, for best security, register_globals should be kept switched off. But some older programs require it to be switched on. Our DirectAdmin environment keeps register_globals switched off. If you ever encounter a program that requires register_globals to be switched on, you may do so just for that program by going into the web directory where that program resides, and creating world-readable a file there called .htaccess and in that file inserting this one line:
  

    php_flag register_globals on
  

  This will keep the register_globals switched on only for that program.

  At this time the only programs installed by Installatron that requires this change are:

  - Contact Form
  
  

• 2006-Nov-28 05:21

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment :
Majordomo Mailing Lists

• The DirectAdmin environment includes the Majordomo mailing list software.

  Q. How do I restrict who may post to a mailing list?

  A. If you simply want to restrict posting to the list to people who are on the mailing list, go to the settings screen for the list (Mailing Lists->view->click here) and into the 'Restrict Post' box enter the name of the list (without any @domain part), then do a save. This will cause any postings to the list to be rejected unless the sender's email address is subscribed to the list.

  To restrict postings to a specific group of persons not related to who is on the list, create a file somewhere in your home directory and put the email address of each allowed person in that file, one per line. Make this file world-readable. Then into the 'Restrict Post' box put the full pathname of that file and do save. This will cause Majordomo to allow postings to the list only if the sender's email address is in the file you created.

  Q. How do I mass-subscribe people to the list without sending each person a 'welcome' notification?

  A. First, be absolutely sure these people really want to be on the list. Then, on the settings screen for the list, set the 'Welcome' item to 'No' and do save. This will suppress all welcome messages from Majordomo. Now send email to Majordomo in which you mass-subscribe people, one per line, like this:

    approve <password> subscribe <list> <email address>
    approve <password> subscribe <list> <email address>
    ...
    approve <password> subscribe <list> <email address>
  

  For example, we could add people to a list called 'family@example.com' with password 'sjw343' with an email that looks like this:

    approve ajw343 subscribe family@example.com joe@example.com
    approve ajw343 subscribe family@example.com bob@joe.onthisnet.com
    ...
    approve ajw343 subscribe family@example.com jouser@rahul.net
  

  When done, you should re-enable the 'Welcome' option, so that people who subscribe in the future will get a welcome message from the list.

  
  
• 2006-Jun-18 21:13

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment :
Disk Space Clean-Up

• You may occasionally wish to clean up old and unused files from your DirectAdmin account. Here are some hints.

  From the DirectAdmin control panel, click on the Files icon to reach the File Manager. Now look at the Size column (third column). This shows you the sizes of various files and directory. By clicking on the Size column title, you can change the sort order. After clicking on Size twice, you should see files and directories sorted by size, largest first. Now you can tell where most of your disk space is going.

  Here some selected files and directories that may need cleaning up.

  Directory ".spamassassin"

  This directory holds files used by SpamAssassin for diagnosing spam.

  Within this directory, you may see files with names of the form "bayes_toks.expire###" where ### is some number. If you see any files with these names that are more than a few days old, it's safe to delete them to recover disk space.

  Also within this directory, you may see a file called "spam". This is your spam folder. It can be accessed and purged via webmail. But you can also delete it from the file manager to recover disk space.

  All other files in the ".spamassassin" directory should be allowed to stay intact.

  Directory ".razor"

  Razor is one of the modules used by SpamAssassin. Within the ".razor" directotry, the log file called "razor-agent.log" may grow indefinitely and may become quite big. It's safe to delete this file to recover disk space.

  All other files in the ".razor" directory should be allowed to stay intact.

  
  
• 2006-Dec-08 02:58

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment :
Blacklist Failure when Posting to Web Site

• All attempts to post information ito a web site in the DirectAdmin environment are protected by anti-spam black lists.

  It can happen that you get an IP address for your dial-up or high-speed connection that was recently used by somebody else who was sending spam using the same IP address. In this rare case, you might get an error message denying you to ability to post to a form on your web site.

  There are three possible work-arounds.

  First, if you just wait for a few hours, the anti-spam listing of your IP address will automatically expire.

  Second, for an immediate fix, simply use our web proxy server. See this page: Usenet News and Web Proxy Servers Since the web proxy server requires you to supply a login and password, the system recognizes you as a genuine user, not a spammer, and always lets you through.

  Third, you can give your own IP address POST permission on your web site. Create a ".htaccess" file in any directory where your cgi-bin scripts, php files, etc., reside, and explicitly allow your IP to post. Don't do this unless you are familiar with how ".htaccess" files work.
  

• 2007-Dec-05 19:56

Rahul.Net Home : Directadmin Environment :
Migrating from Cpanel to DirectAdmin

• Suppose you have a Cpanel account that uses the custom domain EXAMPLE.COM, and you are about to migrate to a DirectAdmin account. Here are some steps you can follow to minimize your down time.

  FREE TRIAL DIRECTADMIN ACCOUNT

  Get a free trial account first in the DirectAdmin environment. (You can do this by logging into the new billing system and then following the "Order" link to place an order for a free trial account of a suitable type. We recommend an "e" series account.) This free trial account will not in any way intefere with your existing Cpanel account.

  In the free trial account, get familiar with how to create and delete mailboxes and mail forwarders. Send some test email, both via the trial account server to an outside address, and from an outside mail acount to your trial account mailbox(es). Make sure you can figure out how to send and receive mail reliably in the trial account. Use the temporary domain provided with the trial account.

  Your trial account will not become permanent. Do not store any valuable data in it.

  In the trial account, create one or two simple web pages and get familiar with how this is done.

  Do an ssh login into the trial acccount, and explore the directory structure via an ssh window. Refer to this web page to get an understanding of the directory layout:

  http://www.site-helper.com/uploading.html

  Notice that there is a subdirectory called "domains" inside your home directory, and that subdirectory contains another subdirectory named after your temporary domain.

  REGULAR DIRECTADMIN ACCOUNT

  Now ask for a regular (paid) account by contacting support@rahul.net. Your free trial account will be replaced by a regular account.

  In this account, you will again be given a default domain name, usually of the form USER.onthisnet.com. You can use this default domain so long as your account remains valid.

  Now get ready for the switch-over. You will do the following steps fairly quickly, within 2-4 days.

  Add your domain EXAMPLE.COM to your DirectAdmin account. At this point, EXAMPLE.COM is officially still connected with your existing Cpanel account. But it's also known to your DirectAdmin server. Mail and web access from the outside world to EXAMPLE.COM or WWW.EXAMPLE.COM will continue to reach your old Cpanel account.

  However, any mail sent by other customers on the same DirectAdmin server will now go to your DirectAdmin account. For this reason, quickly create mailboxes in your DirectAdmin account that have the same names as your mailboxes in your Cpanel account. Now if anybody on the DirectAdmin server sends mail to any of your addresses, the email will go into the correct mailbox on the DirectAdmin server.

  Now upload your web site to your DirectAdmin account. Access your uploaded web pages via a URL that points to the server name (e.g., http://sunshine.rahul.net/~USER/...) and make sure they are valid.

  Now you are ready for the final switch. Go to your domain registrar, and change the name servers to be the name servers whose names you received when your DirectAdmin account was created. Allow a few hours, and the name server change should begin to become visible to the outside world. Now every one or two hours, keep sending test email from some outside location, and also keep accessing your web pages using your EXAMPLE.COM domain name. Some of your email messages or web accesses will go to the old Cpanel server, and some will go to the new server. Keep looking for any errors, and take any action needed to fix them.

  The most significant errors, if any, are likely to involve any cgi-bin programs in your web site. For cgi-bin debugging hits see: Cgi-bin Debugging in DirectAdmin.

  Your new web site might need minor adjustments. Make them as needed, every 1-2 hours.

  Web browsers often cache old web pages. To make sure you always see a current view of your web pages, it will help if you occasionally clear your web browser's cache. You may have to explore all the menus on your browser to find the right menu item to let you do this.

  About 2-3 days after you did the name server change, essentially all traffic, both email and web accesses, should be reaching your new DirectAdmin account. If you have been carefully checking for problems all along, there should be minimal or no disruption of your email and web site.

  For a few days, keep checking email on both the old and new servers. When you notice that no more email is reaching the old server, the switch-over is complete.

  Now you may delete your Cpanel account.
  

• 2009-Sep-12 23:53

Cpanel Environment

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