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NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

This is a general frequently-asked-questions system.
Please also see our newer documentation site at http://info.rahul.net/.
To expand or contract any screen, click on [Show This Entire Category] or [Show Top Category Only].
Return to the home page of this FAQ by clicking on the Home link at the top left of any screen.
The [Appearance] link at the bottom will give you more options, some of which may be confusing for new users.
[New Item] and [New Answer in... ] links are not active.
Subcategories:
Directadmin Environment
Cpanel Environment
Classic Linux Environment
Billing Policies
New Billing System July 2009
Diagnosing Domain Problems
How to submit a useful problem report
Usenet News and Web Proxy Servers
Nightly Backups
Anti-Spam Techniques: How They Work
Support Issues
(Unused)
2009-Oct-28 16:21

Rahul.Net Home :
Directadmin Environment

Directadmin hosting: web, email, more.

A rate schedule for the Directadmin environment may be found at:
- NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.
- 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

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

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

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

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

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

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

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

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

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

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

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

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

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

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

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

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

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

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?

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

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?

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

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?

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

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?

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

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

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

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

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

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

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

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

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

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

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

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

Rahul.Net Home :
Cpanel Environment

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

The Cpanel environment has been phased out. We recommend the DirectAdmin environment instead:

http://www.rahul.net/dhesi/dahosting.html
2009-Aug-21 04:36

Rahul.Net Home :
Classic Linux Environment

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

For current documentation, please see:
- http://info.rahul.net/classic:classic_linux
Older pages are below.
Subcategories:
(Old) Adding/Removing Email Addresses
(Old) Email Hyphenated Suffixes
(Old) Classic Linux: SMTP Filtering to Keep Out Spam
(Old) Email Address and Advanced SMTP Filtering Control
(Old) Selective Whitelisting
(Old) SpamAssassin to Identify Spam
(Old) Virus Scanning
(Old) If Legitimate Mail is Blocked
2009-Oct-25 05:03

Rahul.Net Home : Classic Linux Environment :
(Old) Adding/Removing Email Addresses

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

You can add or remove email addresses by going to the web page
```
  https://userinfo.rahul.net/
```
and following the link entitled "Email Address and SMTP Filtering Control".
If you have a custom domain, you can add arbitrary email addresses in your domain. An email address may forward to any other email address on the Internet. To simply cause an email address to forward to your mail account, specify your username as the destination. Here are some examples:
```
  joe@example.com => joe
  sales@example.com => mysalesguy@remotelocation.com
  accounting@example.com => joe
```
If you do not have a custom domain, you can still forward mail for any hyphenated suffix of your email address. (See also: (Old) Email Hyphenated Suffixes.) For example:
```
  joeuser@rahul.net => joeuser
  joeuser-school@rahul.net => myothermailbox@elsewhere.net
  joeuser-office@rahul.net => joeuser
```
You can also cause mail arriving for an email address to be rejected, by forwarding that email address to the special token "fail". This may optionally be followed by a colon and an error message. The sender of the failed email will see the error message when his mail fails. Examples are below.
```
  sue@example.com => fail
  joe@example.com => fail:Joe is no longer here
  bill@example.com => fail:Bill has moved to bill@elsewhere.net
  joeuser@example.com => joe@someotherdomain.net
  joeuser-school@example.com => fail:I am no longer in school

  joeuser-office@rahul.net => fail:I no longer have an office
  joeuser-school@rahul.net => fail:Joe is no longer in school
  joeuser-xxx@rahul.net => fail:No such person
```
When incoming mail is rejected due to the use of the "fail" token as above, our network refuses to accept the message, by returning an SMTP error code during the SMTP transaction. No bounce message is sent back, since the original incoming message is never accepted in the first place.
2009-Oct-25 05:01

Rahul.Net Home : Classic Linux Environment :
(Old) Email Hyphenated Suffixes

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

Any email address may be used with a hyphenated suffix in the part before the @ character.
For example, a user "joeuser" whose normal email address is "joeuser@rahul.net" could make up new email addresses like this:
```
  joeuser-xxx@rahul.net
  joeuser-yyy@rahul.net
  joeuser-school@rahul.net
```
and so on. He can then supply such email addresses to others. For example, he could tell his school to use the address joeuser-school@rahul.net when sending him email. Then, when email arrives for him, he can have his mail program, if it has the capability, automatically refile the email into the right mail folder.
When this user signs up for correspondence at a web site, he can make up a new email address just for that web site. Later on, if he starts to receive spam at that email address, this may be a good indication that that web site gave his email address to the spammer.
Multiple hyphens are permitted, i.e., an email address like joeuser-xxx-yyy@rahul.net will also work, and will cause mail to be delivered to joeuser@rahul.net.
Any (Old) Classic Linux: SMTP Filtering to Keep Out Spam that is active for an email address is automatically also applied to any corresponding hyphenated email address. Thus, for example, if SMTP filtering is enabled for joeuser@rahul.net, then it is also automatically enabled for joeuser-xxx@rahul.net.
If you have a custom domain, you may generate hyphenated email addresses in the same way, by adding a hyphenated suffix before the @ character to any email address in your domain. For example: joeuser@example.com, joeuser-xxx@example.com, joeuser-yyy@example.com, and so on.
If you wish to separately control SMTP filtering for a hyphenated email addresses, simply add each such address (see: (Old) Adding/Removing Email Addresses). Then you can set SMTP filtering status independently for each hyphenated suffix.
Note that email addresses with hyphenated suffixes can be made up at any time, and you need not explicitly add each one to the mail system. Only if you want to separately set SMTP filtering or mail forwarding for such an address do you need to explicitly add it.
2009-Oct-25 05:02

Rahul.Net Home : Classic Linux Environment :
(Old) Classic Linux: SMTP Filtering to Keep Out Spam

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

By the use of Greylisting and black lists (see references below), a substantial amount of spam is rejected before it enters our network. This is called SMTP filtering.

You may adjust the SMTP filtering for your email address(es) by going to:
- https://userinfo.rahul.net/
and following the link entitled "Email Address and SMTP Filtering Control".

You can add multiple email addresses (see (Old) Adding/Removing Email Addresses) and set the SMTP filtering for each as you prefer.

Wildcard domains: A domain name beginning with '@', such as @example.com, is called a wildcard domain. In our system this represents all unknown addresses in the domain.

To keep out dictionary attacks and prevent excessive machine load, email arriving for a wildcard domain, i.e., for unknown addresses in a domain, will always be subjected to a high degree of SMTP filtering and this cannot be switched off. You may create specific email addresses in your domain and separately adjust the SMTP filtering for each one.

References: For more information about greylisting and black lists, please see:
- Anti-Spam Techniques: How They Work
2009-Oct-25 05:02

Rahul.Net Home : Classic Linux Environment :
(Old) Email Address and Advanced SMTP Filtering Control

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

A newer version of this page can be found at http://info.rahul.net/classic:email_address_and_advanced_smtp_filtering_control.

An old version of this page is below.

An advanced user interface to SMTP filtering can be used by going to: https://userinfo.rahul.net/ and following the link entitled "Email Address and Advanced SMTP Filtering Control".

To enable or disable SMTP filtering, check or uncheck the ENABLE box. Checked will give you less spam and unchecked will give you more spam. Also from among A, B, C, ..., X select one or more.

The ENABLE checkbox acts like a master OFF switch. If it is left cleared (i.e., unchecked), then SMTP filtering will not be active, regardless of whether any of A, B, C, ..., X are checked.

A, B, and C will very rarely, if ever, block legitimate email. C is slightly more aggressive than B but not unduly so.
- A: Greylisting. See (Old) Classic Linux: SMTP Filtering to Keep Out Spam and references therein.
- B: Black lists that list (a) individual IP addresses of misconfigured open proxies and virus-infected Microsoft machines, (b) netblocks of locations with dynamic IP addresses, and (c) individual IP addresses or small netblocks of the most egregious spam sources.
- C: Other conservative black lists that list both individual IP addresses and larger network blocks that appear to be dedicated to sending spam.
Enabling D, E, and X should eliminate almost all spam, while allowing an occasional false hit. If you enable any of D, E, or X, then B and C will also become active.
- D: Strict checking of Internet standards, e.g., DNS, hostname, SMTP HELO.
- E: Aggressive black lists that include sending locations believed to be spam-friendly or spam-suspect.
- X: Extremely aggressive black lists and new or experimental techniques.
To find out more details about what each of A, B, C, ..., X does, look for a link entitled "Details about A, B, C, ..., X" near the bottom of the SMTP Filtering user interface.

You don't have to stick to any one combination of SMTP filtering options. Simply add a number of email addresses (see (Old) Adding/Removing Email Addresses) and set the SMTP filtering for each as you prefer. For example, email addresses that you give to close friends or family can be left only mildly filtered, while email addresses that you publish on a web page may need to be heavily filtered.

Finding Out Which Mail was Blocked

You can find out which mail arriving for you was blocked by SMTP filtering with the help of the scan.logs command. Invoke this at the Linux shell with -h for help, like this:
```
  scan.logs -h
```
Motivated and Non-Motivated Senders

Regardless of how aggressively an email address is filtered, a motivated sender should always be able to get through to you. When SMTP filtering blocks a message, the blocked message is rejected with a valid SMTP code. The sender will get back an error indication from his mail system. So the sender will know that his email did not get through. If he really wants to reach you, he will find some way. Contrast this with the more conventional approach in which spam gets refiled into a spam folder. If the intended recipient doesn't check the spam folder and notice a misfiled non-spam message, the non-spam message is silently lost. The sender thinks it reached, but the recipient never notices it. SMTP filtering does not let mail get silently lost this way--either the recipient gets it, or the sender knows that the recipient did not get it.

But non-motivated senders will sometimes not reach you if SMTP filtering is enabled. A non-motivated sender is one who discards or ignores sending errors or, knowing that an error occurred, makes no noticeable effort to solve the problem that caused his email to you to fail. Ask non-motivated senders to send you email at an email address that is completely non-SMTP-filtered.

Mailing Lists

Many operators of mailing lists are non-motivated senders. Subscribe to such mailing lists using a hyphenated suffix email address (see (Old) Email Hyphenated Suffixes) and keep SMTP filtering disabled for that email address. You may need to subscribe to the mailing list twice: once with your "normal" email address so you can conveniently send mail to the list, and again with the hyphenated suffix email address at which you receive mail from the list. Set your subscription options so the list sends no mail to your "normal" email address, but still recognizes that email address as a subscriber to the list.

However, one result of the above strategy might be that many people on the mailing list will have your "normal" email address in their address-books. Sooner or later, this email address will leak out into the global Internet, and you will begin getting (more) spam at it. A less spam-prone option is to use the same hyphenated email address to send mail to the list. If you can, use a mail program (e.g., pine) that can automatically set your from email address based on the address to which you send mail. If in the future you begin getting too much spam at the hyphenated email address, simply forward that address to "fail" and re-subscribe to the mailing list with a new hyphenated email address.

Country-Specific Blocking

You can block all mail from certain countries of your choice by following the link from within the Advanced interface to the Baroque interface. Then select the countries to block using two-character codes below. Countries are identified by the IP address of the remote host that connects to our servers to send mail.
- ar: Argentina
- au: Australia
- br: Brazil
- ca: Canada
- cn: China
- es: Spain
- fr: France
- hk: Hong Kong
- in: India
- jp: Japan
- kr: Korea (South)
- ru: Russia
- sg: Singapore
- tw: Taiwan
- gb: Great Britain
Old Filtering

The Baroque interface will also let you select an option "OLD". This enables SMTP filtering at a level equal to the way it used to be in March 2006, before the new options became available. The OLD filtering can be activated only if options B and C are both unchecked (to avoid duplicate processing, because B and C include everything that OLD does).

Warning

Warning: The descriptions above are approximate. Black lists and techniques in use may change without notice. IP address-to-country mappings are believed to be close to 100% accurate but are not guaranteed to be so.
2009-Nov-22 05:58

Rahul.Net Home : Classic Linux Environment :
(Old) Selective Whitelisting

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

Sometimes you may find that the SMTP filtering gets in the way of some specific sender. You don't want to completely switch off SMTP filtering, but you still want to receive mail from that sender.
Although our SMTP filtering does not allow a specific sender to be white-listed, you can take advantage of our (Old) Email Hyphenated Suffixes feature. Simply create a new email address just for use by that sender, explicitly add that address (see (Old) Adding/Removing Email Addresses), and keep SMTP filtering switched off for only that email address (see (Old) Classic Linux: SMTP Filtering to Keep Out Spam). Then give that sender this new email address and ask him to send mail to you at this email address. Now that sender can send you email, while all your other email is still spam-filtered just as well as ever.
Also please see: (Old) If Legitimate Mail is Blocked.
2009-Oct-25 05:02

Rahul.Net Home : Classic Linux Environment :
(Old) SpamAssassin to Identify Spam

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

The SpamAssassin spam-detection program (see its home page at http://spamassassin.apache.org/) scans all incoming email in the Classic Linux Environment (i.e., on the servers green.rahul.net, mauve.rahul.net, azure.rahul.net, ...). SpamAssassin only assigns a spam score to each message. It does not block any message or refile any message into any spam folder. You may in your .procmailrc file take any preferred actions based on the spam score assigned by SpamAssassin.
This implementation of SpamAssassin includes Bayesian (i.e., probabilistic) spam filtering that uses a central database.
Every email message you receive will end up containing a spam rating added by SpamAssassin. Look for headers beginning with 'X-Spam-', for example:
```
  X-Spam-Flag:
  X-Spam-Report:
  X-Spam-Status:
  X-Spam-Level:
```
Based on these headers you can have other code in your .procmailrc file that will refile or delete spam based on your preferences.
Note: Mail arriving for certain Nojunk domains, such as boxmail.com, might not be scanned by SpamAssassin at this time. This will be corrected in the future.
You can adjust your SpamAssassin preferences by editing the user_prefs file in your .spamassassin directory. If this does not already exist, SpamAssassin will automatically create one for you. You can also use a web interface to update your SpamAssassin preferences at this URL:
```
  https://usermin.rahul.net:20000/
```
Use the above web interface to adjust the following settings to your satisfaction:
```
  Allowed and Denied Addresses -> 
    From: addresses to never classify as spam
    From: addresses to always classify as spam

  Spam Classification ->
    Hits above which a message is considered spam
    Languages in email that are not considered potential spam
    Character sets in email that are not considered potential spam
```
There are a large number of other SpamAssassin settings, but we recommend you change them only if you consider yourself to be an advanced SpamAssassin user.
Answers in this category:
(Old) SpamAssassin: How to Enable
(Old) SpamAssassin: Bayesian Filtering
(Old) SpamAssassin: Upgrade from Private Installation
(Old) SpamAssassin Security
2009-Oct-25 05:02

Rahul.Net Home : Classic Linux Environment : (Old) SpamAssassin to Identify Spam :
(Old) SpamAssassin: How to Enable

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

Since SpamAssassin is automatically active, you need do nothing to enable it. However, if in the past you had explicitly enabled SpamAssassin by adding any lines into your .procmailrc file, you should remove those lines, to avoid making SpamAssassin run twice.
If you have lines like the following in your .procmailrc file, or any other lines that invoke "spamassassin" or "spamc", you should remove them or comment them out.
```
  # spamassassin beta-test {{{

  # back up
  :0c:
    ./Mail/Backupmail

  # filter
  :0fw
    | spamc

  # }}}
```
2009-Oct-25 05:03

Rahul.Net Home : Classic Linux Environment : (Old) SpamAssassin to Identify Spam :
(Old) SpamAssassin: Bayesian Filtering

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

Bayesian filtering involves SpamAssassin learning which email you consider to be spam and which email you consider to be non-spam. SpamAssassin will automatically try to initialize the Bayesian database from some of your email messages by guessing which ones are spam and which ones are not. However, this wil not give the best results. For best results, you must yourself teach SpamAssassin before Bayesian filtering will become fully effective.
Collect non-spam messages in a mailbox, and then use this command:
```
  % sa-learn --progress --mbox --ham <filename>
```
where <filename> is the filename of the mailbox containing non-spam (termed 'ham').
Collect spam messages in another mailbox, and then use this command:
```
  % sa-learn --progress --mbox --spam <filename>
```
The sa-learn command will automatically ignore duplicates, so you can efficiently run it on the same mailbox(es) over and over again.
After sa-learn has seen a few hundred spam messages, and a few hundred non-spam messages, Bayesian filtering will become active. Then you will notice that the X-Spam-Status lines in email will includes tokens such as BAYES_99 indicating the Bayesian probability of the message being spam.
2009-Oct-25 05:04

Rahul.Net Home : Classic Linux Environment : (Old) SpamAssassin to Identify Spam :
(Old) SpamAssassin: Upgrade from Private Installation

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

If you were previously using a privately-installed version of SpamAssassin, you should follow the recommendations below. NOTE: If you have any privately-installed SpamAssassin programs in your execution PATH, you may encounter problems. Before proceeding, either remove these privately-installed SpamAssassin programs or make sure they are at the end of your execution PATH, not near the beginning, so the system-supplied SpamAssassin programs are always executed.
You probably already have a user_prefs file in your .spamassassin directory. Manually combine your personal settings in this file with the global defaults contained in the file:
```
  /usr/share/spamassassin/user_prefs.template
```
Your previous SpamAssassin installation may already have collected some Bayesian tokens. If so, they will be in your .spamassassin directory in files whose names match 'bayes*', such as:
```
  bayes_journal
  bayes_seen
  bayes_toks
```
You can import these into the new SpamAssassin's central database.
First, use 'sa-learn' at least once with the --spam or --ham option (as described in the (Old) SpamAssassin: Bayesian Filtering section above), so that the central database is correctly initialized for you. Otherwise the steps below may fail.
Then cd into your .spamassassin directory and use the following commands:
```
  % sa-learn --siteconfigpath=/ --backup > data.txt
  % sa-learn --restore data.txt
```
The first sa-learn command above will export your current Bayesian data into a file called 'data.txt'. Any error message of the form 'bayes: bayes db version 2 is not able to be used, aborting! ...' can be safely ignored.
The second sa-learn command will import data from 'data.txt' into the central database.
Both sa-learn commands above can take a while, depending on the size of your existing Bayesian data.
After the --restore step above, you can check the size of the imported data with:
```
  % sa-learn --dump magic
```
Look at the 'nham' and 'nspam' values to get a count of non-spam and spam tokens respectively in the database.
After the import has been done, you can delete the bayes* files in your .spamassassin directory thus:
```
  % rm bayes*
```
2009-Oct-25 05:04

Rahul.Net Home : Classic Linux Environment : (Old) SpamAssassin to Identify Spam :
(Old) SpamAssassin Security

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

SpamAssassin uses a shared databse and a "spamd" daemon that changes to your username before processing your mail. Due to the nature of the implementation, a dedicated adversary logged into the machine could cause spamd to read your user_prefs file, or possibly add addresses to your whitelist, or read or write your Bayesian tokens. Since your Bayesian tokens are stored in a hashed form, it is unlikely that anybody else will be able to tell what text is contained in your email.
In practise we don't expect any of this to be a problem. In no case does SpamAssassin allow anybody to access any of your data outside of your .spamassassin directory and outside of the Bayesian database.
2009-Oct-25 05:04

Rahul.Net Home : Classic Linux Environment :
(Old) Virus Scanning

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

All incoming email is scanned for viruses before it is permitted into our Classic Linux 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 our SMTP server, and if the send attempt fails with a message like the one shown above, it means that our SMTP 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 SMTP 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.
2009-Oct-25 05:02

Rahul.Net Home : Classic Linux Environment :
(Old) If Legitimate Mail is Blocked

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

Our SMTP filtering does not block spam per se. It blocks all mail arriving from certain hosts and IP addresses that are more likely than others to send spam. Non-spam mail coming from these locations will also be blocked. Although the fraction of legitimate mail that will be blocked is small, it is not zero.
If a correspondent is unable to send you email because our SMTP filtering is blocking his host or IP address, here are some of your choices.
- You can ask the person who administers the sending site to correct the problem that is causing the blocking, if it is correctable. For example, if he is sending mail from a dynamic IP address, he could relay mail via his connectivity provider's mail server. If he is sending mail from a host that does not have valid DNS, he could attempt to correct the DNS configuration, or relay outgoing mail via another server (a "smarthost") that does have valid DNS. If he is operating or sending from a pro-spam site that is blocked because of its reputation, he can persuade his organization to cease its pro-spam activities and have itself de-listed from the various black lists.
- You can ask the sender to get a different mailbox (for example, at a free email provider) and send you mail from there.
- You can switch off your own SMTP filtering. Then you will be able to receive mail from this sender. You will also get more spam. Details are in (Old) Classic Linux: SMTP Filtering to Keep Out Spam. (Note: switching off SMTP filtering does not leave you completely helpless. All incoming email is also scanned by (Old) SpamAssassin to Identify Spam and you may adjust your .procmailrc script to delete or refile spam as appropriate to your needs. This may, however, increase the burden on you to visually check your spam folder for any misfiled mail.)
- You can add an alternate email address for yourself, keep SMTP filtering switched off for this alternate address, and ask the sender to send you mail at this alternate email address. Details are in (Old) Selective Whitelisting.
If you think that our blocking is too aggressive, and that some innocent party sending mail from a well-administered location, not affiliated with any pro-spam organization, having valid DNS, and not using a dynamic IP address, is being unfairly blocked, then please do the following.
FIRST, take action as described above, so the innocent sender is able to send you mail.
THEN, ask the person who administers the sending site to go to one or more of the web sites below, and check to see if his IP address is being blocked in any black lists, and if so, to take all possible reasonable steps to get his IP addresses delisted from the ones that are in wider use.
- OpenRBL http://www.openrbl.org/
- CompleteWhoIs http://www.completewhois.com/rbl_lookup.htm
- Robtex http://www.robtex.com/
- Declude http://www.declude.com/Articles.asp?ID=97
FINALLY, please contact support@rahul.net and notify us of the situation.
2009-Oct-25 05:03

Rahul.Net Home :
Billing Policies

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

Please see:
- http://info.rahul.net/new_billing_system
2009-Oct-26 13:54

Rahul.Net Home :
New Billing System July 2009

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

Please see:
- http://info.rahul.net/new_billing_system
2009-Oct-26 14:09

Rahul.Net Home :
Diagnosing Domain Problems

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

Please see:
- http://info.rahul.net/problems:diagnosing_domain_problems
2009-Oct-26 14:10

Rahul.Net Home :
How to submit a useful problem report

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

Please see:
- http://info.rahul.net/problems:how_to_submit_a_useful_problem_report
Subcategories:
Problem using a mail client
Getting no email or not enough email
Problem accessing a web page
Domain problem
2009-Oct-26 14:04

Rahul.Net Home : How to submit a useful problem report :
Problem using a mail client

NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.

Please see:
- http://info.rahul.net/problems:problem_using_a_mail_client
- 2009-Oct-26 14:05
Rahul.Net Home : How to submit a useful problem report :
Getting no email or not enough email
- NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.
- Please see:
  - http://info.rahul.net/problems:getting_no_email_or_not_enough_email
- 2009-Oct-26 14:05
Rahul.Net Home : How to submit a useful problem report :
Problem accessing a web page
- NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.
- Please see:
  - http://info.rahul.net/problems:getting_no_email_or_not_enough_email
- 2009-Oct-26 14:05
Rahul.Net Home : How to submit a useful problem report :
Domain problem
- NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.
- Please see:
  - http://info.rahul.net/problems:getting_no_email_or_not_enough_email
- 2009-Oct-26 14:05
Rahul.Net Home :
Usenet News and Web Proxy Servers
- NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.
- Please see:
  - http://info.rahul.net/usenet_news_and_proxy_servers
- 2009-Oct-25 23:26
Rahul.Net Home :
Nightly Backups
- NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.
- Although most backups are done at night, and hence this document is entitled "Nightly Backups", not all backups are done each night.
  For details, please see: http://info.rahul.net/nightly_backups
- 2009-Oct-25 22:14
Rahul.Net Home :
Anti-Spam Techniques: How They Work
- NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.
- Please see: http://info.rahul.net/spam:anti-spam_techniques
- 2009-Oct-23 23:59
Rahul.Net Home :
Support Issues
- NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.
- Customers are referred to pages in this category in response to specific types of problem reports.
  For newer issues, please see: http://info.rahul.net/issues:issues
- 2006-05-01: Classic Linux: Incoming Mail Blocked
  2006-05-01: Mail Rejected by Verizon
  2006-12-06: DirectAdmin: Greylisting Issues
  2006-12-18: Cpanel License Expired
  2007-01-12: Classic Linux: Mailbox Size Limits
  2007-01-22: Cpanel: Various Issues
  2007-03-18: Classic Linux: Telnet Connection Failure
  2007-07-02: Monthly Statement Missing Credit Card Charge
  2008-07-27: DNS Security Warning + Fix
  2008-09-19: SSL for Classic Linux web sites: changes
  2009-02-05: Cpanel: Various Issues and Status (Control Panel, POP)
  New Item
  Issues after 2009-02-05
- 2009-Oct-26 14:07
Rahul.Net Home : Support Issues :
2006-05-01: Classic Linux: Incoming Mail Blocked
- NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.
- Customers with accounts in the Classic Linux environment are referred to this web page if they report that they have difficulty receiving mail.
  
  The most common reason for a user's incoming mail being blocked is that it is arriving for unknown addresses in his custom domain. The next most common reason is that the sender is sending from some location that is either on a black list, or appears to be using a dynamic IP address, or has invalid DNS.
  
  First, if you are using a custom domain, add to the domain each specific email address at which you wish to receive mail.
  
  Next, adjust SMTP filtering individually on each of your email addresses.
  
  You can completely switch off SMTP filtering on each email address, letting all spam and mail through. Or you can adjust SMTP filtering at some intermediate level.
  
  For more information, please see the following web pages:
  The first three will refer you to web pages that will explain how you can adjust the SMTP filtering for your email addresses.
  
  The fourth one will refer you to a web page telling you how you can remain aware of announcments about changes in our network.
- 2006-May-06 15:02
Rahul.Net Home : Support Issues :
2006-05-01: Mail Rejected by Verizon
- NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.
- Recently, customers have reported that verizon.net machines are rejecting mail. If you notice any bounced mail that appears to have been rejected by a machine in the verizon.net domain, the problem should be reported by the Verizon customer to his service provider.
  Look in the bounced message for any mention of verizon.net and an associated 550 error code. Examples of actual error messages are below.
```
 host relay.verizon.net[206.46.232.11] said: 550 You are not allowed
 to send mail:sv22pub.verizon.net
```
```
 host relay.verizon.net [206.46.232.11]: 550 You are not allowed
 to send mail:sv24pub.verizon.net
```
- 2006-May-02 03:15
Rahul.Net Home : Support Issues :
2006-12-06: DirectAdmin: Greylisting Issues
- NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.
- DirectAdmin users are referred to this page if they report (a) problems sending outgoing email or (b) delayed incoming email.
  
  Recently, we enabled greylisting and black lists in the DirectAdmin environment to keep spam out.
  
  Problems Sending Mail
  
  If you are using a POP or IMAP mail client, and you attempt to send outgoing mail through the DirectAdmin server, the server remembers from which IP address you checked your incoming mail. It will then let you send outgoing mail from the same IP address without any of the anti-spam mechanisms being applied against the email you send. This works best if your mail client always checks incoming mail before sending outgoing mail; otherwise the server may fail to recognize you as a client when you try to send outgoing mail.
  
  For better results results, make sure you are sending mail using authenticated SMTP and connecting to port 587. Your mail client should have a configuration option to enable this. Then you will be sending mail as an authenticated sender. The server will always recognize you as a customer and will let you send outgoing mail without imposing any anti-spam mechanisms on the mail you are sending.
  
  Delayed Incoming Mail
  
  Delayed mail occurs normally as a consequence of greylisting when a new sender sends you mail for the first time. Possible solutions are discussed on the greylisting page referenced below.
  
  References
  
  To read more about greylisting and black lists please see:
  - Spam Filtering: On the Server: Greylisting
  - Spam Filtering: On the Server: Black Lists
  Also, if you are unsure as to how to keep track of announced system changes, please see:
  - Where to Find Announcements and Discussions
- 2006-Dec-08 19:39
Rahul.Net Home : Support Issues :
2006-12-18: Cpanel License Expired
- NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.
- The Cpanel environment sometimes gives a false "license expired" message. This appears to be due to a bug in the Cpanel software. Please retry at intervals of 15-30 minutes. You should then be able to get through normally to your Cpanel control panel menu. This problem should not affect the normal functioning of your web site or email.
  If you continue to see the "license expired" message, please notify support@rahul.net.
  Our Cpanel environment is no longer being updated. We will continue to keep it active until November 2008, after which Cpanel will be phased out. Customers are encouraged to switch to our Directadmin Environment.
- 2007-Jan-12 19:30
Rahul.Net Home : Support Issues :
2007-01-12: Classic Linux: Mailbox Size Limits
- NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.
- The following official announcement was recently posted:
  
  Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 06:52:48 +0000 (UTC)
  Newsgroups: a2i.announce, a2i.info
  Subject: [a2i-announce]Classic Linux mailbox size fixes coming up soon
  
  Soon to be applied are some fixes to incoming mail delivery in the Classic Linux environment. After these fixes, mailbox size limits will be strictly enforced per the values in this chart:
  
  http://www.rahul.net/guest/chart.html
  
  If your incoming mailbox is bigger than the listed limits, your incoming mail will bounce after the fixes are applied. You are advised to refile mail as needed to keep the incoming mailbox to within limits.
  
  The solution for users who find their incoming mail bouncing due to a full mailbox is to delete or refile messages from their inbox so as to keep the inbox size small enough. One way of checking the current inbox size is to log into the Linux shell on a machine such as azure.rahul.net or green.rahul.net, and type:
```
  % ls -l /var/spool/mail/$USER
```
  Users encountering a problem when pruning their inbox via POP or IMAP should try the following alternatives:
  - Try webmail at http://webmail.rahul.net/ .
  - Log into the Linux shell and try a shell-based mail program such as pine or elm.
  If all else fails, please send an email to support@rahul.net and ask us to move your entire inbox into a temporary file. Later, you can recover selected messages from the new temporary file. We can move your entire inbox, but we won't be able to selectively remove messages from it.
  
  A Mailbox That Keeps Growing?
  
  Some users may find that their inbox continues to grow indefinitely even if they regularly read and delete incoming mail. This may happen if your mail client has the option "leave messages on server" (or something similar) enabled. Keep this option DISABLED. Following are some links to web pages that describe how to enable or disable this option.
- 2007-Apr-17 11:17
Rahul.Net Home : Support Issues :
2007-01-22: Cpanel: Various Issues
- NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.
- The Cpanel environment has quite a few issues that are often reported by users. Not all are likely to get fully addressed, as discussed below.
  Our Cpanel environment will be phased out some time after November 30, 2008. (This gives you about 22 months from the date that this issue is being first documented here, on January 22, 2007.) This phase-out was announced in the a2i.announce newsgroup on January 13, 2007.
  Customers are encouraged to switch to our Directadmin Environment.
  Reasons for phasing out Cpanel are as follows.
  Neither the underlying operating system on which Cpanel runs at rahul.net (RedHat Linux 7.2), nor Cpanel itself as it is in use here, are being updated any more. Cpanel cannot be updated because the vendor no longer provides Cpanel updates suitable for RedHat Linux 7.2. The operating system cannot be upgraded to a newer release without seriously disrupting service to all customers' Cpanel accounts. Thus, since no graceful upgrade path is available, we will simply ask all customers to migrate (eventually) to the DirectAdmin environment.
  In the unlikely event that some very serious security problem is identified in the Cpanel environment, we may have to ask you to migrate away from Cpanel sooner. More likely, however, we will deal with any security issues by adding more stringent firewalling to keep intruders out, thus allowing you to remain in the Cpanel environment until November 30, 2008.
- 2008-Oct-27 16:06
Rahul.Net Home : Support Issues :
2007-03-18: Classic Linux: Telnet Connection Failure
- NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.
- The following official announcement was recently posted:
  
  Subject: telnet phase-out : Classic Linux
  Date: Thu, 1 Mar 2007 04:53:43 +0000 (UTC
  Newsgroups: a2i.announce,a2i.info
  
  On Classic linux;
  
  As open unencrypted Wi-Fi networks become more widespread, the risk of password-sniffing becomes greater. And the intrusion of a user account risks damage not only to that user, but to the entire network, because the intruder can attempt more intrusions as an insider.
  
  To encourage the use of ssh rather than telnet, we will be keeping incoming telnet available for a while only on telnet.rahul.net and nowhere else. In a few weeks, incoming telnet will be completely discontinued. If you have not yet switched to ssh, please do so soon.
  
  If you are travelling and wish to use a random machine running Microsoft Windows, please consider the risks of doing so: a previous user or a virus infection might have installed a keystroke monitoring program. But if you must, then you can either download and run a copy of putty, or take suitable software with you on a floppy or USB disk.
  
  The DirectAdmin and Cpanel environments have never supported telnet, so no change will be needed there.
  
  Customers who continue trying to connect via telnet may conclude that our network is down or that their account has been disabled for some reason. Please connect using ssh instead. You can ssh to ssh.rahul.net (default port 22) or to red.rahul.net (port 80).
  
  Free ssh clients are available for most operating systems. For Microsoft operating systems, the popular free program putty can be located via a web search. General ssh information can be obtained at these URLs:
  - http://www.openssh.com/
  - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Shell
  You can also try using ssh via Java from your web browser. To do so, please go to our “howto” web page at http://www.rahul.net/howto/ web page and look for a suitable link.
- 2007-Mar-18 15:08
Rahul.Net Home : Support Issues :
2007-07-02: Monthly Statement Missing Credit Card Charge
- NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.
- The following official announcement was recently posted:
  
  Subject: 2007-07-01 billing system notes
  Date: Mon, 2 Jul 2007 08:10:09 +0000 (UTC)
  Newsgroups: a2i.announce,a2i.info
  
  Our billing system normally process all automatic credit card payments on the 1st of each month. This month (July 2007), due to billing system maintenance, the automatic credit card charges will not be completed until the 2nd or 3rd. The statement you get in email, generated on the 1st, might not include automatic credit card charges for some users. In that case, next month's statement will show the charges both for this month (on the 2nd or 3rd) and for next month (on the 1st).
  
  You can also check your acocunt status online at any time. .
  
  Customers who normally have their credit card automatically billed, and who did not see a charge in their monthly statement in email, and who inquire about this, are referred to the notice above.
- 2007-Jul-02 15:40
Rahul.Net Home : Support Issues :
2008-07-27: DNS Security Warning + Fix
- NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.
- 2008-Jul-27 16:30
Rahul.Net Home : Support Issues :
2008-09-19: SSL for Classic Linux web sites: changes
- NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.
- Customers who report SSL-related web site problems are directed to this issue announcement.
  Please use the domain name ssl.rahul.net for SSL connections to your web site in the Classic Linux environment. Any references to the domain name secure.us.com should be changed to use ssl.rahul.net instead. The server will accept connections to both, but using secure.us.com will yield a certificate mismatch.
- 2008-Sep-19 03:44
Rahul.Net Home : Support Issues :
2009-02-05: Cpanel: Various Issues and Status (Control Panel, POP)
- NOTE. THIS IS AN ARCHIVED COPY OF OUR OLD FAQ DOCUMENT. IT MAY INCLUDE SOME USEFUL INFORMATION, BUT MANY PORTIONS ARE OF HISTORICAL INTEREST ONLY.
- In early 2007, the eventual phase-out of the Cpanel environment was announced as described in 2007-01-22: Cpanel: Various Issues.
  In November and December 2008, all Cpanel customers were sent email at their Cpanel contact email address reminding them of the phase-out. On December 28 2008, our Cpanel license permanently expired. After this the control panel was no longer accessible.
  Effective February 4, 2009, the POP server became inaccessible due to the expired license.
  The Cpanel control panel and the POP server will no longer work. The IMAP server should still be working, and your web site should still be up. You should also be able to get most, but not necessarily all, mail via the Squirrelmail web interface.
  If you need assistance migrating to DirectAdmin, please contact support@rahul.net.
- 2009-Feb-05 09:39
Rahul.Net Home : Support Issues :
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This document is: http://faq.rahul.net/cgi-bin/fom.cgi?file=1
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***OLD*** RAHUL.NET FAQ ***OLD***

Directadmin hosting: web, email, more.

YOUR INITIAL WEB SITE

MAIL SERVERS

CONNECTING FOR FTP

Default Domain

DNS Management Within DirectAdmin

DNS Management Elsewhere

Domains Hosted Elsewhere

Catch-All Notes

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

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

Directory ".spamassassin"

Directory ".razor"

Finding Out Which Mail was Blocked

Motivated and Non-Motivated Senders

Mailing Lists

Country-Specific Blocking

Old Filtering

Warning

Problems Sending Mail

Delayed Incoming Mail

References

A Mailbox That Keeps Growing?

OLD RAHUL.NET FAQ OLD