We have been sending out notices regarding the usage of client’s default addresses. The last notice we sent detailed some changes being proposed in regards to your default address. This post will aim to describe those proposals in further detail.

These are just proposals, nothing is set in stone just yet. We are receiving feedback concerning these proposals and will make a decision on implementing these procedures at a later date.

Right now we have about 80% compliance in regards to the recommended default address usage. I would prefer to get this up to 90% or higher before making any changes.

The first proposal has to do with users that forward their default address off of the server to a third-party e-mail address. Our studies have shown that your default address is just going to receive a lot of spam. It may receive some legitimate mails, but for the most part, these legitimate mails can be weeded out by setting up specific mail accounts or specific forwarders for those real e-mail addresses.

Just take a moment and consider this:

If a spammer wanted to get their spam message to as many people as possible, do you really think it would bother them to send the same spam message to tom@yourdomain, ted@yourdomain.com, sally@yourdomain.com, jim@yourdomain.com, etc? Spammer’s don’t care. If the absolute only e-mail address on your domain that you use is john@yourdomain.com then why should you concern yourself with all of those illegitimate addresses on your domain?

The problem with forwarding your default address off of the server, is that each time the spammer sends their spam message to tom@yourdomain.com, ted@yourdomain.com, sally@yourdomain.com, and jim@yourdomain.com then you are effectively sending spam to a third part e-mail address. This will cause the server to become blacklisted. When the server becomes blacklisted, nobody will be able to send out mail from the server.

I do realize that there are some circumstances where you may feel that your default address is necessary. I understand this. I am just asking that you understand why forwarding your default address is such a bad thing. The best way I know to combat this, is that if you are forwarding your default address off of the server, then any message destined for your default address would be automatically rejected. It is not fair to the rest of the users on the server to have to face a server blacklisting because a single user on the server wants to forward their default address off of the server. If you want to use your default address, that is fine, you just need to set it to be delivered locally.

The second proposal has to do with SpamAssassin and your default address. Again, because your default address just receives an inordinate amount of spam, using SpamAssassin to filter spam messages on your account is just wasting resources. If you know that a large percentage of messages coming into an account are spam messages, then why bother checking those messages for a spam score? This just results in a waste of server resources that could be better utilized in other areas.

Again, this won’t stop you from using your default address. It will just stop your account from being able to use SpamAssassin. It is just part of the cost involved in using this type of set up. If using your default address is absolutely vital to the well-being of your account, then not having access to SpamAssassin shouldn’t bother you. If you feel that SpamAssassin is absolutely necessary for your account, then you need to ask yourself if your default address is necessary.

These changes are just part of our aim to provide our clients with the best server performance and stable hosting environment.

We are receiving a lot of replies from these notices concerning how to set your default box or how to set your default box for subdomains or addon domains. This is all detailed in the link that is included in the message.

There is a wealth of information included at:

http://manual.amstechdns.com/setdefault

This link is included in the notice that we are sending out. I don’t mind you asking questions regarding this, but it will serve everyone a lot better and you will get this resolve a lot more quickly if you will read through the message and the links that are sent with the notice. Most of the questions we have been asked regarding this are answered at the above link or somewhere within the message.

We have not posted an update in a few weeks, things have been going relatively smoothly. We have finished the updates to cPanel 11. All accounts and servers should now be running cPanel 11. While its still likely that a few changes will trickle down from the cPanel developers regarding cPanel 11, the vast majority of things should stay the same.

We are also continuing our server upgrade program. Most of our older servers have been upgraded to bigger and more powerful servers. I think we still have a handful of servers that are queued to be upgraded. Individuals on those servers affected by this will receive a notice concerning this when the time comes. You should make sure that you have your contact information up-to-date with us, so you can be sure that you receive this e-mail.

We have also begun sending out notices to accounts that are utilizing their default address. This is a first step in a broader set of changes that are planned for later this year. The general basis is that your default address can represent an infinite number of e-mail addresses and handling mail for this can consume quite a bit of server resources. Its difficult to allocate server resources for other tasks when these resources are being used by the default address. If we can curb the amount of resource consumption that is used by the default address then this will allow better server performance and allow us to focus resources for more important tasks, such as spam prevention. We have written a guide that details how to set your default address to discard messages.

We have some other minor adjustments that we would like to make on the servers as we enter into 4Q 2007. The adjustments focus on server security and increasing server efficiency and production and aim to make your webhosting experience with us even better. Stay tuned to the blog for more information on these changes as they become available.

Scott Mutter

We have about three servers that are not running PHP as CGI. All of our other servers are running PHP as CGI with no problems at all. We are probably going to switch those three servers to PHP as CGI sometime next week (August 13 – August 17) just to bring all of our servers to a state of more uniformity.

Running PHP as CGI allows us to lock down PHP on the server a lot more and provide greater security. We have been converting servers over to PHP as CGI all summer long and really nobody has noticed the change. We have probably converted 3000 to 4000 accounts over to PHP as CGI and had maybe three minor issues. This really should be a seamless transition.

Running PHP as CGI allows us to track script and script exploits better. It also provides better security because open directories will no longer be required. We will also be able to disable most PHP functions that are used in PHP exploits by default and enable them on an account by account basis as needed, furthering the overall security of the server. On top of all of this, it also allows us to run PHP4 and PHP5 concurrently as we look to move towards a PHP5 default standard later this year.

We are not going to be sending out e-mail announcements concerning this because we just don’t view the change as being that big and warranting an e-mail message. Like I said, we have been converting servers over to PHP as CGI throughout the course of the summer during our server upgrade program and have not receive any substantial complaints. We are making an announcement here just so that our users will be aware of this.

Scott Mutter

We have had quite a few issues raised concerning Frontpage and Frontpage Extensions. Frontpage and Frontpage Extensions are a Microsoft developed product and system for publishing a website. The Extensions act a little bit like FTP, but it is different from FTP in that it is a proprietary communication method developed by Microsoft. The only product that understands Frontpage Extensions is Frontpage or Frontpage-based products. Likewise, Frontpage and Frontpage-based products require Frontpage Extensions in order to publish a website. As you can see, this requires a bit of involvement with Microsoft and their proprietary standards in order to use these products. This differs from FTP in that FTP is a recognized as an industry standard. For example, the FTP command PUT, used to upload files to a server, cannot change the way it performs a task because there are so many FTP servers and FTP clients available. If this were changed, none of the FTP servers and FTP clients would be able to communicate with one another.

Microsoft stopped development of Frontpage Extensions and Frontpage products late last year. There are no updates to the Frontpage Extensions that are on the server. Microsoft has shifted their attention to another product called Sharepoint Services. Sharepoint Servics act a lot like Frontpage Extensions, the downside is that Microsoft is not distributing the source for this project and therefor Sharepoint Services cannot be ported over to other operating systems. All of our servers are Linux based web servers and not Microsoft based. This means that Sharepoint Services will not work on our servers. Newer products released by Microsoft and some updates provided by Microsoft force Frontpage and Frontpage-based softwares from Microsoft to only work with Sharepoint Services. If you are having trouble publishing with Frontpage, this is probably why.

What can be done regarding this? I would recommend that you move away from Frontpage and to another product. Adobe’s Dreamweaver is a popular web publishing tool and it uses FTP to publish your website. Using something like Dreamweaver which uses FTP to publish your website makes your website that much more portable. If you decide to move your website somewhere else, chances are very good that it will have a FTP service available able to publish your website. This releases you away from using Microsoft’s proprietary standards. I know switching from Frontpage to Dreamweaver (or some other WYSIWYG HTML editor) is not going to be an easy task. I’m not saying it won’t be and I’m not saying that its a change that you can make overnight. I’m just saying that if you are publishing your website and making changes often or into web design, then I would recommend moving away from the Frontpage and Frontpage based products (such as Expression Web).

Additional information regarding this can be found on Microsoft‘s website. You may be able to use a product like Expression Web to design a webpage, but you won’t be able to publish with it.

I do apologize for the inconvenience that this has caused. But please understand, it was not our decision to remove and stop developing Frontpage Extensions. This was a decision made by Microsoft, to shift their attention to Sharepoint Services. I know that this is affecting a lot of users, but there’s just really nothing we can do in regards to this because we don’t control Frontpage Extensions or Sharepoint Services.