Mail7 11.15.2007

[nsdesign]

And can you confirm - is port 25 now officially NOT to be used - should all users now change to 2525 ?

Thanks

[Brangwyn]

Clients unable to receive mail via mail8, and my exchange server unable to send them email to try and help them out ... whats the current status please?

[fatghost]

As if you all didn't already know, Exchange boxes still cannot send to mail7 either. With the next US work week starting in less than 12 hours, can we possibly get an ETA so we have something to tell customers when the phone calls start rolling in???

Trust me, I feel your pain dealing with DDoS and I know it's a difficult thing to deal with but at a minimum, we need information...our businesses our suffering too...

Thanks,

[microm]

I have been watching this thread on and off the last week, and the last 4 days or so constantly. I spent about 30 non-billable hours moving mail7 customers to a different service just in case things weren't working for Monday, and it looks like I made the right decision. I would have caught hell tomorrow if there was any kind of problem. I spent most yesterday and today working on it and I'm a little upset that I get have to do this on the weekend, non-billable time, and we don't even get an update?

sorry to vent, but I figure if I have to worry about my business on the weekend, loosing time and $$, then the vendor should be able to take 5 minutes to give everyone an update, such is the evil of the hosting business....

[fatghost]

Well, I did get a response from someone in support (via trouble ticket). He claims they are planning on opening the server to Windows boxes "fairly soon". When asked for a more specific ETA citing the fact that monday AM is right around the corner, he told me he didn't know because the people working on the problem had left for the night. That certainly doesn't make me feel any better...

Well everyone, I suppose this means we should brace ourselves for a storm of angry customers, wondering why they can't receive emails from a good portion of their business customers now 5+ days running. I honestly can't say I blame them.

Seriously, after being with Vortech for almost 4 years now, this is the first time I'm absolutely appauled at the way this situation (from a PR standpoint, not technical) was handled. It amazes me that they think it's acceptable to put a block on mail connections from Exchange Servers for 5 days.

Like I said before, I know (first hand) that DDoS attacks are very difficult to mitigate but there are definitely other steps that could have been taken. I'm not a *nix guru but I have to think there must be a way to search the DNS database for any MX records referencing A records pointing to the IP addresses of mail7 and mail8 and then doing a bulk update of those respective records to point them to a different IP (which could be configured as a relay server to mail7/8). Sure, this would have required a 24 hour propagation allowance but that's certainly better than 120 hours.

Or, perhaps there are limitations of the PSoft H-Sphere product that prevent such an update. If so, PSoft should really consider how it's cluster can handle DDoS attacks because let me tell you, these types of attacks aren't going away any time soon and as bandwidth gets wider and Windows User/Admins get lazier, it's only going to get worse.

OK...sorry for my rant...had to get it off my chest.

Wish all you fellow resellers the best for the AM. Get some good sleep...you'll need the energy.

[Dreamzz]

i gave an ultima that if the problem do not get solve by today, i will evaculate from mail7 and mail8 and shift to other unaffected mail servers.

[MEELAN]

ok, whats the latest on MAIL8 and MAIL7 issues. I still receive complains of NOT receiving mails to MAIL8 accounts. But, all my test mails were reaching them. So, I hope the the missed mails are from Exchange servers or WINDOWS servers.

I didn't have enough time to read each and every post here in this thread and I did not find any warnings or notification mails from Vortech support. Its OK, But, I like to know the latest update on this issue please!!!

[esites]

I need an answer as well.

There seems to be some confusion, or contradiction in what we need to do to get around this issue. I posed this question to support through a TT and although they replied and closed the TT, my question was not answered.

The question is regarding the switch to SMTP port 2525...

Does everyone have to switch their clients to SMTP port 2525?

Is it only clients that have mail on Mail7 and Mail8?

Or is it only for clients who are not using their ISP's SMTP server (which most of us probably do because so many have blocked port 25 for mail not being sent through their servers)?

I also feel that a very clear and concise email should have already gone out to all of Vortech's clients explaining what to do. Not everyone reads the threads and especially when there are this many posts it is easy for us to miss something. You obviously have our email addresses!

[usereasy]

thanks for ruining another work day

Originally Posted by esites

Does everyone have to switch their clients to SMTP port 2525?

Everyone that sends mail through mail7 and mail8 from Windows needs to use 2525.

Originally Posted by esites

Is it only clients that have mail on Mail7 and Mail8?
Or is it only for clients who are not using their ISP's SMTP server (which most of us probably do because so many have blocked port 25 for mail not being sent through their servers)?

If you're using your ISP's SMTP server to send mail, this does not affect you. It is only for those who use mail7 and mail8 to send mail.

[Steve]

Sorry guys, I have clients that are now MSN'ing me stating that mail is still going off to that big Cyber black hole. That is they leave but do not arrive.

So using port 2525 is not a successful option.

[Steve]

I also have 2 clients that are experancing failures on the POP side of things. People are sending them, but they do not arrive. So it is larger then just the SMTP server

[sivvaa]

same here..

sending is notbig issue.

The key is mailsaregetting lost and the sender does not get a bounced message nor we recv the mail

this happens only to few senders...

I hope this will be resolved....soon

they should be working on this....

[frieddan]

Originally Posted by usereasy

thanks for ruining another work day

Yeah, I should be done moving at least the major email clients soon. Then I'll decide what to do about the web sites. I'm not sure it's worth separate solutions for web and email at this point.

[frieddan]

Originally Posted by Steve

I also have 2 clients that are experancing failures on the POP side of things. People are sending them, but they do not arrive. So it is larger then just the SMTP server

Steve,

The mail not arriving is also an SMTP problem. SMTP is used for clients sending email to a mail server, but also for mail servers talking to each other. In this case, these servers are blocking some other mail servers from transmitting email to mail7 and mail8.

For example, my email is hosted on a server on another system. I use SMTP from my desktop to send an email through my account on that server. My server then checks the email address and uses SMTP to send the mail to your mail server which is mail7. That is getting blocked, so my mail server either holds that mail to try again later, or bounces it back to me as undeliverable.