Feature request Throtteling

[moonsoft]

I would like to propose a feature that was brought up when Cpanel visited our datacenter.

There are currently several limitations with email using Cpanel and EXIM
one of the major issues is the inability to load balance mail volume to larger mainstream mail providers like hotmail, who do not like to see more than X mails coming per hour from a individual host, or even x failures before they grey-list you or blacklist you. There is nothing you can currently do in Cpanel to satisfy these needs, and trust me people are looking to other MTA's because of the lack of some of these types of features.


here is what I am proposing, and I would like to see as much feedback dumped into this as possible as I believe that it would make Cpanel THAT much more desirable and in demand because of some of these features.

Mail configuration should allow you to add rules (much like Port25 solutions does)

1. Adding throttling rules such as:
Number of simultaneous connections
Number of messages per connection
Number of delivery attempts per hour (throttling)
Retry period and bounce period
Authentication method: DKIM, sender ID, certified email


2. Adding the ability to use extra IP's as virtual mail servers to "round robin" deliveries, and allowing multiple outbound connections per IP (as a configurable rule):
EX: cluster 1 would contain 5 virtual mail servers using 5 separate IP's
Mail would continue to be sent through each in this cluster evenly following throttling rules. Also the ability to set a parameter in the throttling to use "X" cluster for emails outbound to "X" mail domain, for "x" users domain.

3. Last failure messages with rules:
if you receive a 421 error message for instance it would be logged and mail delivery attempts to that domain would cease or route to another virtual mail server in the cluster that doesn't throw the error, this would PROTECT ip's that a client for example is abusing, BEFORE it becomes permanently blacklisted. This would also send a notification mail to the owner of the server

4. Certified email support:
these new whitelisting services provide headers that are the be injected into every outgoing mail, this service allows people who are whitelisted to have the ability for Cpanel to support this service and will allow them to send whitelisted email.

5. Possibly, an automated blacklisting checking tool. This wouldn't be very difficult to do, but it would alert providers of problems before they seriously impact a server:

Run this every "x" and send output to "X@X.com"

I know allot of these seem to be copying what Port25 Solutions has done, but there really is a serious need for more features in Cpanel to handle e-mail delivery, as email has no standard we, (the client) need the ability to separate mail practices based on their destination, as those destinations have separate policies and thresholds. We also need the ability to help protect our IP's and the (data centers) from malicious users that try to use our servers as tools for SPAM, and ABUSE. I feel these features would add a level of management not seen by ANY other control panel software in existence, and would finally relieve some of the mail abuse issues that have existed with Cpanel for some time.

[Infopro]

You might want to post an enhancement request to bugzilla cPanel Bugzilla Main Page so the developers can see this.

[diddy123]

It's more like Message Systems Ecelerity product leads the charge in the area of domain throttling and traffic shaping. Port25 is the MTA thats just an MTA and always playing catch up.

I would recommend Messagesystems.com well before I ever suggest Port25's low end MTA

[moonsoft]

Thankyou for that feedback i will check it out. but either way I am hoping Cpanel will see this need and fufill it. There is no doubt if it does this then cpanel will again have a MORE desirable product that encompasses more function with more power for it's users.

[Spiral]

How about not allowing users to setup forwards to AOL or Hotmail accounts?

(That's where the main source of getting on their blacklists come from)

[sehh]

You are joking right???

cPanel developers... develop so slowly and have shifted development to other stuff that your feature request would take 10 years before it reached STABLE (maybe they are more interested in the Windows version of cPanel?).

Take a look at the RoundCube bug, kills servers all over the place, loads of admins have requested a fix, a serious issue and cPanel developers still test a fix in EDGE for 3 months now. Take a look at the change log, or even look at the diff changes between versions, they write 20-30 lines of code per MONTH.

Based on the amount of changes and their frequency, I think they have one or possibly two developers working on cPanel. Remember, its just a bunch of shell/perl/php scripts glued together after all.

Look at bugzilla, the reported bugs and feature requests are still marked as "NEW" even three years later. They don't even have the man power to clean their own bugzilla.