The things they never tell you about Exim

[ozzi4648]

Last week i noticed the following running on my server.

spamd 5073 root 4u IPv4 1010334 TCP localhost:783 (LISTEN)

It was interesting that i never noticed it before then after looking around realized this was some kind of port opened by the new version of Exim. Its nice to know that there is another port listening but why? What is its use? Where can we find out more information on it? Should i allow it thru my firewall? How secure it is if i open this port on my FW? Many questions and we can only guess about.

Again, i would personally like to be able to control what gets updated on my server evertime there is an update. Not so much the rpms but services like Exim, Interchange etc. I think its important when you consider that we may have our own customized mods running.

 

[dgbaker]

Spamd is not exim BUT spamassassin

Start spamd as root :
# /etc/init.d/spamassassin start

 

[ozzi4648]

Excuse me, yes you are correct and thats what i meant.

 

[ozzi4648]

[quote:5e50ef4018][i:5e50ef4018]Originally posted by thaphantom[/i:5e50ef4018]

as this is new, then how would you already have a mod for it?? If you dont like it stop it, simple as that[/quote:5e50ef4018]

Huh? What are you talking about? I SAID my version of ensim.conf was modified to allow for mailscanner which is integrated. Along comes the update and writes over my ensim.conf. Now my mailscanner stops working because the update has screwed up my config file. Thats how i already have a mod for it! Its not to hard to understand is it?

 

[Annette]

Protect your &ensim& config file (presuming you mean exim, since you're complaining about this same thing in another thread) to keep it from being overwritten. Not that hard to understand. Or perhaps, since you seem to hate cpanel so much, you should look at other alternatives which will be more suited to whatever requirements you have.

 

[SageBrian]

[quote:e1fe07597a][i:e1fe07597a]Originally posted by Annette[/i:e1fe07597a]

Protect your &ensim& config file (presuming you mean exim, since you're complaining about this same thing in another thread) to keep it from being overwritten. Not that hard to understand. Or perhaps, since you seem to hate cpanel so much, you should look at other alternatives which will be more suited to whatever requirements you have.[/quote:e1fe07597a]

But, I think that misses the point entirely. Regardless of having a backup .conf file of all mods, we should know when something is overwritten and/or changed. That way we can try to fix it before anything knows there is something wrong.

The way things work now, I start getting calls from customers saying that their email is acting strange... most recently SpamAssassin is ignoring the configuration files setup for each domain. I now have to take time to research what happened, and why it happened, and figure out a fix.

The problem is, we are not given any warning of changes, or details of what the changes are. I thought by sticking with the Stable updates I'd have no problems, but that's not the case unfortunately.

And I think more companies should start communicating better about upcoming changes before releasing. So everyone is coordinated in the updates... much like Microsoft gives specs for drivers for new OS.

People rely on this service, and should not be expected to have to constantly tweak their settings. Is this not the problem Microsoft had with NT upgrades? Every service pack would screw up something else and make more work for everyone, so eventually most people waited till several service packs came out.

Now, Microsoft has been putting out better product, and might actually be able to compete.

 

[Annette]

Some people seem to have an inordinate amount of trouble with things, and this guy is one of them, since he's constantly bitching about one thing or another.

I'm not missing the point of having details of what's changing, but if I expect darkorb to write up the docs that MS does every time MS screws something up, I'll be waiting a lot longer to get other things addressed that need to be addressed in cpanel. MS puts out crap products (o/s-wise) because they have the lion's share of the market, and that hasn't changed - I'm speaking as someone who used to babysit an entire data center worth of Windows-based corporate servers here.

Nothing is going to be perfectly stable. Ask those of us who waited and waited for Alabanza to do much of anything at all just how stable their &tested& releases were sometimes. We don't constantly tweak our settings under cpanel after every release. We do deal with the things that pop up here and there when something looks or acts a bit differently than it used to. We do not gets tons of support requests whenever a new release is made unless something goes really odd, like when phpMyAdmin broke down after one of the releases (something fixed rapidly). Knowing the trend of the update is imperative here: the guy above who pounds into every thread with some horrible problem should know, by now, to protect important files if special settings are made for them. He should know to read the news and the changelog. Are there things Nick should be more vocal about? Certainly. Are there hideous problems with cpanel that make it worse than other cps? Not at all. I've always been of the opinion that if something becomes more of a pain in the ass for you than it is a benefit (Alabanza), then you should adjust your business appropriately and financially support those providers who more closely meet the specific requirements that you (a general you, as a business) have.

Sorry for the rant. This just really gets tiresome after awhile.

 

[dgbaker]

Everyone has good points, the ideal would be that if a file(s) are chattr'd with +i that the new file get put as a second file so we could see the diff.

For example, we have customized hackcheck, wwwacct and few others. All are set with +i now what happens when upcp runs is that these file try to get overwritten everytime (even when no changes have occured) and it fails because of the chattr. Once every few releases we let the update overwrite these files and compare them to our copies, and if the differences are major enough we will update them with our changes.

This is a bit of a pain, but that's the price we pay for make modifications to cp's files. The best would be that if the overwrite fails during upcp, it writes the changes to another file so we can decide if we update or not.

Just my 2 canadian cents (.5 cents US) worth.

 

[Annette]

Very sensible. I can even see writing up a simple cron to go off before the upcp runs to copy important files to a safe location on a particular schedule - this would allow the unprotection of certain files for an auto-update, followed by the compare, and then adjusting as necessary. Once a week, once a month, or whatever is suitable, and the rest of the time you don't have to worry about it. And for the other part - sounds like a good feature request to me.

Shame about the exchange rate.

 

[dgbaker]

Thanks Anette;

One little thing that does help with changes to the scripts directory is as follows;

cd scripts
cp updatenow myupdates
mkdir updates
pico myupdates
change rsync://rsync.cpanel.net/scripts&,&/scripts& TO
rsync://rsync.cpanel.net/scripts&,&/scripts/updates&

Now run myupdates. You can now do a diff between files in scripts and the ones in scripts/updates to see what changed.

 

[ozzi4648]

[quote:332ca42d4a][i:332ca42d4a]Originally posted by Annette[/i:332ca42d4a]

Protect your &ensim& config file (presuming you mean exim, since you're complaining about this same thing in another thread) to keep it from being overwritten. Not that hard to understand. Or perhaps, since you seem to hate cpanel so much, you should look at other alternatives which will be more suited to whatever requirements you have.[/quote:332ca42d4a]

Thank you for your kind words, Madam!

 

[ozzi4648]

[quote:7e2e428d97][i:7e2e428d97]Originally posted by Annette[/i:7e2e428d97]

Some people seem to have an inordinate amount of trouble with things, and this guy is one of them, since he's constantly bitching about one thing or another.

I'm not missing the point of having details of what's changing, but if I expect darkorb to write up the docs that MS does every time MS screws something up, I'll be waiting a lot longer to get other things addressed that need to be addressed in cpanel. MS puts out crap products (o/s-wise) because they have the lion's share of the market, and that hasn't changed - I'm speaking as someone who used to babysit an entire data center worth of Windows-based corporate servers here.

Nothing is going to be perfectly stable. Ask those of us who waited and waited for Alabanza to do much of anything at all just how stable their &tested& releases were sometimes. We don't constantly tweak our settings under cpanel after every release. We do deal with the things that pop up here and there when something looks or acts a bit differently than it used to. We do not gets tons of support requests whenever a new release is made unless something goes really odd, like when phpMyAdmin broke down after one of the releases (something fixed rapidly). Knowing the trend of the update is imperative here: the guy above who pounds into every thread with some horrible problem should know, by now, to protect important files if special settings are made for them. He should know to read the news and the changelog. Are there things Nick should be more vocal about? Certainly. Are there hideous problems with cpanel that make it worse than other cps? Not at all. I've always been of the opinion that if something becomes more of a pain in the ass for you than it is a benefit (Alabanza), then you should adjust your business appropriately and financially support those providers who more closely meet the specific requirements that you (a general you, as a business) have.

Sorry for the rant. This just really gets tiresome after awhile.[/quote:7e2e428d97]

Nobody is bitching about anything. If you cant see the obvious problems in the way that Cpanel is handling things then you need some admin tutoring. While you find Cpanel the king of panels, i find Cpanel a probem in many areas, untested and lacking in working options that i think should be &UP TO STANDARD& and functional especially when we are all paying a great deal of money for it, and when the options are available in the build and NOT WORKING! At least i have taken the time to actually document the bugs in cpanel and submit them to Eric. My other concerns have been questions and queries on other matters. Thats more then i see you offering. You have some good points and some workarounds but i dont appreciate you snooty attitude towards my our opinions. And just because we are not all as brilliant and experienced with CP dont call using &BITCHING& Thats just rude.

 

[moronhead]

ozzy,

What I want to add here is, imho you seem to be a hard-working guy who has already contributed to the community in your own way (e.g. pgsql myadmin interface for cpanel).

Some of your concerns about cpanel are legitimate (who wouldn't like to see a bug-free Cpanel?). However, the way you sometimes get carried away and try to impose your own subjective solutions (see the anti-virus thread) or dismiss other's opinions (see the interchange thread) is what particularly gets to me!

The problem I can see is, you can be upfront and at times careless with your words. Freedom of expression is great, providing you don't hurt anybody's feelings or beliefs.

There's certainly no need to lose your argumentative character. You will find I've had a couple of heated arguments in this forum myself. My suggestion would be, if you try to tone down a bit I think everyone here will be more responsive to you!

Regards,

Norman

 

[ozzi4648]

[quote:36c04bfce1][i:36c04bfce1]Originally posted by moronhead[/i:36c04bfce1]

ozzy,

What I want to add here is, imho you seem to be a hard-working guy who has already contributed to the community in your own way (e.g. pgsql myadmin interface for cpanel).

Some of your concerns about cpanel are legitimate (who wouldn't like to see a bug-free Cpanel?). However, the way you sometimes get carried away and try to impose your own subjective solutions (see the anti-virus thread) or dismiss other's opinions (see the interchange thread) is what particularly gets to me!

The problem I can see is, you can be upfront and at times careless with your words. Freedom of expression is great, providing you don't hurt anybody's feelings or beliefs.

There's certainly no need to lose your argumentative character. You will find I've had a couple of heated arguments in this forum myself. My suggestion would be, if you try to tone down a bit I think everyone here will be more responsive to you!

Regards,

Norman[/quote:36c04bfce1]

Thanks mate, i appreciate your honesty. I shall do that! I just slapped myself and now i feel better.

 

[akfallin]

Of course before anyone should really complain about any problems with new CPanel releases, they should have a mirror testing server to update before actually releasing the update to their production servers, right? I mean you don't see huge companies going out and throwing the latest version of Microsoft (since we are already talking about them) programs on all their computers the second they come out. No, most companies meticulously review each release and don't deploy it typically until years have passed since it hit the shelves.

 

[Website Rob]

A bit OT, but you're absolutely correct, akfallin -- presuming you are referring to DarkOrb. It would be indiotic of them to not have, half-a-dozen or more Server for testing and I'm sure they do. With the amount of money they pull in every month and the responsibility of providing as good as can be software, IMHO, there are problems there shouldn't be.

A lot depends on how much testing has been done -- don't think that part is mentioned to License users or really matters, actually, it works or it doesn't work -- and how fast they want to get the upgrades out to people. The biggest block I have found, in my limited experiences since first use in the summer of 2000 with Cpanel 3, is having to guess what some of the functions/features actually do. Some sort of documentation would go &a long way& in that area. ( hint, hint )

Each individual's; knowledge, troubleshooting characteristics in general, and patience to figure things out, goes a long way towards feeling good about working well, with any software.

 

[masood]

OK, OK

Now what about the recent issue that has come up due this sudden overnight change of how spam assassin is being called? Users are complaining that their personal prefs no more working under /home/username/.spamassassin/user_prefs

What about it? :p

 

[SageBrian]

Yes, the change in SpamAssassin.

I had to send a note out to all my customers telling them I am temporarily disabling it due to the latest change.

This is one of the problems. A change comes in, but no info is given as to how to 'fix' what changed.

What good is having custom settings for SpamAssassin, and then the rules change and none of us know how to create new settings?

I just 'write it off' as over-zealous talented programmers who think the latest greatest idea is the greatest idea.

 

[masood]

I have a ticket open with cpanel guys since so many days, but nothing from there. Probably they do not even have any idea what they introduced into cpanel?? :p

No one here either? Looks like everyone has chattr'd +i their exim.conf file and have no idea what cpanel is doing

 

[dolphyn]

For what it's worth, I did NOT chattr my exim.conf file, and SpamAssassin seems to work correctly. I have Cpanel 5.3.0-R94 and the individual user_prefs are still taken into account.

In fact, SpamAssassin works much better than before. It no longer splits message into two pieces, as it occasionally did before.

Still, I can't say that I disagree with the need for better communication. We did have the news &Spamassasin now uses the spamd/spamc system&, but on a practical level I don't know what that means.