Additional Features for 1.17-1.20?

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loopforever

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Hi Guys,

Now that I've been using DirectAdmin on a production server for a while I've found some features that could really prove useful...

- Powerful log management (user panel): Allow clients to set limits on their log files, that may become incredibly large. Some options could include: Delete when size is greater than Xmb, rotate logs every X days, manually delete logs. This, as you guys have already stated, would lead to problems with webalizer, which, I could probably suggest doing something where you save an excerpt of the last 24 hours in a seperate log, for webalizer readings only.

- Improved session handling: I know you guys have already changed login methods once, however, it's still really useful to be able to edit specific client details without having to log out, and log back in as that specific client. Giving session permissions where Admin is greater than Reseller is greater than User will all the parent account to seamlessly access any account created by it, without loging in and out numerous times.

- Easy subdomain redirection: Allow subdomains to be configured to redirect to a specific path on the server, or url. So if a user wants http://sub.domain.com to redirect to http://domain.com/subData, they can easily specify this.

- Auto Application of Skins: When I apply a skin to "all users," it is applied to all users already existing on the machine. However, when a new client is added, it automatically defaults to the Default skin. If a reseller "applies to all users" this setting should be automatically applied to all current, and future users.

- Management of addtional servers/remote services: If an admin has a few servers used for specific tasks (with DA on each one), it would be extremely useful to allow DirectAdmin to control these services remotely. For example, if I have a mail server, database server, and web server, it would be very convienient to allow DirectAdmin to integrate with these servers when users create new e-mail accounts or databases.

- Faster mail sends: Maybe it's just me, but sending an e-mail through Outlook takes almost a minute to simply connect to the server. Maybe I was just spoiled, but this generally only took a few seconds on my old/other machines. Does anyone else experience this?

- Increased SPAM/Virus Protection: In addition to the basic Exim filters users can add, I think admins should be able to configure server wide SpamAssassin/Clam AV/MailScanner settings. I tried setting this up (and believe I got it to work) however, I failed to test to see if the mailserver was working properly BEFORE I set it up, and when it didn't work afterwards, I was stuck :p.

I'm sure there's more, but I'm a bit brain dead right now and this is all I can think of off the top of my head :).
 
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Hello,

- Powerful log management (user panel): Allow clients to set limits on their log files, that may become incredibly large. Some options could include: Delete when size is greater than Xmb, rotate logs every X days, manually delete logs. This, as you guys have already stated, would lead to problems with webalizer, which, I could probably suggest doing something where you save an excerpt of the last 24 hours in a seperate log, for webalizer readings only.
Click to expand...

I have to agree there. I'm not sure how fancy it would be, but something to get rid of huge logs would definately be a plus.

- Improved session handling: I know you guys have already changed login methods once, however, it's still really useful to be able to edit specific client details without having to log out, and log back in as that specific client. Giving session permissions where Admin is greater than Reseller is greater than User will all the parent account to seamlessly access any account created by it, without loging in and out numerous times.
Click to expand...

Because our sessions system is now done server side, we have far more control over these things. I was thinking, you could click a link to login as the user (no password would be necessary), then when you click logout from the user, you'll be right where you left off in your reseller accounts list. Sound good?

- Easy subdomain redirection: Allow subdomains to be configured to redirect to a specific path on the server, or url. So if a user wants http://sub.domain.com to redirect to http://domain.com/subData, they can easily specify this.
Click to expand...

This would probably be lower on the list, but is definately a possibility. Shouldn't be too hard to implement, just a lower benefit to implementation effort ratio. :)

- Auto Application of Skins: When I apply a skin to "all users," it is applied to all users already existing on the machine. However, when a new client is added, it automatically defaults to the Default skin. If a reseller "applies to all users" this setting should be automatically applied to all current, and future users.
Click to expand...

Skins are set in user packages. If you want to change the default, do it there. When you "apply to all users", it only applies to the resellers users.

- Management of addtional servers/remote services: If an admin has a few servers used for specific tasks (with DA on each one), it would be extremely useful to allow DirectAdmin to control these services remotely. For example, if I have a mail server, database server, and web server, it would be very convienient to allow DirectAdmin to integrate with these servers when users create new e-mail accounts or databases.
Click to expand...

This is slowly getting closer and closer. As we implement more CMD_API commands (for 3rd party programs), we are also giving ourselves commands to use across DA servers. Eventually, we'll just plug into these and it will be done :)

- Faster mail sends: Maybe it's just me, but sending an e-mail through Outlook takes almost a minute to simply connect to the server. Maybe I was just spoiled, but this generally only took a few seconds on my old/other machines. Does anyone else experience this?
Click to expand...

I'm not sure what's going on there... no, it shouldn't take a minute. Might be a networking issue? Try "telnet 1.2.3.4 25" and see how long it takes to connect.

- Increased SPAM/Virus Protection: In addition to the basic Exim filters users can add, I think admins should be able to configure server wide SpamAssassin/Clam AV/MailScanner settings. I tried setting this up (and believe I got it to work) however, I failed to test to see if the mailserver was working properly BEFORE I set it up, and when it didn't work afterwards, I was stuck :p.
Click to expand...

This is something we can look into. Adding new services is a big deal when you are talking about changing hundreds of servers, so we'll see how it might be done.

I'm sure there's more, but I'm a bit brain dead right now and this is all I can think of off the top of my head :).
Click to expand...

Great suggestions! Thanks again :D

John
 
I agree with all of that. Pushing the multi-server stuff, however.

I think the multi-server stuff will be uber :D
 
Because our sessions system is now done server side, we have far more control over these things. I was thinking, you could click a link to login as the user (no password would be necessary), then when you click logout from the user, you'll be right where you left off in your reseller accounts list. Sound good?
Click to expand...

Sounds great :)!

This would probably be lower on the list, but is definately a possibility. Shouldn't be too hard to implement, just a lower benefit to implementation effort ratio.
Click to expand...

Understandable.

Skins are set in user packages. If you want to change the default, do it there. When you "apply to all users", it only applies to the resellers users.
Click to expand...

Good enough for me.

This is slowly getting closer and closer. As we implement more CMD_API commands (for 3rd party programs), we are also giving ourselves commands to use across DA servers. Eventually, we'll just plug into these and it will be done
Click to expand...

Excellent :)!

I'm not sure what's going on there... no, it shouldn't take a minute. Might be a networking issue? Try "telnet 1.2.3.4 25" and see how long it takes to connect.
Click to expand...

As long as I know it's something on my end, I'll fix it. Just wasn't sure where it was originating.



This is something we can look into. Adding new services is a big deal when you are talking about changing hundreds of servers, so we'll see how it might be done.
Click to expand...

When I attempted this, I managed to install SpamAssassin and Clam AV successfully. I think I made a mistake installing MailScanner but I eventually fixed this. Since you've already packaged SpamAssassin, this won't be hard to install, and installing MailScanner/ClamAV preconfigured from a package on your file server wouldn't be too hard either, since it's really only a few config file edits that need to be made, and these can be made on your end, then distribute the repackaged software. Just an idea...

Thanks for your responses :)!
 
Matt:

I have been trying to setup MailScanner on my DirectAdmin servers. I have been using MailScanner on SendMail for about a 1.5 years and really like it. However, the Exim configuration has me stumped!

Would you mind sharing your hard work on setting up MailScanner with Exim?? SendMail is a piece a cake, but I already have a lot of time in trying to figure out Exim.

Michael Bush
Digital Minds Intl
 
Hey,

I believe Mark send you an e-mail with the howtos I compiled. If you manage to get anything/everything working, please get back to me - I'd really like to see a HOWTO posted so admins can do some major spam filtering.

Thanks ;)!
 
Hi Matt:

Yes. Thank you. First try was a no go to get it to work but it was really late at night. I will be trying again tomorrow.
 
loopforever said:
- Faster mail sends: Maybe it's just me, but sending an e-mail through Outlook takes almost a minute to simply connect to the server. Maybe I was just spoiled, but this generally only took a few seconds on my old/other machines. Does anyone else experience this?
Click to expand...
Just a note...

I have the same situation. It takes a long time to connect for sends but when connecting for recieves it's almost instant.

I've noticed it but never worried about it thinking it was just something on my end. Maybe not?
 
Hello,

1.17 is now available but I havn't sent out the update for eveyone yet. You are free down update if you want, we'll do the mass update later today.

new features include the long awaited pop before smtp. The program name is da-popb4smtp, which I wrote yesterday.. seems to work quite well. It checks the maillog file for any changes every 2 seconds, when a change happens, it reads the file, starting from where it left off last time. Pop before smtp sessions will last 30 minutes from the last pop login. IP's are stored in /etc/virtual/pophosts. Say goodbye to smtp auth!! :) (although it should still work). This might improve the sending speed for emails.

Also, basic apache log rotations. You can set the size in the admin settings screen, defaults to 100 meg. Anything over that, the log will get rotated (backed up and compressed to users backedup logs). Webalizer will also work fine with the new rotations (enabled the preserve history feature).

John
 
MailScanner/Exim/Spamassassin/Antivirus

Matt:

I have racked my brain on setting up MailScanner with Exim. Mail comes into the /var/spool/exim.in/input directory and then some show up in /var/spool/exim/input. However, e-mail never reaches the users mailbox.

Any ideas?
 
Matt:

I think I got MailScanner/Spamassassin working. I am still getting MailScanner startup and shutdown errors though.


Starting MailScanner daemons:
incoming sendmail: exim abandoned: unknown, malformed, or incomplete option -OPrivacyOptions=noetrn
[ OK ]
outgoing sendmail: exim abandoned: unknown, malformed, or incomplete option -OPidFile=/var/run/sendmail.out.pid
[ OK ]
MailScanner: [ OK ]







Shutting down MailScanner daemons:
MailScanner: [ OK ]
incoming sendmail: head: /var/run/sendmail.in.pid: No such file or directory
[ OK ]
outgoing sendmail: head: /var/run/sendmail.out.pid: No such file or directory
[ OK ]
 
Hi Michael,

I had the same problem, but I managed to fix it...

There was a MailScanner configuration file somewhere (off-hand I can't remember), that defaults to integrating w/ sendmail. Find that file, and change it to exim, and it will work. I'll dig through the bash_history over here and see if I can find it...

The file is:

/etc/sysconfig/MailScanner

Change those settings and you're good to go. After that, Just restart spamassassin/mailscanner and everything should load properly.
 
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Matt:

It looks like I am working 100% now.

Thanks so much! I will monitor the spam and virus detection over the next couple days and confirm.

It looks like Julian Field (MailScanner Developer) needs to update the Exim documentation for MailScanner.
 
Excellent :)!

This makes me feel good for three reasons:

1) I helped someone.
2) I know that when I did it, I was successful, and I can blame the SMTP problems on John (just kidding John ;))
3) In a few days, assuming you post a HOWTO, we'll all be able to live spam and virus free, for the most part :)
 
Matt:

Just before I stepped out this morning, I noticed that I had disabled the

queue_only = true

in the exim.conf file because mail was not passing thru when it was enabled.

I believe that spamassassin is working fine, but MailScanner would not processing the e-mail after it arrived.

I found that I had to use the defer_director and defer_router syntax in the exim.conf file. I also found that the MailScanner RPM set the /var/spool/MailScanner directory and the subdirectories with the wrong user rights to root.root and it should be mail.mail for RedHat.

With all of the above, I am now seeing Spamassassin and MailScanner notation in the headers... and working!!
 
Outstanding! Please let me know how things work out after a few days and possibly you or both of us can post a howto for everyone to use.
 
Matt:

Sounds great! I have learned alot. I am moving my previous SendMail MailScanner rules over to Exim to test them.
 
loopforever said:
Excellent :)!

This makes me feel good for three reasons:

1) I helped someone.
2) I know that when I did it, I was successful, and I can blame the SMTP problems on John (just kidding John ;))
3) In a few days, assuming you post a HOWTO, we'll all be able to live spam and virus free, for the most part :)
Click to expand...

Hi,

Can you post or mail the right installation guide for the spam / virus scanner here?

Thanks,
 
RingToons: Assuming DigitalMinds posts a howto, there's no need to post the instructions that were e-mailed to him. A more precise guide should probably be available shortly.
 
DirectAdmin Support said:
new features include the long awaited pop before smtp. The program name is da-popb4smtp, which I wrote yesterday.. seems to work quite well. It checks the maillog file for any changes every 2 seconds, when a change happens, it reads the file, starting from where it left off last time. Pop before smtp sessions will last 30 minutes from the last pop login. IP's are stored in /etc/virtual/pophosts. Say goodbye to smtp auth!! :) (although it should still work).
Click to expand...
Since I pushed you quite a bit on this John, I would be remiss in not thanking you publicly. So Thank you! :)

And just when i was considering asking all my clients to switch. What a support nightmare that would have been.

I'm all in favor of SMTP AUTH conceptually, but I don't think it has enough universal support or ubiquity yet, so it's still a support issue.

Again, thank you!

Jeff
 
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