Lost forwarders, backups, blog, etc.

Batmaniak · October 23rd, 2007, 7:12 PM

Surpass recently moved our site (theclubhouse1.net) to a new server due to a disk problem on the one we were on. The move went okay, but shortly thereafter a month of our posts were gone and it took Surpass 3 days to restore. This was a problem caused by Surpass and was handled very poorly. It appeared that much of our DNS redirects were still on the old server so we lost members, blog entries and several weeks of data on our sub-domain. We are mostly back up and running, but still haven't received full capabilities that we had before (or an apology for hosing our database for that matter). Among the things we are still missing (like members, posts, sub-domain data) and have yet to receive a reply on is several of our e-mail forwarders. I try recreating them, but am told a cron job now deletes certain addresses. As we have had this in place for over 2 years, I want to know why at this stage do these get deleted, and how is this an improvement over our old server?

Can anyone answer this here? We already have a ticket that is two weeks old without any answers.

**Bigjohn** · October 25th, 2007, 8:38 AM

What's the ticket number for the open ticket without an answer?

Batmaniak · October 25th, 2007, 10:05 AM

We actually got a response this morning on this ticket VON-595740. It still doesn't address why we lost functionality (forwarders) that we always had (but can get back if we upgrade), or answer what happened to the data on our sub-domain that is still not restored (http://www.theclubhouse1.net/museum/). A month of updates are gone. It seems that all replies have been reactionary and we still have not gotten a satisfactory response on how this could happen and what has changed so it won't happen again.

**Mike** · October 25th, 2007, 10:30 AM

Aol forwarders and other main mail service forwarders are removed from our shared servers as a preventative measure to help promote mail delivery to these services. Remember, on shared hosting you may be sharing the ip space your domain is on with 100-500+ other domains and email addresses. If we did not remove forwarders to these main mail services then one of the 100-500 other domains on the server would end up sending a large amount of messages to an email account on one of these large mail services (aol, comcast, yahoo, etc) and the IP address your domain is on is in risk of being blacklisted (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklist).

So in effect removing the forwarders is for the greater good of the server. We are working on ways to better inform clients of changes like this because we realize their possible impact. We hope you will understand our intentions.

I will look into your ticket and address the lack of explanations for the situations that have happened. Please look for a reply from me within the next hour or so.
Thanks

**Bigjohn** · October 25th, 2007, 6:43 PM

Oh hell yeah.
The quickest way known to man of getting your IP on the blacklist is to FORWARD email toAOL...

Batmaniak · October 26th, 2007, 1:58 PM

I can understand what you are saying, but it's not like we are sending thousands of e-mails. These are members with a

theclubhouse1.net e-mail account forwarding direct messages (PM or Email from other members) to their home account.

Any word on the ticket Mike? Do we have to rebuild the lost information/pages on our subdomain from scratch? Haven't heard boo from support since the e-mail reply and the ticket should still be open...

**Bigjohn** · October 26th, 2007, 10:32 PM

Batmaniak -

You don't fully understand.

If you let your user forward to an AOL account, and, then, he unknowingly or automatically flags ANY of those forwarded messages as SPAM, the IP of that server will be blocked. It can then take days or months for the block to be reversed. Because AOL sees the "sender" as being your "forwarding domain".

Don't EVER forward to AOL...

Batmaniak · October 27th, 2007, 1:03 PM

Thank for the background John. I just reviewed our forwarders that are gone and none are AOL; they were forwards to either Yahoo or Hotmail.

As for the rest of the open ticket...

The sub-domain problems still exist (cannot upload to it), and we still do not know how or why we could lose a month of posts and then only get partially restored.

**Bigjohn** · October 28th, 2007, 5:30 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Batmaniak

Thank for the background John. I just reviewed our forwarders that are gone and none are AOL; they were forwards to either Yahoo or Hotmail.

As to Yahoo and Hotmail, while not as agressive as AOL, they will still blacklist your IP under the circumstances I noted above... They also have interaction rules with most ISP's that limit the volume of message per hour per sending IP... So it's not a good idea to forward. This is why Yahoo, AOL, and Gmail all allow you the ability to OPEN your remote mail from within their clients.

Quote:

As for the rest of the open ticket...

The sub-domain problems still exist (cannot upload to it), and we still do not know how or why we could lose a month of posts and then only get partially restored.

While surpass does BACKUPS for disaster recovery purposes, it's still in your best interest to have some sort of backup plan of your own - nightly download of your databases, etc.

As to your subdomain - have you looked at the permissions? On the folder itself? It would be a sub-folder of your PUBLIC_HTML for the main domain. It might just have an 'ownership' problem that support can fix quickly.

October 23rd, 2007, 7:12 PM	#1 (permalink)
Batmaniak Registered User Fresh Surpasser Joined in Nov 2006 12 posts Gave thanks: 0 Thanked 0 times	Lost forwarders, backups, blog, etc. Surpass recently moved our site (theclubhouse1.net) to a new server due to a disk problem on the one we were on. The move went okay, but shortly thereafter a month of our posts were gone and it took Surpass 3 days to restore. This was a problem caused by Surpass and was handled very poorly. It appeared that much of our DNS redirects were still on the old server so we lost members, blog entries and several weeks of data on our sub-domain. We are mostly back up and running, but still haven't received full capabilities that we had before (or an apology for hosing our database for that matter). Among the things we are still missing (like members, posts, sub-domain data) and have yet to receive a reply on is several of our e-mail forwarders. I try recreating them, but am told a cron job now deletes certain addresses. As we have had this in place for over 2 years, I want to know why at this stage do these get deleted, and how is this an improvement over our old server? Can anyone answer this here? We already have a ticket that is two weeks old without any answers.

October 25th, 2007, 8:38 AM	#2 (permalink)
Bigjohn minor deity Super #1 Joined in Apr 2004 Lives in Georgia Hosted on XEON 7,386 posts Gave thanks: 27 Thanked 94 times	What's the ticket number for the open ticket without an answer? __________________ Proud to be a Surmunity Mod! XEON PASS60 PASS61 Make a fundamental difference! My Sites: Curious about Brewing Beer? Join the community! >>>>> Some Change is GOOD! Keep your paycheck! Support the Fair Tax Get into an Art museum Victorian London It's your brain -*ON WEB* - mybrainhost.com (under development) What SHOULD Government do? Much Less than it Does!

October 25th, 2007, 10:30 AM	#4 (permalink)
Mike Operations Super #1 Joined in Jun 2005 Lives in surpass headquarters 1,014 posts Gave thanks: 66 Thanked 117 times	Aol forwarders and other main mail service forwarders are removed from our shared servers as a preventative measure to help promote mail delivery to these services. Remember, on shared hosting you may be sharing the ip space your domain is on with 100-500+ other domains and email addresses. If we did not remove forwarders to these main mail services then one of the 100-500 other domains on the server would end up sending a large amount of messages to an email account on one of these large mail services (aol, comcast, yahoo, etc) and the IP address your domain is on is in risk of being blacklisted (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blacklist). So in effect removing the forwarders is for the greater good of the server. We are working on ways to better inform clients of changes like this because we realize their possible impact. We hope you will understand our intentions. I will look into your ticket and address the lack of explanations for the situations that have happened. Please look for a reply from me within the next hour or so. Thanks __________________ Mike Surpass Special Operations

October 25th, 2007, 6:43 PM	#5 (permalink)
Bigjohn minor deity Super #1 Joined in Apr 2004 Lives in Georgia Hosted on XEON 7,386 posts Gave thanks: 27 Thanked 94 times	Oh hell yeah. The quickest way known to man of getting your IP on the blacklist is to FORWARD email toAOL... __________________ Proud to be a Surmunity Mod! XEON PASS60 PASS61 Make a fundamental difference! My Sites: Curious about Brewing Beer? Join the community! >>>>> Some Change is GOOD! Keep your paycheck! Support the Fair Tax Get into an Art museum Victorian London It's your brain -*ON WEB* - mybrainhost.com (under development) What SHOULD Government do? Much Less than it Does!

October 26th, 2007, 10:32 PM	#7 (permalink)
Bigjohn minor deity Super #1 Joined in Apr 2004 Lives in Georgia Hosted on XEON 7,386 posts Gave thanks: 27 Thanked 94 times	Batmaniak - You don't fully understand. If you let your user forward to an AOL account, and, then, he unknowingly or automatically flags ANY of those forwarded messages as SPAM, the IP of that server will be blocked. It can then take days or months for the block to be reversed. Because AOL sees the "sender" as being your "forwarding domain". Don't EVER forward to AOL... __________________ Proud to be a Surmunity Mod! XEON PASS60 PASS61 Make a fundamental difference! My Sites: Curious about Brewing Beer? Join the community! >>>>> Some Change is GOOD! Keep your paycheck! Support the Fair Tax Get into an Art museum Victorian London It's your brain -*ON WEB* - mybrainhost.com (under development) What SHOULD Government do? Much Less than it Does!

October 25th, 2007, 10:05 AM	#3 (permalink)
Batmaniak Registered User Fresh Surpasser Joined in Nov 2006 12 posts Gave thanks: 0 Thanked 0 times	We actually got a response this morning on this ticket VON-595740. It still doesn't address why we lost functionality (forwarders) that we always had (but can get back if we upgrade), or answer what happened to the data on our sub-domain that is still not restored (http://www.theclubhouse1.net/museum/). A month of updates are gone. It seems that all replies have been reactionary and we still have not gotten a satisfactory response on how this could happen and what has changed so it won't happen again.

October 26th, 2007, 1:58 PM	#6 (permalink)
Batmaniak Registered User Fresh Surpasser Joined in Nov 2006 12 posts Gave thanks: 0 Thanked 0 times	I can understand what you are saying, but it's not like we are sending thousands of e-mails. These are members with a theclubhouse1.net e-mail account forwarding direct messages (PM or Email from other members) to their home account. Any word on the ticket Mike? Do we have to rebuild the lost information/pages on our subdomain from scratch? Haven't heard boo from support since the e-mail reply and the ticket should still be open...

October 27th, 2007, 1:03 PM	#8 (permalink)
Batmaniak Registered User Fresh Surpasser Joined in Nov 2006 12 posts Gave thanks: 0 Thanked 0 times	Thank for the background John. I just reviewed our forwarders that are gone and none are AOL; they were forwards to either Yahoo or Hotmail. As for the rest of the open ticket... The sub-domain problems still exist (cannot upload to it), and we still do not know how or why we could lose a month of posts and then only get partially restored.

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