Euro Fast Host

Does you client or customer call you to say they have a bounce saying your email server has rejected their email?

It might have Sending address not accepted due to spam filter and if you or someone has access to email logs it will show why it was rejected.

A common reason is Reverse DNS lookup or lack of it. This is fast becoming a standard feature to email Servers as it helps cut SPAM down hugely. In the logs it will show Mail rejected due to SMTP Spam Blocking: _REVERSEDNSLOOKUP and is usually because the company is using a mail exchange server from their office with no reverse DNS Lookup
The rejected email could cost you and them money so it does need fixing on the offending side and not implementing it is costing you money.

Reverse DNS or rDNS works in the opposite manner to the standard DNS in that it takes an IP address and resolves this to your domain name. Reverse DNS lookups was brought in a few years back now as a good way to combat spam for big ISP’s. Email spammers quite often used an IP address that does not correctly resolve to their host name. BT, AOL, Verizon, Yahoo and a lot of others will not receive email from a server that fails a Reverse DNS lookup. You should see these failed email attempts as bounce backs in your inbox.

I hope you see now why this is an important setting to have on a mail server.
How do you get reverse DNS working for your own servers in your office? The short answer is to contact your ISP and do one of the following:

1. Ask them to add a reverse DNS record for your domain to their DNS server.

Or:

2. Ask them to delegate authority for your reverse DNS to your own DNS servers (hoping you know how to do this).

Your ISP should be familiar with these types of requests and Option 1 will be enough.

Happy pain free emailing.

Just a quick post to air my mind on the whole 0870 premium call charging business.

Companies that insist on having premium numbers that charges you a fortune, really are raking it in. They keep you on hold and are making money from it, even when half the time it’s a problem of theirs your calling them about.

The usual candidates for 0870 numbers are Gas, Electric, Broadband, Web Hosting, after sales service lines, support lines of any kind etc.

So I scanned the internet for forums or web sites that had views and/or solutions on the whole 0870 scam.

I came up trumps with this site www.saynoto0870.com

You can enter an 0870 number for a company and it will come back with normal land line numbers for it. Or just enter the company name and again comes back with normal land line numbers or sometimes 0845.The site is all end user built so it depends on numbers been submitted by the public.
All this brings me to us at Eurofasthost.com we have a 0800 free phone number and we aren’t a chicken call centre. So you can guarantee no queues or silly phone bills.Enjoy

We will shortly be launching an online backup service that you can use to backup your local laptops, PCs and servers to our network. It’s all done automatically over the internet and provides excellent security for your valuable data.

We are trialing a service at the moment with a number of customers and will post more details about the full service as soon as possible.

Duncan

Just a reminder that we are now taking daily backups of all web hosting accounts, including e-mail, databases (SQL Server and MySQL), and web directories.

If you accidentally delete some files, we will usually be able to recover them for you (please note that this is not guaranteed however) and a quick email to support should get you back up and running.

Thanks,

Duncan

At last, we have launched our new web site along with new logo and branding. We hope you like the new look, and as always, comments are welcome!

We have also launched a new range of shared web hosting, VPS hosting (virtual private server) and dedicated servers. Over the coming weeks we will be promoting the new products extensively and refining the product range in response to customer feedback.

We are particularly excited about the virtual server offrerings - this is a new product for us, and one we’ve been asked about a lot. A handful of customers have been trialing it, and we are now looking forward to rolling it out on a wider basis.

There will be a number of other refinements occurring over the next few weeks, and we will be posting more information as they happen.

As always, thanks for your continued support!

Duncan

Our new SpamBLock service is now well and truly live, and blocking tens of thousands of spam messages per day - Viagra sales must be on the decline

The system works by intercepting and quarantining spam before it hits your inbox - meaning you only need to download the email that means something. Just in case, you also get a daily spam quarantine report which lists the subject lines and sender addresses of all blocked emails. In the unlikely event that a legitimate mail is blocked, you can whitelist it there and then so it never gets stopped again.

At just £10 per annum per maiblox (with further volume discounts) there’s no reason to complain about spam again.

We are so pleased with this service, and feedback has been so positive, that we are offering a free trial to anyone who wants it. Just email sales@eurofasthost.com with your contact details and we’ll do the rest. You don’t even need to be hosting your email with Eurofasthost.com - we can filter remote emails too with a simple MX record update.

Just contact us and we can have your spam blocked within 24-hours.

Duncan

Hi,

There are many times when you are moving a domain name from an alternative host when it would be useful to view your web site on our servers before making the final change. So, your site stays live on the old host and you can check all is well with a copy of the site before the final move. But, your domain name is still pointing to the old host. What to do?

We have historically manually setup temporary domain names for you to use for just this purpose. But, now it’s automated! When you create your new web site, a temporary domain is automaticallty configured for you to view the new site straight away.

It will take the format of www.yourdomain.com.efhweb4.eurofasthost.com where yourdomain.com is obviously your domain name and efhweb4 is the particular web server on our network that the domain name has been setup on.

Simple!

Any questions, please email support@eurofasthost.com.

Duncan

Hi,

You can now create scheduled tasks in the control panel - ideal for regular jobs that need doing (e.g. sending mailing lists, updating billing accounts etc). You simply setup the script and then choose it in the control panel to run at specified times! Any questions, please email support@eurofasthost.com.

Duncan

Hi,

We have now started tracking email and database disk space usage in overall disk space calculations. We haven’t historically done this, but we have a number of email accounts and databases (particularly SQL Server) that are taking up very large amounts of space. These have not historically been billed, but we are now going to start counting this usage towards overall quotas. You should be able to see your total usage in the control panel within 24 hours. If it appears that you have a large amount of usage, please contact support@eurofasthost.com so that we can help you reduce it.

Thanks,

Duncan.

Hi,

We have today upgraded the version of Helm Control Panel to version 3.2.16 from version 3.2.11. This brings along several enhancements to the control panel. If you have any problems or questions following the upgrade, please email support@eurofasthost.com.

Thanks,

Duncan

We have recently upgraded our office telephone system to be fully VoIP based, and after a few teething problems, it works great!

Initially, we were using HomePlug adapters to connect phones (fantastic SNOM 360s) to the ethernet network where there wasn’t a handy CAT5 connection. When we were trialing the system, we found call quality was far from acceptable, with constant breaking up. We knew bandwidth wasn’t the issue, and we were pretty sure we had configured everything else correctly. In the end, it turned out to be the HomePlug adapters - remove these and use the normal CAT5 connection, and it all works fine.

So, what are the benefits? Well, it’s cheap for local and national calls, and even mobiles, but not really so much cheaper that it pays for the investment in phones. No, the real benefit is that we can run a virtual PBX to configure call routing, service status announcements, call diversion, forwarding etc all via a web browser interface. People can also logon from home and it’s as though they are in the office (not that we do this regularly!).

We have got rid of our expensive Alcatel phone system (complete with annual maintenance agreement) and now run all of our telephony via a VoIP. We have kept some analogue lines in case of any outages, but the initial signs are that the VoIP system is definitely the way to go!

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Following on from the untimely withdrawal of our spam filtering service (when our supplier was no longer able to provide the service), we have installed our own improved spam filtering service. This is hosted and controlled in-house, and we have been trialing it with a number of customers. Feedback is excellent, and we are pleased to say that it will be launched next week!

Features include:

• Over 98% of spam filtered
• Daily quarantine email report with list of mails stopped
• Release and whitleist emails direct from the email quarantine report
• Simple web interface for configuring quarantine report settings
• No need for any client software
• Also filters viruses before they reach your PC
• Generally, its just great.

Further details on Monday!

For some time now, a company called Domain Regsitry of America (or Domain Registry of Europe) has been writing to domain name owners “warning” them that their domain names are due to expire unless they are renewed. These letters are being sent to our customers as well of customers of other ISPs and hosting companies.

The letters are a con and an underhand attempt to take ownership of domain names unethically. The company has been the subject of legal challenges in the US/Canada (see here) and the FTC taken them to court.

Please be assured that these notices should be ignored - they are not legitmate and if they are completed there is a danger that you domain name will be transferred without you explicit consent, and excessive charges will become payable.

We always write to our customers when domains are due for renewal, so there is no need to worry about missing any renewal dates. If you are concerned about any correspondence you have received, please just give us a call and we’ll check it out for you.

Hi,

We will be at Internet World this Thursday 3rd May. Not exhibiting, but taking a look a look around at what’s hot. There will be Duncan, Andy, Rich, and Darren - if anyone wants to meet up, just send an email to duncan@eurofasthost.com and we’ll catch up. And, because it’s such a long way from Yorkshire, we’ll be staying over on Thursday night and enjoying a night on the town

Duncan

Due to the very high levels of spam entering our network, we are now refusing to accept mail from remote hosts that do not have a reverse DNS entry. This cuts out a huge amount of spam from hitting our newtork and follows common accepted internet practise. This should not cause any problem to the vast majority of customers, but please let us know if you regularly receive email from a host with no reverse DNS entry.

In this scenario, the best option is to educate the sender into obtaining reverse DNS since their emails will be bouncing from other hosts. However, in exception cicrumstances we can allow particular hosts to send email without reverse DNS - this is done on a case by case basis.

Thanks,

Duncan

Hi,

Further to previous emails sent out to dedicated server customers, we have now implemented the new firewall and access rules. If you find you are unable to access your server via Terminal Services, or cannot access a SQL server via Enterprise Manager, please contact us so that your IP address can be added to the access list.

Thanks.

Duncan

Hi,

Well, the greylisting trial went well. The inbound emails were down by approximately 80% over what we would normally expect on that server over a weekend. 80% spam… mad, isn’t it?

So, we now know that greylisting will have a dramatic effect on spam levels, but we still have the issue of delayed emails to dealt with.

We will probably contact all customers in advance of a full roll-out and ask them if they would like to opt-out of greylisting - hopefully most will be happy to accept the trade-off in return for at least and 80% reduction in spam.

More information will be posted here and emailed to domain administrators in advance of any futher changes.

Regards,

Duncan

Hi,

As part of our ongoing efforts to reduce the amount of spam inflicted upon our customers we are experimenting with greylisting.  This is a technique that some mail hosts report can reduce spam by 95% with no loss of legitimate mail. Sound great, doesn’t it?

But, as always, there are some drawbacks. The main on is the legitimate mail is delayed the first time it is sent from a particular sender. It works like this (see the link above for more information).

The sender looks up an MX record for a domain and this lists a mail host to deliver the email to. So, the sending mail server delivers the email to th reciipients mail server. When greylisting is enabled, the recipients mail server initially rejects the mail with a temporary error. The sending server then requeues the email for a second delivery attempt later. On the second delivery attempt, the recipient server accepts the email and delivers it as normal. Then, for a configurable future period mail from the same sender to the same recipient is delivered without delay.

The reason it works is that most spammers do not attempt to re-deliver the mail after the first rejection. Spammers use compromised machines to deliver their mail and they don’t care about proper MTA (message transfer agent) operation. So, legitimate mail will be delivered and spam lost. There are other reasons why this has an impact on spammers as well (more in the aritcle above).

As mentioned, the main problem with this approach is the initial delivery delay when mail is sent from a new sender. Imagine the sender is from an e-commerce site or a “forgotten password” link - they delay could be inconvenient.

So, we are not sure how customers would react to the implementation of greylisting. Would you be willing to have the odd delivery delay in return for a huge reduction of spam? Our guess is that, as usual, some will, and some won’t

Our plan therefore is to test it on one mail server over the weekend on every domain on that server. This will have minimum impact on business customers and allow us to see how much spam is stopped.

We will then re-enable normal delivery on Monday morning so there is no impact on customers.

Assuming the trial goes well we will then implement greylisting with an option to turn it off per domain - so for those who need instant delivery all the time they can have it and for those who want a spam free mailbox they can have it as well.

The solution for no spam and instant delivery would be our Advanced Spam Filtering solution at £1.50 per mailbox per month… customers content with the delay can have spam protection for free!

A futher update with the results of the trial will be posted on Monday. If anyone has serious issues over the weekend with the trial, please email me on duncan@eurofasthost.com and I can remove your domain from the trial.
Duncan

We have now retired Purple, a Cobalt Raq server that was hosting some legacy sites from some time ago. The site owners were contacted in advance, and the retirement went well - all sites are now migrated to other servers.

The retirement of purple marks the last of our Linux wervers - we are now 100% Windows based hosting. That’s not to say we wont offer Linux hosting packages again in the future, but at the moment we are concentrating on strengthening our windows web hosting services.

Although we have provided dedicated servers for many years, this has generally been to existing customers who have outgrown shared server capabilites - we’ve never really advertised them on the web site.

But, that’s about to change. As part of our strategy review, we will soon be offering configurable dedicated servers to purchase online. We don’t have full package details or prices yet - we want to make sure we get the offering right - but we will be adding the dedicated server options to our new web site when it is launched (later this week hopefully!)