Web Host?

[lambertb]

HI

Unfortunately, I've been having a fit trying to find a host that will allow me to run the "bounce.cgi" feature of ListMailPro.  In other words, the host where I've got a huge site, ListMailPro, Amember, PhpBB, and Kayako Help Desk fully integrated and talking to each other doesn't have "email aliasing to a script" turned on.

I'm running a Virtual Private Server.  I've been with these guys forever and moving everything is a REAL pain.

Anyway, I wanted to start another thread on what I've seen, learned, about hosting companies in regards to large email lists.  There are probably better people to talk about this than I, so I welcome any input!

I found out via this forum that DreamHost used to be good, but they really had issues in the summer of 2006 and they'll nail you for being a resource hog.

I also signed up with ThirdSphere hosting, and I would stick with them, but they're only good for "product downloads" as opposed to a "membership area", plus you have to buy a totally separate account for each domain.  I run a membership site with chapters all over the world, so it's not going to work for me -- no membership area to collaborate in, and it's too expensive.

However, If I were running a solo site, with product downloads, I'd use thirdsphere because I've got a patchwork of autoresponders, shopping carts, etc, all accomplishing the same thing and it's been a lot more expensive and time consuming to do that on my own.  The biggest downside is relying aon everyone else to make sure they don't upload spamming lists, etc.  ALL users of the "automation station" send out through the same IP address I believe.  So, I'm willing to bet some moron is going to get the whole thing blacklisted one day.  I just wasn't willing to put myself through constant switching of hosts. I want my own IP Addresss es for everything.  But, if you're running a 2 page website selling ebooks, go for it. Make sure you click on the signature in Dean's sig block so he can make some affiliate commission

Anyway, for me, I need to stick to a Virtual Private Server or Dedicated Server.  

1to1 is sold out of them at the time of this post.  

also, for some reason, host4profit scares me.  I feel like I'm buying an ebook from them or something.   They've been around awhile and there is good press and bad press on them.  i know they have really high commissions, but that's not going to help me get back the hundreds of  hours of trying to move hosts. I've already spent 2 full days backing up SQL databases, etc.  :shock:   So, if they start messing with me and I have a hard time with them , it won't be good.

The goal for me is to find a host with the most flexibility and who aren't constantly being watched by the ISPs for spammng (a lot of the companies out there only send email through 1 or 2 IP addresses -- that's a huge problem -- actually, thirdsphere is like that with their "automation station".

Right now I think JaguarPC.com looks to be the best.

I've spent about 3 weeks looking around, and if you like LMPro and have large lists, Jaguar PC might be the best thing going (what do you think?)

    *  Full root access
    * Equal share cpu
    * Dualcore Dual cpu servers
    * Fast RAID10 Storage
    * Host Unlimited domains
    * FREE Level 2 Managed services
    * FREE Server hardening and security
    * FREE daily backups
    * FREE Moving assitance and data transfer for moves
    * FREE Virtuozzo Power Panel
    * FREE Enom reseller account
    * FREE 3 IP Addresses
    * Choice of OS: CentOS, Debian, Fedora Core, Suse
    * Choice of Control Panel: cPanel, Interworx, DirectAdmin, Plesk

I'm paying over 120.00/month for a host that does this the equivalent to Jaguar PC (been there 4 years, so I get in early on the VPS hosting action)

Jaguar PC Apollo Plan

    * 25 GB Disk Space
    * 3mbps unmetered or 500 GB Bandwidth
    * 384 MB Guaranteed Ram
    * 1536 MB Burstable Ram
    * Equal share cpu

At Jaguar PC, it's only 59.95/month

I would pick the cpanel control panel so I could setup bounce.cgi and an email alias.  

If I was trying to figure out what to do, I'd do this --- it's very scalable, it's built to handle large lists, it's got root access, etc.

I tried to find their Terms of service, but all the links were broken to it

Anyway, before I spend  a *ton* of time moving hosts, I'm really going to come out swinging with my current host to figure out the email alias to bounce.cgi thing.   If that doesn't work out , I'll probably switch.

What do you all think?  Any work arounds on the bounce.cgi ?  any thoughts on jaguarpc?

[mike2]

Here's my .02 on bounce.cgi...

I used to use it, but with a big list it does seem to hog resources while emailing.... so I started using the email box method, but instead of only checking it once a day, I check it about 4-6 times per hour or so ( via cron ).

This way anytime it checks it will only be processing smaller amounts of info and this works pretty well for me.

As for JaguarPC i'd be leary if you don't see there TOS...  Call them, that may be the easiest way, good luck and let us know what you find.

[lambertb]

HI Mike

Can you give me the cron information to setup a cron job to check the bounce mailbox every few hours?

That would be more ideal than changing hosts to get bounce.cgi working (and then not having the desired outcome).

I know you're not running daily mail that frequently.

I searched the forum but couldn't find what that would look like.

Thanks for the help!

lambertb

[DW]

The following post contains information about processing bounces via mailbox more than once per day.
http://listmailpro.com/forum/index.php?topic=1468.0

I plan to improve bounce.cgi so it does not require a web call which would greatly reduce load on the server.  The only downside is a separate additional perl "config" file will be needed to specify the ListMail MySQL access information.  That, or the ListMail config.php file could be parsed based on local pathnames (this may not be possible due to security restrictions on includable folders)

The original post in this thread is perhaps one of the most informative posts ever made regarding hosting.  I've been tossing around the idea of a "host review" web site or section of listmailpro.com devoted to listing ListMail-compatible hosts and expect to put something like that up in the future.

Unfortunately, I've been having a fit trying to find a host that will allow me to run the "bounce.cgi" feature of ListMailPro. In other words, the host where I've got a huge site, ListMailPro, Amember, PhpBB, and Kayako Help Desk fully integrated and talking to each other doesn't have "email aliasing to a script" turned on.

I'm running a Virtual Private Server. I've been with these guys forever and moving everything is a REAL pain.

I don't understand why email aliasing would not be possible on a virtual private server.  I can understand if your host will or can not assist with setting them up, but it should be available as a feature as long as email is not routed separately through another server. (This is because the CGI scripts must be installed on the actual mail server)

I found out via this forum that DreamHost used to be good, but they really had issues in the summer of 2006 and they'll nail you for being a resource hog.

I think they are somewhat selective with the sites they drop.  If you seem honest and don't use too too many resources it should be ok.  The REAL killer, for me, is the fact that they have completely given up on delivering to AOL.  I think this is a really bad move on their part, but then they don't have any shortage of people referring their service...  I think this happened to them because of their shortsighted idea of using a single server to route all of their email for tens of thousands of sites.

I also signed up with ThirdSphere hosting, and I would stick with them, but they're only good for "product downloads" as opposed to a "membership area", plus you have to buy a totally separate account for each domain. I run a membership site with chapters all over the world, so it's not going to work for me -- no membership area to collaborate in, and it's too expensive.

ThirdSphere worked with me on including mention of ListMailPRO in their help files next to ARP which was very encouraging to me.  They also support ListMailPRO 100% and allow more messages (20,000/day) than any other shared host I've seen so far.  They mentioned their email cluster service which is supposed to greatly improve deliverability, but it seems too expensive to me with large amounts of addresses.  I'd prefer hosting unlimited sites on my own dedicated server for $120/mo tops - however, some users without knowledge of dedicated servers, or who have a need for even greater deliverability, might be better off with their email cluster.

ALL users of the "automation station" send out through the same IP address I believe. So, I'm willing to bet some moron is going to get the whole thing blacklisted one day.

I am unfortunately not familiar with this feature of ThirdSphere.  They seem to have a fair amount of knowledge about email deliverability - I would think they would not send all email for an extraordinary number of sites through the same IP.

The goal for me is to find a host with the most flexibility and who aren't constantly being watched by the ISPs for spammng (a lot of the companies out there only send email through 1 or 2 IP addresses -- that's a huge problem -- actually, thirdsphere is like that with their "automation station".  Right now I think JaguarPC.com looks to be the best.

I should have a chance to check out JaguarPC later on today...  There are ways to cycle through a number of IP addresses with your own dedicated server.  I can do it with qmail / Plesk systems.

Jaguar PC Apollo Plan

* 25 GB Disk Space
* 3mbps unmetered or 500 GB Bandwidth
* 384 MB Guaranteed Ram
* 1536 MB Burstable Ram
* Equal share cpu

At Jaguar PC, it's only 59.95/month

This seems like a pretty fair price although you could use a full server for about $90/mo.  Considering 1&1 seems to be struggling with availability I too went looking for new servers.  So far my #1 choice has been Layered Technologies.  I have one very fairly priced dual core P4 with 2GB RAM and SCSI disk.  I have been extremely happy with the server and the monthly price (although setup fees are a bit high).  My only complaints in 4 months are a couple network failures totalling no more than 5 hours and their lack of a "control panel" for your server such as 1&1 has, with options such as instant reboot or rescue mode.  Their ticket system, used for support, reboot and rescue, has been fast and effective, however.  One small problem was that they didn't give me the right CPU and, when they did shortly after, then failed to update to a multiprocessor kernel.  I installed my own and it bunged things up (disk write/access crashes, scary) until they installed their in-house kernel.

Anyway, before I spend a *ton* of time moving hosts, I'm really going to come out swinging with my current host to figure out the email alias to bounce.cgi thing. If that doesn't work out , I'll probably switch.

See what you can do but remember bounce.cgi will need to be hosted on the server receiving the email.  If they used mail servers separate from your sites they may not be willing to install the script.

Regards

[DW]

Oops, my latest server is actually with Burst.Net but I'm looking at Layered Tech due to their excellent prices (They may even have a remote control panel for reboots, etc. - I'm not sure because I don't have a server with them yet)  Sorry about the mix-up!

Regards

[lambertb]

Hi Dean

Thanks for the information!  I will check into those as well.

Over the past few days, I went over to hostgator and bought one of their plans to test it.

It came with CPanel and allowed email aliasing, etc.

I setup the email alias to go to bounce.cgi.  But I couldn't get it to work... for some reason, it kept doing this:

/home/path/to/server/public_html/cgi-bin/bounce.cgi@mysitename.com

it kept adding @mysitename.com to the end of line in the forwarding section of cpanel.

I tried using "quotes" I tried using 'single quotes' etc.

I could never get the bounce.cgi to work.

The other kicker for me was the fact that I was having major issues getting all my databases to talk to each other and the phpmyadmin interface wasn't giving me "root" access for some reason.

Plus, their tech support was *AWfUL*... they were clueless on the aliasing questions I was asking them.

And THEN I decided to actually look at the terms of service (ooops!)  they have a 5,000 a day email limit (or soemthing that was way to low).

I ended up pulling the plug on them after spending about 1 day working on the server.

I wanted to see if I could get bounce.cgi working and I wanted to see how hard it was to get the new databases working (that was my #1 goal of this test)...

But, lesson learned.... read the TOS first if you send out a lot of email (duh)  :oops:

Also, I then read the post earlier in this thread about having the bounce mailbox check more than 1 time  a day... I will try that now before moving.

I really, really like where I'm at... the guys are great in tech support.

I'm currently at Advantagecom NEtworks  http://www.simplywebhosting.com/

I highly recommend them.

Also, this just in......

I pushed back to them a little on the script aliasing and I told them that Dean said there has to be a way

 


Here's what they said:

We believe these changes can be done, but making custom changes to the configurations on his VPS is beyond the scope of what technical support is intended to cover.  You are welcome to make those changes yourself, or you can have us look into making these changes (including research) at our $75.00 per hour rate. Our estimate is that this task would take one hour.

If you are interested in us handling this issue for you, we would also need you to provide more information about this issue, including what is it that you do to send your mailing list, and the time you last sent your mailing list.


--------------

So what do you think?



Thanks!

[DW]

I think I'd take a look for $35 or less http://listmailpro.com/support

Regards

[DW]

Did you figure out the problem on your current host or go with Jaguar PC?  I would recommend Plesk over CPanel, since I know it and it's backend mailing system the best.  I can provide instructions for setting up bounce.cgi (as root) and could even help patch qmail so it doesn't get stuck trying to deliver to Yahoo and other rate-limiting ISPs.

If you switched hosts please update us with your experience so I can add it to this new post with web host reviews:

http://listmailpro.com/forum/index.php?topic=1699.0

Regards

[lambertb]

Hi Dean,

I decided to stay where I'm at and pay you to update it and get teh bounce.cgi working

My host said that they believe these changes can be done, but making custom changes to the configurations on the VPS is beyond the scope of what their  technical support is intended to cover.

How would you suggest we get started on that?

Brian

[DW]

Hi Brian,

I will look at this one issue and provide specific instructions for your server for a reduced rate of $20.  Simply purchase an update for $20 from http://listmailpro.com/support and provide the appropriate root, site control panel and ftp access.

Regards and thanks