Mail Sending Progress

[keifer27]

Since I have moved List Mail Pro to a VPS with Plesk, when I send out a broadcast, List Mail doesn't display the sending progress numbers until it's done sending the broadcast and it then shows the progress numbers like 25 of 25 emails sent.

Is there something that needs to be set on the server for this to work correctly?

Thanks,
Keith

[DW]

Hi Keith,

The main cause of this is a PHP setting in /etc/php.ini

The following should be set:

Code: [Select]

output_buffering = Off
Regards

[keifer27]

Hi Dean,

It looks like this is already set to off. Any other things to look for?

; Output buffering allows you to send header lines (including cookies) even
; after you send body content, at the price of slowing PHP's output layer a
; bit.  You can enable output buffering during runtime by calling the output
; buffering functions.  You can also enable output buffering for all files by
; setting this directive to On.  If you wish to limit the size of the buffer
; to a certain size - you can use a maximum number of bytes instead of 'On', as
; a value for this directive (e.g., output_buffering=4096).
output_buffering = Off

Thanks,
Keith

[DW]

You can also check if mod_gzip is enabled in /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf  It should not be.

Regards

[keifer27]

Is this what you are talking about?

# AddEncoding allows you to have certain browsers uncompress
# information on the fly. Note: Not all browsers support this.
# Despite the name similarity, the following Add* directives have nothing
# to do with the FancyIndexing customization directives above.
#
#AddEncoding x-compress .Z
#AddEncoding x-gzip .gz .tgz

# If the AddEncoding directives above are commented-out, then you
# probably should define those extensions to indicate media types:
#
AddType application/x-compress .Z
AddType application/x-gzip .gz .tgz

Do I just comment out the "AddType application/x-gzip .gz .tgz" by adding a "#" in front of it?

Keith

[DW]

Hi Keith,

No it should say "mod_gzip".  If it doesn't then it is probably not installed...  These two options are the only things I have found to fix this.  Could your server be doing other buffering or processing, such as via a PHP extension that modifies output?

Via Google I've seen that enabling "output_handler" in /etc/php.ini can inadvertently enable the "output_buffering" we do not want.  That should be disabled by default, though.

Ironically, I'm having the same problem on a server I recently set up.  I am searching for a solution and will let you know if I find one.

Regards

[keifer27]

Okay, thanks Dean. It's not that big of a deal since the emails are being sent. It would just be nice to see the progress. Please let me know if you find out anything else.

I am also having problems setting up the bounce.cgi to work. I have been using the bounce mailbox method up until now, but would like to get the bounce.cgi method working since this is the recommended method. I have set it up as instructed in the help files: created the .qmail-bounce file and uploaded it to the correct directory and the bounce.cgi to my cgi-bin. Does anything come to mind to be sure to check?

My host has no idea why it isn't working and they contacted swsoft about it and so far, they have been no help.

Keith

[DW]

Keith,

The magic to make bounce.cgi work on Plesk is to set up the alias as follows:

Set up a file

Code: [Select]

/var/qmail/mailnames/example.com/.qmail-bounce
containing

Code: [Select]

|/usr/bin/perl /var/www/vhosts/example.com/cgi-bin/bounce.cgi
And also run the following command as administrator:

Code: [Select]

chmod +x /var/www/vhosts/example.com/cgi-bin
and of course make sure bounce.cgi is modified to contain your ListMail URL and executable (chmod 755)

I think VPS servers may do some mandatory global output buffering that could interfere with your settings.  I couldn't fix this on another Plesk VPS, either.

Regards

[keifer27]

Finally!

The test message was successfully received and processed by ListMail's bounce.cgi.

This most likely means that the script is configured correctly.

Thanks for those excellent instructions. I've been going back and forth with this with my web host for several days and I had just about given up getting the bounce.cgi working.

I just chmod the cgi-bin to be also executed by "other" and used the code you gave for the .qmail-bounce file. Before I was just using: |/path/to/your/cgi-bin/bounce.cgi

The chmod +x command allows the execute for "others", correct? I haven't used shell commands yet, so I just did it from the server control panel.

Not sure which of those worked, but I am so glad that it finally does.

Thanks,
Keith

[DW]

Keith,

Without the +x on your /var/www/vhosts/example.com/cgi-bin users other than your FTP user (and apache?) are not be able to access your file.  Enabling +x gives the mailer access.  I suppose the same thing could be accomplished by adding a certain qmail user to the "psacln" Plesk group.  This would be more secure because setting +x means another user on the same server could potentially read your files with a script that accesses the filesystem.  Fortunately you are the only user on a VPS and such attacks are rare even in a shared hosting environment.

The chmod +x command allows the execute for "others", correct?

+x means executable for all, so if the file has 0 permissions they would end up with "---x--x--x".  That is, executable for owner, group and others.  More common is 755 or "-rwxr-xr-x".  A directory must be +x and maybe also +r to be able to traverse it.

Regards