OT: Internet Hosting recommendations.

[T i m]

As I know some here are involved in things IT-technical and I'm
looking for general advice / recommendations that has technical
content, I thought I'd ask here.

I have been asked by a friend if I could recommend an alternative
Internet host because of connection / email reliability with his
existing one. He is saying they lose email connectivity maybe once
every couple of months and for varying periods).

We are just talking a static web page plus maybe 20 email accounts,
mostly POP/SMTP to workstations plus IMAP access on phones. Again, in
case it affects anything they run Outlook 2013 and although they
wanted some group / shared calendaring, I'm not sure they have it and
just send email notifications or something.

FWIW the existing Co seemed to have their own email system but now you
get an Outlook / Office 365 type interface so I wonder if they are
outsourcing their mail to MS?

I have just tried to login to their control panel and it still seems
to be down (from 8 or so this morning).

So, does anyone have any practical experience of a Co who could host
his website and provide reliable email services and that is likely to
still be around next year?

I guess I'm asking more of those he should avoid, rather than those he
could go to as the expectation would that they would all be reasonably
reliable and offer the same quality of service (but we know that isn't
the case).

FWIW I think daughter uses 1&1 and has found them ok so far but then
isn't pushing quite a few emails though them every day. Similarly I've
had no real issues with my VM or Spaced accounts and said mate hasn't
had any real issues with his private Yahoo mail.

So, if his current provider is actually hosting his emails on MS
servers, could he simply cut out the middle man and go to MS directly
(for web hosting and emails)?

Therefore, the question was really to get a feel of what is to be
expected (reliability wise) out there and if anyone could personally
recommend any particular host and why please?

Cheers, T i m

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <p5s89cluudof78a1p...@4ax.com>,

T i m <ne...@spaced.me.uk> wrote:
> I have been asked by a friend if I could recommend an alternative
> Internet host because of connection / email reliability with his
> existing one. He is saying they lose email connectivity maybe once
> every couple of months and for varying periods).

I have the same problem with my BT mail. But everything else is OK. The
actual broadband way more reliable than the several ISPs I've had
previously. Which makes me cautious about moving.

I don't much use my BT mail address having already got my own pop box at
123 reg, so am now considering getting an alternate SMTP server to the BT
one. Which I'd guess I'll have to pay extra for.

--
*Why is it considered necessary to screw down the lid of a coffin?

Dave Plowman da...@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

[T i m]

On Fri, 03 Feb 2017 12:58:09 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Plowman (News)"
<da...@davenoise.co.uk> wrote:

>In article <p5s89cluudof78a1p...@4ax.com>,
> T i m <ne...@spaced.me.uk> wrote:
>> I have been asked by a friend if I could recommend an alternative
>> Internet host because of connection / email reliability with his
>> existing one. He is saying they lose email connectivity maybe once
>> every couple of months and for varying periods).
>
>I have the same problem with my BT mail. But everything else is OK. The
>actual broadband way more reliable than the several ISPs I've had
>previously. Which makes me cautious about moving.
>
>I don't much use my BT mail address having already got my own pop box at
>123 reg,

Funny you should say that. So, how reliable has the 123-reg email been
for you? I mean would you notice if it was down for say 15 minutes on
any day?

> so am now considering getting an alternate SMTP server to the BT
>one. Which I'd guess I'll have to pay extra for.

Like you I typically use the SMTP server of my ISP but I think you can
also use others servers for outgoing mail.

Cheers, T i m

[Martin Brown]

On 03/02/2017 12:58, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
> In article <p5s89cluudof78a1p...@4ax.com>,
> T i m <ne...@spaced.me.uk> wrote:
>> I have been asked by a friend if I could recommend an alternative
>> Internet host because of connection / email reliability with his
>> existing one. He is saying they lose email connectivity maybe once
>> every couple of months and for varying periods).

Who are they using at present? I notice 123 was belly up this morning.

You might find the thread in demon.service about hosting choices
<aq7k8c9prn2f2h7b2...@4ax.com>
of interest. TsoHosts seems to have some recommendations there.

Voodofone have been annoying loyal Demon customers for a couple of years
now and most original Demonites have left but for the moment retain
their subdomains but with other hosting and other email services via
Namesco. There is a new gotcha coming down the line at the end of the
month since "improvements" are being made to increase profitability.

> I have the same problem with my BT mail. But everything else is OK. The
> actual broadband way more reliable than the several ISPs I've had
> previously. Which makes me cautious about moving.

Odd. The local loop shouldn't be more reliable with BT than with anyone
else (unless you mean TalkTalk who I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy).

> I don't much use my BT mail address having already got my own pop box at
> 123 reg, so am now considering getting an alternate SMTP server to the BT
> one. Which I'd guess I'll have to pay extra for.

If you have 123-reg email you already have access to their free email
server but it doesn't support any kind of encryption at all. Usable as a
backup but not entirely satisfactory for longer term use.

Takeovers and mergers mean we live in interest times (Chinese usage).

--
Regards,
Martin Brown

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <ri499cptbfmved1st...@4ax.com>,

T i m <ne...@spaced.me.uk> wrote:
> >I don't much use my BT mail address having already got my own pop box at
> >123 reg,

> Funny you should say that. So, how reliable has the 123-reg email been
> for you? I mean would you notice if it was down for say 15 minutes on
> any day?

When this computer is on. it does an auto fetch every 30 minutes. If
anything is up with any of the email facilities, I get an error message.

And oddly, 123 reg was down today. But was back by about 12.45. It's far
more likely to be BT here.

> > so am now considering getting an alternate SMTP server to the BT
> >one. Which I'd guess I'll have to pay extra for.

> Like you I typically use the SMTP server of my ISP but I think you can
> also use others servers for outgoing mail.

Yes. I've just found out I can use the 123-reg one.

With the email client I use, you can have several pop boxes. It visits
them all in turn - and gives an error message if any is down. I'm not sure
if it can try one SMTP server then use an alternative if the first doesn't
work.

> Cheers, T i m

--
*Sherlock Holmes never said "Elementary, my dear Watson" *

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <o724p4$hf2$1...@gioia.aioe.org>,

Martin Brown <|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> > I have the same problem with my BT mail. But everything else is OK. The
> > actual broadband way more reliable than the several ISPs I've had
> > previously. Which makes me cautious about moving.

> Odd. The local loop shouldn't be more reliable with BT than with anyone
> else (unless you mean TalkTalk who I wouldn't wish on my worst enemy).

I did end up with Talktalk after a number of takeovers or mergers. All the
many outages I had seemed to be at the exchange end or further up the
chain. My local end - including my phone - were OK.

> > I don't much use my BT mail address having already got my own pop box
> > at 123 reg, so am now considering getting an alternate SMTP server to
> > the BT one. Which I'd guess I'll have to pay extra for.

> If you have 123-reg email you already have access to their free email
> server but it doesn't support any kind of encryption at all. Usable as a
> backup but not entirely satisfactory for longer term use.

Must admit I don't tend to use email to send anything critical.

> Takeovers and mergers mean we live in interest times (Chinese usage).

--

*Bills travel through the mail at twice the speed of cheques *

[John Rumm]

On 03/02/2017 12:28, T i m wrote:

> As I know some here are involved in things IT-technical and I'm
> looking for general advice / recommendations that has technical
> content, I thought I'd ask here.
>
> I have been asked by a friend if I could recommend an alternative
> Internet host because of connection / email reliability with his
> existing one. He is saying they lose email connectivity maybe once
> every couple of months and for varying periods).
>
> We are just talking a static web page plus maybe 20 email accounts,
> mostly POP/SMTP to workstations plus IMAP access on phones. Again, in

If you want to share a mailbox between phone and desktop, you ideally
need to use IMAP for both.

> case it affects anything they run Outlook 2013 and although they
> wanted some group / shared calendaring, I'm not sure they have it and
> just send email notifications or something.

To do the snazzy shared calendaring etc needs and Exchange mailbox. That
used to mean running your own exchange server, but these days you can
get it all in the cloud.

> FWIW the existing Co seemed to have their own email system but now you
> get an Outlook / Office 365 type interface so I wonder if they are
> outsourcing their mail to MS?

Could be. Some of the office 365 packages include a 50GB exchange
mailbox as well.

> I have just tried to login to their control panel and it still seems
> to be down (from 8 or so this morning).
>
> So, does anyone have any practical experience of a Co who could host
> his website and provide reliable email services and that is likely to
> still be around next year?

Do they need exchange mailboxes? If so then most companies just resell
the MS hosting option.

> I guess I'm asking more of those he should avoid, rather than those he
> could go to as the expectation would that they would all be reasonably
> reliable and offer the same quality of service (but we know that isn't
> the case).
>
> FWIW I think daughter uses 1&1 and has found them ok so far but then
> isn't pushing quite a few emails though them every day. Similarly I've
> had no real issues with my VM or Spaced accounts and said mate hasn't
> had any real issues with his private Yahoo mail.
>
> So, if his current provider is actually hosting his emails on MS
> servers, could he simply cut out the middle man and go to MS directly
> (for web hosting and emails)?

Probably no cheaper to do.

> Therefore, the question was really to get a feel of what is to be
> expected (reliability wise) out there and if anyone could personally
> recommend any particular host and why please?

I have lots of domains with 123-reg, but would not recommend them for
email hosting (or much else) - they seem rather too error prone. The
stuff I have hosted with Rackspace is rock solid and well supported
generally, but its not a budget option (although their mailboxes are
cheaper than their office 365 mailboxes).


--
Cheers,

John.

/=================================================================\
| Internode Ltd - http://www.internode.co.uk |
|-----------------------------------------------------------------|
| John Rumm - john(at)internode(dot)co(dot)uk |
\=================================================================/

[John Rumm]

On 03/02/2017 12:58, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:

> In article <p5s89cluudof78a1p...@4ax.com>,
> T i m <ne...@spaced.me.uk> wrote:
>> I have been asked by a friend if I could recommend an alternative
>> Internet host because of connection / email reliability with his
>> existing one. He is saying they lose email connectivity maybe once
>> every couple of months and for varying periods).
>
> I have the same problem with my BT mail. But everything else is OK. The
> actual broadband way more reliable than the several ISPs I've had
> previously. Which makes me cautious about moving.
>
> I don't much use my BT mail address having already got my own pop box at
> 123 reg, so am now considering getting an alternate SMTP server to the BT
> one. Which I'd guess I'll have to pay extra for.

If you have a pop mailbox at 123 then you can use their SMTP server to
send as well. (connect to smtp.123.reg.co.uk and login with the same
details you use for incoming mail)

[T i m]

On Fri, 3 Feb 2017 14:40:36 +0000, Martin Brown
<|||newspam|||@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote:

>On 03/02/2017 12:58, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
>> In article <p5s89cluudof78a1p...@4ax.com>,
>> T i m <ne...@spaced.me.uk> wrote:
>>> I have been asked by a friend if I could recommend an alternative
>>> Internet host because of connection / email reliability with his
>>> existing one. He is saying they lose email connectivity maybe once
>>> every couple of months and for varying periods).
>
>Who are they using at present? I notice 123 was belly up this morning.

Bingo. ;-)

>
>You might find the thread in demon.service about hosting choices
><aq7k8c9prn2f2h7b2...@4ax.com>
>of interest. TsoHosts seems to have some recommendations there.
>

<snip>

Thanks for that Martin. I guess unless you were a big / long term user
of any particular service (or product) it can be pretty difficult to
get a detailed picture. Like, my VM service drops out now and again
meaning I can't get access to the WWW or new or email but not
regularly or for long enough for me to look for an alternative
(although with the recent price hike I might at least give them a
call).

And as you say, it only take a change of equipment, management or
ownership at their end for it all to be up in the air again.

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

On Fri, 3 Feb 2017 15:19:55 +0000, John Rumm
<see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:

>On 03/02/2017 12:28, T i m wrote:
>
>> As I know some here are involved in things IT-technical and I'm
>> looking for general advice / recommendations that has technical
>> content, I thought I'd ask here.
>>
>> I have been asked by a friend if I could recommend an alternative
>> Internet host because of connection / email reliability with his
>> existing one. He is saying they lose email connectivity maybe once
>> every couple of months and for varying periods).
>>
>> We are just talking a static web page plus maybe 20 email accounts,
>> mostly POP/SMTP to workstations plus IMAP access on phones. Again, in
>
>If you want to share a mailbox between phone and desktop, you ideally
>need to use IMAP for both.

They may well be set that way already John as many variations were
tried in the beginning to get Calendaring to work.

>
>> case it affects anything they run Outlook 2013 and although they
>> wanted some group / shared calendaring, I'm not sure they have it and
>> just send email notifications or something.
>
>To do the snazzy shared calendaring etc needs and Exchange mailbox.

So I think we learned at the beginning.

> That
>used to mean running your own exchange server,

Yup and out of the question for them at the beginning (especially).

> but these days you can
>get it all in the cloud.

And that was why I mentioned the need in case it had an impact on any
potential alternative solution. So, do we just look for a host who
offers 'Exchange' servers?

>
>> FWIW the existing Co seemed to have their own email system but now you
>> get an Outlook / Office 365 type interface so I wonder if they are
>> outsourcing their mail to MS?
>
>Could be. Some of the office 365 packages include a 50GB exchange
>mailbox as well.

In this case (via 123-reg) I think they only get 5GB / user.

>
>> I have just tried to login to their control panel and it still seems
>> to be down (from 8 or so this morning).
>>
>> So, does anyone have any practical experience of a Co who could host
>> his website and provide reliable email services and that is likely to
>> still be around next year?
>
>Do they need exchange mailboxes? If so then most companies just resell
>the MS hosting option.

Only in the calendaring function AFAIK John. We looked at alternatives
but because most of their customers ruin Outlook / Exchange it we felt
it was ether that or nothing (so they deal with calendaring vie emails
somehow).

>
>> I guess I'm asking more of those he should avoid, rather than those he
>> could go to as the expectation would that they would all be reasonably
>> reliable and offer the same quality of service (but we know that isn't
>> the case).
>>
>> FWIW I think daughter uses 1&1 and has found them ok so far but then
>> isn't pushing quite a few emails though them every day. Similarly I've
>> had no real issues with my VM or Spaced accounts and said mate hasn't
>> had any real issues with his private Yahoo mail.
>>
>> So, if his current provider is actually hosting his emails on MS
>> servers, could he simply cut out the middle man and go to MS directly
>> (for web hosting and emails)?
>
>Probably no cheaper to do.

I don't think that would be so much an issue as having something more
reliable. Even their customers are commenting on how often their
emails are down and it's getting embarrassing (to the point he's
willing to jump ship assuming any (reasonably well researched)
alternatives couldn't be any worse)?

>
>> Therefore, the question was really to get a feel of what is to be
>> expected (reliability wise) out there and if anyone could personally
>> recommend any particular host and why please?
>
>I have lots of domains with 123-reg, but would not recommend them for
>email hosting (or much else) - they seem rather too error prone.

Thanks for that feedback John. More fuel for the fire. ;-)

> The
>stuff I have hosted with Rackspace is rock solid and well supported
>generally, but its not a budget option (although their mailboxes are
>cheaper than their office 365 mailboxes).

Well, we would be guided by anyone who has practical workaday
experience in this field and would consider the cost only as a last
stage. It is potentially costing him lots of money (lost sales) with
his current solution and so something more expensive but more reliable
could still be a cost saving. ;-)

So, the 'big question' would be 'how much better' would the group
calendaring option be if they went to exchange mailboxes over what
they are doing atm (which I think was a 'well, we can do it this way
and it sort of works so let's try it like that' and never changed)?

Cheers, T i m

[Bob Minchin]

I'm a moderator on a woodworking forum hosted by 1&1, Outages are very
rare indeed. So I'd say they are worth a look.

[Nick]

I have domains with 123-reg and use Google G-suite for email. I can't
remember ever having a problem.

[T i m]

On Fri, 3 Feb 2017 16:17:59 +0000, Bob Minchin
<bob.minc...@YOURHATntlworld.com> wrote:

<snip>

>> Therefore, the question was really to get a feel of what is to be
>> expected (reliability wise) out there and if anyone could personally
>> recommend any particular host and why please?
>>

>>

>I'm a moderator on a woodworking forum hosted by 1&1, Outages are very
>rare indeed.

Good to hear. ;-)

> So I'd say they are worth a look.

I notice they mention Exchange support (and 2013) so I guess if
anything was to give my mate the group calendaring function that
should be it.

It's just a matter of doing some sums to see how the prices compare
and I need to ask him how much 'ag' his current method of group
calendaring is and try to work out what he will get for how much more
money going exchange etc (as I'd never really used Outlook or any
calendaring I'm not sure if I'm in a good position to suggest
anything). ;-(

Cheers, T i m

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo <Ov6dnQADcO0GAgnF...@brightview.co.uk>, John
Rumm <see.my.s...@nowhere.null> escribió:

>I have lots of domains with 123-reg, but would not recommend them for
>email hosting (or much else) - they seem rather too error prone

Went tits up again this morning.

"Another month, another problem with comedy outfit 123-Reg"

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2017/02/03/123reg_hit_by_email_outage/

I've been with Names.co.uk many years, only ever had to call support
once to sort a billing issue (not their fault). Originally ClickNames,
which was taken over by Serve 360, then Serve360 was taken over by
Names.

--
(\_/)
(='.'=) systemd: the Linux version of Windows 10
(")_(")

[T i m]

On Fri, 3 Feb 2017 16:22:10 +0000, Nick <Nick...@Yahoo.co.uk> wrote:

<snip>

>>
>> I have lots of domains with 123-reg, but would not recommend them for
>> email hosting (or much else) - they seem rather too error prone. The
>> stuff I have hosted with Rackspace is rock solid and well supported
>> generally, but its not a budget option (although their mailboxes are
>> cheaper than their office 365 mailboxes).
>>
>>
>I have domains with 123-reg and use Google G-suite for email. I can't
>remember ever having a problem.

Possibly because if you haven't lost access to emails for the best
part of a morning then you wouldn't have had any issues (with them)?
;-)

I couldn't even log into the Control Panel earlier but have now and
downloaded the website (via ftp) just to see if I could.

Cheers, T i m

[tony sayer]

In article <ntyq$rD2WL...@jasper.org.uk>, Mike Tomlinson
<mi...@jasper.org.uk> scribeth thus

Yes Namesco here too, helpful but only had to call them a couple of
times over some five years or so!..
--
Tony Sayer

[T i m]

On Fri, 3 Feb 2017 18:46:42 +0000, tony sayer <to...@bancom.co.uk>
wrote:

<snip>

>Yes Namesco here too, helpful but only had to call them a couple of
>times over some five years or so!..

Ok, another one to add to the 'check out services and prices' list.

Cheers, T i m

[Nick]

On 03/02/2017 17:00, T i m wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Feb 2017 16:22:10 +0000, Nick <Nick...@Yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>>>
>>> I have lots of domains with 123-reg, but would not recommend them for
>>> email hosting (or much else) - they seem rather too error prone. The
>>> stuff I have hosted with Rackspace is rock solid and well supported
>>> generally, but its not a budget option (although their mailboxes are
>>> cheaper than their office 365 mailboxes).
>>>
>>>
>> I have domains with 123-reg and use Google G-suite for email. I can't
>> remember ever having a problem.
>
> Possibly because if you haven't lost access to emails for the best
> part of a morning then you wouldn't have had any issues (with them)?
> ;-)
>

You have had problems with Google G-suite email?

[John Rumm]

On 03/02/2017 15:53, T i m wrote:
> On Fri, 3 Feb 2017 15:19:55 +0000, John Rumm
> <see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:


>> To do the snazzy shared calendaring etc needs and Exchange mailbox.
>
> So I think we learned at the beginning.
>
>> That
>> used to mean running your own exchange server,
> Yup and out of the question for them at the beginning (especially).
>
>> but these days you can
>> get it all in the cloud.
>
> And that was why I mentioned the need in case it had an impact on any
> potential alternative solution. So, do we just look for a host who
> offers 'Exchange' servers?

Office 365 (even if you just go for the email and access to the online
version of office only (i.e. no local license for desktop/laptops etc)
is usually the easiest way to get that...

>>> FWIW the existing Co seemed to have their own email system but now you
>>> get an Outlook / Office 365 type interface so I wonder if they are
>>> outsourcing their mail to MS?
>>
>> Could be. Some of the office 365 packages include a 50GB exchange
>> mailbox as well.
>
> In this case (via 123-reg) I think they only get 5GB / user.

That sounds like their normal "personal" email mail box.

>>
>>> I have just tried to login to their control panel and it still seems
>>> to be down (from 8 or so this morning).
>>>
>>> So, does anyone have any practical experience of a Co who could host
>>> his website and provide reliable email services and that is likely to
>>> still be around next year?
>>
>> Do they need exchange mailboxes? If so then most companies just resell
>> the MS hosting option.
>
> Only in the calendaring function AFAIK John. We looked at alternatives
> but because most of their customers ruin Outlook / Exchange it we felt
> it was ether that or nothing (so they deal with calendaring vie emails
> somehow).

One option is online calendaring (google, apple etc) - then that
separates that off from the email solution and gives you more choice there.

>>> I guess I'm asking more of those he should avoid, rather than those he
>>> could go to as the expectation would that they would all be reasonably
>>> reliable and offer the same quality of service (but we know that isn't
>>> the case).
>>>
>>> FWIW I think daughter uses 1&1 and has found them ok so far but then
>>> isn't pushing quite a few emails though them every day. Similarly I've
>>> had no real issues with my VM or Spaced accounts and said mate hasn't
>>> had any real issues with his private Yahoo mail.
>>>
>>> So, if his current provider is actually hosting his emails on MS
>>> servers, could he simply cut out the middle man and go to MS directly
>>> (for web hosting and emails)?
>>
>> Probably no cheaper to do.
>
> I don't think that would be so much an issue as having something more
> reliable. Even their customers are commenting on how often their
> emails are down and it's getting embarrassing (to the point he's
> willing to jump ship assuming any (reasonably well researched)
> alternatives couldn't be any worse)?

I had a similar situation with some customers a few years back. They
were using 123-reg for domain registration and email. The email bit of
the setup was too flaky. Partly down to them not coping with large
mailboxes while at the time not actually imposing any hard limit on
mailbox size. The mailbox would reach about 10+ gig and then the systems
could not cope - you just got timeouts whenever trying to access a
mailbox - even via web mail. That was when we went to rackspace -
however its quite a jump in cost approx £1.50 month per mailbox, rather
than a bundle of tens of them included in the domain registration and a
basic hosting package. (123-reg have improved matters now and actually
police the mailbox size, so those issues don't occur)

I still use 123-reg for domain hosting, and they are ok at that. They
let you do most things you might want to do with DNS etc relatively
easily (although if you need something a bit unusual you can meet a
brick wall). They also have a very flexible system for creating mail
forwards, and splitting mail to multiple recipients, something that you
can do without needing to attach a mailbox to an address (something you
can't do with the MS offering). So you can do stuff like create a public
visible address sa...@domain.com and have that forward to a group of
other addresses (which may also be forwards) quite easily.

>>> Therefore, the question was really to get a feel of what is to be
>>> expected (reliability wise) out there and if anyone could personally
>>> recommend any particular host and why please?
>>
>> I have lots of domains with 123-reg, but would not recommend them for
>> email hosting (or much else) - they seem rather too error prone.
>
> Thanks for that feedback John. More fuel for the fire. ;-)
>
>> The
>> stuff I have hosted with Rackspace is rock solid and well supported
>> generally, but its not a budget option (although their mailboxes are
>> cheaper than their office 365 mailboxes).
>
> Well, we would be guided by anyone who has practical workaday
> experience in this field and would consider the cost only as a last
> stage. It is potentially costing him lots of money (lost sales) with
> his current solution and so something more expensive but more reliable
> could still be a cost saving. ;-)

Indeed - for business use the cost is often secondary.

> So, the 'big question' would be 'how much better' would the group
> calendaring option be if they went to exchange mailboxes over what
> they are doing atm (which I think was a 'well, we can do it this way
> and it sort of works so let's try it like that' and never changed)?

Not knowing how good what they have at the moment is, its hard to say!

Something like google calendar can work well, can be shared, works on
the web and on phones etc.

[John Rumm]

On 03/02/2017 17:00, T i m wrote:

> On Fri, 3 Feb 2017 16:22:10 +0000, Nick <Nick...@Yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>>>
>>> I have lots of domains with 123-reg, but would not recommend them for
>>> email hosting (or much else) - they seem rather too error prone. The
>>> stuff I have hosted with Rackspace is rock solid and well supported
>>> generally, but its not a budget option (although their mailboxes are
>>> cheaper than their office 365 mailboxes).
>>>
>>>
>> I have domains with 123-reg and use Google G-suite for email. I can't
>> remember ever having a problem.
>
> Possibly because if you haven't lost access to emails for the best
> part of a morning then you wouldn't have had any issues (with them)?
> ;-)

Generally if its just the domain on 123-reg, then that bit of it tends
to stay working. Customers I have with 123-reg hosted domains, that are
still using their mail exchangers but not their mailboxes did not see
any problem during the outage - i.e. messages were still getting to
their (non 123) hosted mailboxes even though they were being directed
through 123.

>
> I couldn't even log into the Control Panel earlier but have now and
> downloaded the website (via ftp) just to see if I could.
>
> Cheers, T i m
>

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <0LGdnS-Qe7axVQjF...@brightview.co.uk>,

John Rumm <see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:
> I had a similar situation with some customers a few years back. They
> were using 123-reg for domain registration and email. The email bit of
> the setup was too flaky. Partly down to them not coping with large
> mailboxes while at the time not actually imposing any hard limit on
> mailbox size. The mailbox would reach about 10+ gig and then the systems
> could not cope - you just got timeouts whenever trying to access a
> mailbox - even via web mail.

Wonder how many domestic users would get anywhere near 10+ gig in their
mailbox without downloading it?

--
*Everybody lies, but it doesn't matter since nobody listens*

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <0LGdnS6Qe7Z5VQjF...@brightview.co.uk>,

John Rumm <see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:
> > Possibly because if you haven't lost access to emails for the best
> > part of a morning then you wouldn't have had any issues (with them)?
> > ;-)

> Generally if its just the domain on 123-reg, then that bit of it tends
> to stay working. Customers I have with 123-reg hosted domains, that are
> still using their mail exchangers but not their mailboxes did not see
> any problem during the outage - i.e. messages were still getting to
> their (non 123) hosted mailboxes even though they were being directed
> through 123.

It's interesting. I've been using a 123 reg pop box for many many years.
And the outage the other day is the only one I can remember. And fixed
within a couple of hours of me noticing it.

Could be I'm unusual these days in that I always download mails and remove
them from the box.

--
*I love cats...they taste just like chicken.

[Roger Hayter]

Dave Plowman (News) <da...@davenoise.co.uk> wrote:

> In article <0LGdnS-Qe7axVQjF...@brightview.co.uk>,
> John Rumm <see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:
> > I had a similar situation with some customers a few years back. They
> > were using 123-reg for domain registration and email. The email bit of
> > the setup was too flaky. Partly down to them not coping with large
> > mailboxes while at the time not actually imposing any hard limit on
> > mailbox size. The mailbox would reach about 10+ gig and then the systems
> > could not cope - you just got timeouts whenever trying to access a
> > mailbox - even via web mail.
>
> Wonder how many domestic users would get anywhere near 10+ gig in their
> mailbox without downloading it?

The habit of many users nowadays is to leave everything on the server
(and perforce in their inbox if they use an email program) and just let
it accumulate for years on end. And, quite often, they are only aware
of Outlook for work email and webmail for personal email, as though this
were a legal requirement. Unless they need to explicitly download an
'attachment' of an obscure sort they will view or read attachments in
their web browser and leave them on the server too.


--

Roger Hayter

[John Rumm]

On 04/02/2017 13:46, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
> In article <0LGdnS-Qe7axVQjF...@brightview.co.uk>,
> John Rumm <see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:
>> I had a similar situation with some customers a few years back. They
>> were using 123-reg for domain registration and email. The email bit of
>> the setup was too flaky. Partly down to them not coping with large
>> mailboxes while at the time not actually imposing any hard limit on
>> mailbox size. The mailbox would reach about 10+ gig and then the systems
>> could not cope - you just got timeouts whenever trying to access a
>> mailbox - even via web mail.
>
> Wonder how many domestic users would get anywhere near 10+ gig in their
> mailbox without downloading it?

If you are using IMAP[1] then all the mail is left on the server, so its
not uncommon for users to rack up loads of stored crap. (and if they are
organised enough to put/auto filter it into folders below the inbox, it
can create the illusion of order and store even more cruft)

[1] and if you want to share a mailbox between multiple platforms and
also allow web mail access, then it makes sense to use IMAP.

[Roger Hayter]

Huge <Hu...@nowhere.much.invalid> wrote:

> Quite. When we migrated from AllInOne mail to Lotus Notes some years
> ago, one user had 26,000 emails in her Inbox. After multiple failed attempts
> to migrate them, we told her we couldn't and she just shrugged and said
> "Oh, well". The bitch didn't even *need* the damn things.

I do think that it is unfair to blame users when they do things, no
matter how dysfunctional, that you have *let* them do.

--

Roger Hayter

[Roger Hayter]

John Rumm <see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:

> On 04/02/2017 13:46, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
> > In article <0LGdnS-Qe7axVQjF...@brightview.co.uk>,
> > John Rumm <see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:
> >> I had a similar situation with some customers a few years back. They
> >> were using 123-reg for domain registration and email. The email bit of
> >> the setup was too flaky. Partly down to them not coping with large
> >> mailboxes while at the time not actually imposing any hard limit on
> >> mailbox size. The mailbox would reach about 10+ gig and then the systems
> >> could not cope - you just got timeouts whenever trying to access a
> >> mailbox - even via web mail.
> >
> > Wonder how many domestic users would get anywhere near 10+ gig in their
> > mailbox without downloading it?
>
> If you are using IMAP[1] then all the mail is left on the server, so its
> not uncommon for users to rack up loads of stored crap. (and if they are
> organised enough to put/auto filter it into folders below the inbox, it
> can create the illusion of order and store even more cruft)

OTOH, if you organise your email into directories *not* below your
inbox, which exist in a real filesystem and are backed up locally and
stored properly off-site as duplicate backups then *you* are taking
responsibility for your stored email which is then removed from the
ISP's server. And you are responsible for your own data rather than
trusting it to a bunch of possibly American capitalists who have little
long term interest in keeping it intact for you.

>
> [1] and if you want to share a mailbox between multiple platforms and
> also allow web mail access, then it makes sense to use IMAP.

If you really want to share your old emails between devices you can use
your own server.



--

Roger Hayter

[John Rumm]

True, but if you take it off the server and keep it locally, then the
mail won't be accessible on your other devices.

Note also that clients like Thunderbird will mirror all of an IMAP
directory structure locally anyway.

>> [1] and if you want to share a mailbox between multiple platforms and
>> also allow web mail access, then it makes sense to use IMAP.
>
>
> If you really want to share your old emails between devices you can use
> your own server.

Seems like a bit of a jump in complexity!

[John Rumm]

On 03/02/2017 16:17, Bob Minchin wrote:

> I'm a moderator on a woodworking forum hosted by 1&1, Outages are very
> rare indeed. So I'd say they are worth a look.

Worth looking at for those of us into woodwork?

[Mike Tomlinson]

En el artículo <1n0xr11.1nhsuzpxlrd9cN%ro...@hayter.org>, Roger Hayter
<ro...@hayter.org> escribió:

>OTOH, if you organise your email into directories *not* below your
>inbox, which exist in a real filesystem and are backed up locally and
>stored properly off-site as duplicate backups then *you* are taking
>responsibility for your stored email which is then removed from the
>ISP's server

That's exactly what I do, once a year. Move the contents of my inbox
into a local folder "received-mail-201X" which is then backed up
regularly. If nothing else, it makes opening and manipulating the inbox
so much faster as the server has far less to deal with.

>. And you are responsible for your own data rather than
>trusting it to a bunch of possibly American capitalists who have little
>long term interest in keeping it intact for you.

Oh aye. And data mining its giblets so they can profile you for
"targeted" ads. Cunts.

[The Natural Philosopher]

But they support the EU! They must be nice people! It says so in the
guardian



--
To ban Christmas, simply give turkeys the vote.

[T i m]

On Sat, 4 Feb 2017 12:25:18 +0000, John Rumm
<see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:

<snip>

>>
>> And that was why I mentioned the need in case it had an impact on any
>> potential alternative solution. So, do we just look for a host who
>> offers 'Exchange' servers?
>
>Office 365 (even if you just go for the email and access to the online
>version of office only (i.e. no local license for desktop/laptops etc)
>is usually the easiest way to get that...

So that's £3.80 / user / month in 50GB email storage and with 'full'
Outlook / calendaring.

One thing I'm not sure about though is would they still be able to be
us...@theirdomain.com if using Office365? Is it that they get a new
domain and the mails get massaged to reflect their own domain info? I
think we did play with Office365 at the beginning (it was a newish
thing) but didn't get anywhere (with the calendaring extension) bit
particularly.

>
>>>> FWIW the existing Co seemed to have their own email system but now you
>>>> get an Outlook / Office 365 type interface so I wonder if they are
>>>> outsourcing their mail to MS?
>>>
>>> Could be. Some of the office 365 packages include a 50GB exchange
>>> mailbox as well.
>>
>> In this case (via 123-reg) I think they only get 5GB / user.
>
>That sounds like their normal "personal" email mail box.

Check. I think they did look at the next offering up but there was
still a question re supporting Outlook calendaring (but it was a while
ago now).

>
>>>
>>>> I have just tried to login to their control panel and it still seems
>>>> to be down (from 8 or so this morning).
>>>>
>>>> So, does anyone have any practical experience of a Co who could host
>>>> his website and provide reliable email services and that is likely to
>>>> still be around next year?
>>>
>>> Do they need exchange mailboxes? If so then most companies just resell
>>> the MS hosting option.
>>
>> Only in the calendaring function AFAIK John. We looked at alternatives
>> but because most of their customers ruin Outlook / Exchange it we felt
>> it was ether that or nothing (so they deal with calendaring vie emails
>> somehow).
>
>One option is online calendaring (google, apple etc) - then that
>separates that off from the email solution and gives you more choice there.

True, but potentially adds another layer of complication / passwords
etc and for these people it really wants to be KISS (even if it costs
a bit more). ;-)
>
<snip>

>>
>> I don't think that would be so much an issue as having something more
>> reliable. Even their customers are commenting on how often their
>> emails are down and it's getting embarrassing (to the point he's
>> willing to jump ship assuming any (reasonably well researched)
>> alternatives couldn't be any worse)?
>
>I had a similar situation with some customers a few years back. They
>were using 123-reg for domain registration and email. The email bit of
>the setup was too flaky. Partly down to them not coping with large
>mailboxes while at the time not actually imposing any hard limit on
>mailbox size. The mailbox would reach about 10+ gig and then the systems
>could not cope - you just got timeouts whenever trying to access a
>mailbox - even via web mail.

Ok. Not a good failure mode.

>That was when we went to rackspace -
>however its quite a jump in cost approx £1.50 month per mailbox, rather
>than a bundle of tens of them included in the domain registration and a
>basic hosting package. (123-reg have improved matters now and actually
>police the mailbox size, so those issues don't occur)

Ok. Are they just 'basic' mailboxes John or would they support Outlook
/ calendaring?

>
>I still use 123-reg for domain hosting, and they are ok at that. They
>let you do most things you might want to do with DNS etc relatively
>easily (although if you need something a bit unusual you can meet a
>brick wall).

So far their website has been little more than a static / template
holding page, just to provide *something* showing a web presence. In
fact I've already ftp'd it to my PC in case they decide to host it
elsewhere (assuming that is all there is to it).

>They also have a very flexible system for creating mail
>forwards, and splitting mail to multiple recipients, something that you
>can do without needing to attach a mailbox to an address (something you
>can't do with the MS offering). So you can do stuff like create a public
>visible address sa...@domain.com and have that forward to a group of
>other addresses (which may also be forwards) quite easily.

Hmmm. Whilst I don't think they use any of that there is a possibility
they could (like the boss getting copies of generic 'sales@' emails as
you suggest).
>
<snip>

>> Well, we would be guided by anyone who has practical workaday
>> experience in this field and would consider the cost only as a last
>> stage. It is potentially costing him lots of money (lost sales) with
>> his current solution and so something more expensive but more reliable
>> could still be a cost saving. ;-)
>
>Indeed - for business use the cost is often secondary.

Within reason. ;-)

>
>> So, the 'big question' would be 'how much better' would the group
>> calendaring option be if they went to exchange mailboxes over what
>> they are doing atm (which I think was a 'well, we can do it this way
>> and it sort of works so let's try it like that' and never changed)?
>
>Not knowing how good what they have at the moment is, its hard to say!

No quite, and never having used anything like that myself am not
really a good judge either. I think the idea with Outlook /
Calendaring is that you can send an appointment request and that can
be 'allowed' to update the calendar (or not etc). I think what they do
is use some of it but just email it to one person in the office who
manually updates a shared calendar (or something)? Now they are used
to doing it that way I'm wondering how much value there is in making
it more complete / automated?

>
>Something like google calendar can work well, can be shared, works on
>the web and on phones etc.

I think it would need to be something that was integrated with Outlook
or they would stay as they are (but hosted elsewhere).

It's also possible they could have a mix (with some 'dumb' mailboxes)
as they do have some that are used as basic enquiry / service etc.

ATM I'm really on a reconnaissance mission for them to see if they can
get something that is more reliable (and with a sort of automatic 'go
ahead') but without costing lots more if possible. 'Some more' would
be ok. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[John Rumm]

On 05/02/2017 11:05, T i m wrote:
> On Sat, 4 Feb 2017 12:25:18 +0000, John Rumm
> <see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:


>> Office 365 (even if you just go for the email and access to the online
>> version of office only (i.e. no local license for desktop/laptops etc)
>> is usually the easiest way to get that...
>
> So that's £3.80 / user / month in 50GB email storage and with 'full'
> Outlook / calendaring.
>
> One thing I'm not sure about though is would they still be able to be
> us...@theirdomain.com if using Office365? Is it that they get a new
> domain and the mails get massaged to reflect their own domain info? I
> think we did play with Office365 at the beginning (it was a newish
> thing) but didn't get anywhere (with the calendaring extension) bit
> particularly.

You you can have your own domain - they office 365 portal will give you
the DNS changes you need to make to it to get mail routed to their servers.

>>
>>>>> FWIW the existing Co seemed to have their own email system but now you
>>>>> get an Outlook / Office 365 type interface so I wonder if they are
>>>>> outsourcing their mail to MS?
>>>>
>>>> Could be. Some of the office 365 packages include a 50GB exchange
>>>> mailbox as well.
>>>
>>> In this case (via 123-reg) I think they only get 5GB / user.
>>
>> That sounds like their normal "personal" email mail box.
>
> Check. I think they did look at the next offering up but there was
> still a question re supporting Outlook calendaring (but it was a while
> ago now).

123's own mailboxes are normally just POP3/IMAP (although they also will
also do you Office 365 Essentials as well if you want)

>> I had a similar situation with some customers a few years back. They
>> were using 123-reg for domain registration and email. The email bit of
>> the setup was too flaky. Partly down to them not coping with large
>> mailboxes while at the time not actually imposing any hard limit on
>> mailbox size. The mailbox would reach about 10+ gig and then the systems
>> could not cope - you just got timeouts whenever trying to access a
>> mailbox - even via web mail.
>
> Ok. Not a good failure mode.

They now enforce a mailbox size limit, which is better since it stops
that particular problem occurring.

>> That was when we went to rackspace -
>> however its quite a jump in cost approx £1.50 month per mailbox, rather
>> than a bundle of tens of them included in the domain registration and a
>> basic hosting package. (123-reg have improved matters now and actually
>> police the mailbox size, so those issues don't occur)
>
> Ok. Are they just 'basic' mailboxes John or would they support Outlook
> / calendaring?

Rackspace resell office 365 as do many others. However they also have
their own hosted "Cloud Office" Exchange option - hosted on their own
servers. That offers 100GB mailboxes. Price is about £6.75/month/user IIRC.

>> I still use 123-reg for domain hosting, and they are ok at that. They
>> let you do most things you might want to do with DNS etc relatively
>> easily (although if you need something a bit unusual you can meet a
>> brick wall).
>
> So far their website has been little more than a static / template
> holding page, just to provide *something* showing a web presence. In
> fact I've already ftp'd it to my PC in case they decide to host it
> elsewhere (assuming that is all there is to it).

I was talking particularly about the domain hosting rather than their
web hosting packages. Their web hosting is ok for basics stuff, but I
don't find it very good for more sophisticated stuff where it tends to
get a bit laggy.

(they also have a control panel app that will allow you to automatically
setup a myriad of common web apps - the main difficulty I have had with
that is that many then don't actually work correctly once setup!)

>> They also have a very flexible system for creating mail
>> forwards, and splitting mail to multiple recipients, something that you
>> can do without needing to attach a mailbox to an address (something you
>> can't do with the MS offering). So you can do stuff like create a public
>> visible address sa...@domain.com and have that forward to a group of
>> other addresses (which may also be forwards) quite easily.
>
> Hmmm. Whilst I don't think they use any of that there is a possibility
> they could (like the boss getting copies of generic 'sales@' emails as
> you suggest).

You can do much of that on office 365 as well - but all the toys need to
be attached to a mailbox. So you consume a mailbox license for every
address you setup, even if all its going to do is forward stuff
somewhere else.

>>> So, the 'big question' would be 'how much better' would the group
>>> calendaring option be if they went to exchange mailboxes over what
>>> they are doing atm (which I think was a 'well, we can do it this way
>>> and it sort of works so let's try it like that' and never changed)?
>>
>> Not knowing how good what they have at the moment is, its hard to say!
>
> No quite, and never having used anything like that myself am not
> really a good judge either. I think the idea with Outlook /
> Calendaring is that you can send an appointment request and that can
> be 'allowed' to update the calendar (or not etc). I think what they do
> is use some of it but just email it to one person in the office who
> manually updates a shared calendar (or something)? Now they are used
> to doing it that way I'm wondering how much value there is in making
> it more complete / automated?

You can send meeting requests etc and have them automatically sync
calendars etc. You should also be able to allow people to manage
calendars for others, do block schedules etc. (its not something I use
myself, so don't have much experience with it)

(I find the Thunderbird built in calendar with synch to google calendar
and thence my phone is adequate for my needs)

>> Something like google calendar can work well, can be shared, works on
>> the web and on phones etc.
>
> I think it would need to be something that was integrated with Outlook
> or they would stay as they are (but hosted elsewhere).

Note there are a number of google calendar to outlook sync options out
there, so you can achieve the same end result without going full exchange...

e.g. (one of a number)

https://outlookgooglecalendarsync.codeplex.com/

> It's also possible they could have a mix (with some 'dumb' mailboxes)
> as they do have some that are used as basic enquiry / service etc.
>
> ATM I'm really on a reconnaissance mission for them to see if they can
> get something that is more reliable (and with a sort of automatic 'go
> ahead') but without costing lots more if possible. 'Some more' would
> be ok. ;-)

Sure, always worth looking at the options before you need to jump ship!

[T i m]

On Sun, 5 Feb 2017 12:08:58 +0000, John Rumm
<see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:

<snip>

>> One thing I'm not sure about though is would they still be able to be
>> us...@theirdomain.com if using Office365? Is it that they get a new
>> domain and the mails get massaged to reflect their own domain info? I
>> think we did play with Office365 at the beginning (it was a newish
>> thing) but didn't get anywhere (with the calendaring extension) bit
>> particularly.
>
>You you can have your own domain - they office 365 portal will give you
>the DNS changes you need to make to it to get mail routed to their servers.

Your own existing domain (so I am clear)?

So, say they currently have a user, sam(at)acmetrading.com, if they
port the email from 123 to Office365, any email sent to
sam(at)acmetrading.com will be processed at Office365, not 123? All
the mentions of the email / reply address will be
sam(at)acmetrading.com (I'm pretty sure that's what you meant but I'd
like to make sure).

Can this be done by individual email (eg, those who need calendaring
go Office365 and the others their basic email offering) or is it all
or nothing by domain (please)?
>
<snip>

>>>
>>> That sounds like their normal "personal" email mail box.
>>
>> Check. I think they did look at the next offering up but there was
>> still a question re supporting Outlook calendaring (but it was a while
>> ago now).
>
>123's own mailboxes are normally just POP3/IMAP (although they also will
>also do you Office 365 Essentials as well if you want)

Understood.

>
>>> I had a similar situation with some customers a few years back. They
>>> were using 123-reg for domain registration and email. The email bit of
>>> the setup was too flaky. Partly down to them not coping with large
>>> mailboxes while at the time not actually imposing any hard limit on
>>> mailbox size. The mailbox would reach about 10+ gig and then the systems
>>> could not cope - you just got timeouts whenever trying to access a
>>> mailbox - even via web mail.
>>
>> Ok. Not a good failure mode.
>
>They now enforce a mailbox size limit, which is better since it stops
>that particular problem occurring.

I was recently asked to look into why one of the email accounts wasn't
working and upon accessing their webmail, noticed it was 100% full.
They must have been sent some messages warning them at various
thresholds and just ignored them. ;-(

>
>>> That was when we went to rackspace -
>>> however its quite a jump in cost approx £1.50 month per mailbox, rather
>>> than a bundle of tens of them included in the domain registration and a
>>> basic hosting package. (123-reg have improved matters now and actually
>>> police the mailbox size, so those issues don't occur)
>>
>> Ok. Are they just 'basic' mailboxes John or would they support Outlook
>> / calendaring?
>
>Rackspace resell office 365 as do many others. However they also have
>their own hosted "Cloud Office" Exchange option - hosted on their own
>servers. That offers 100GB mailboxes. Price is about £6.75/month/user IIRC.

Ok thanks. I think their std Exchange package would probably be
sufficient (considering they currently only have 5GB mail storage).
;-)

https://www.fasthosts.co.uk/email-hosting

>
>>> I still use 123-reg for domain hosting, and they are ok at that. They
>>> let you do most things you might want to do with DNS etc relatively
>>> easily (although if you need something a bit unusual you can meet a
>>> brick wall).
>>
>> So far their website has been little more than a static / template
>> holding page, just to provide *something* showing a web presence. In
>> fact I've already ftp'd it to my PC in case they decide to host it
>> elsewhere (assuming that is all there is to it).
>
>I was talking particularly about the domain hosting rather than their
>web hosting packages.

Ah, check.

>Their web hosting is ok for basics stuff, but I
>don't find it very good for more sophisticated stuff where it tends to
>get a bit laggy.

Do you have any thoughts re keeping the website with the likes of 123
John? I think my man would probably rather move everything away from
123 just out of principal (and it might make the billing / payments
easier)?

>
>(they also have a control panel app that will allow you to automatically
>setup a myriad of common web apps - the main difficulty I have had with
>that is that many then don't actually work correctly once setup!)

Oh. ;-( And the thing is at my level of experience I wouldn't
instinctively know if it was that I had done it wrong ? ;-(

>
>>> They also have a very flexible system for creating mail
>>> forwards, and splitting mail to multiple recipients, something that you
>>> can do without needing to attach a mailbox to an address (something you
>>> can't do with the MS offering). So you can do stuff like create a public
>>> visible address sa...@domain.com and have that forward to a group of
>>> other addresses (which may also be forwards) quite easily.
>>
>> Hmmm. Whilst I don't think they use any of that there is a possibility
>> they could (like the boss getting copies of generic 'sales@' emails as
>> you suggest).
>
>You can do much of that on office 365 as well - but all the toys need to
>be attached to a mailbox. So you consume a mailbox license for every
>address you setup, even if all its going to do is forward stuff
>somewhere else.

Understood.

>
>>>> So, the 'big question' would be 'how much better' would the group
>>>> calendaring option be if they went to exchange mailboxes over what
>>>> they are doing atm (which I think was a 'well, we can do it this way
>>>> and it sort of works so let's try it like that' and never changed)?
>>>
>>> Not knowing how good what they have at the moment is, its hard to say!
>>
>> No quite, and never having used anything like that myself am not
>> really a good judge either. I think the idea with Outlook /
>> Calendaring is that you can send an appointment request and that can
>> be 'allowed' to update the calendar (or not etc). I think what they do
>> is use some of it but just email it to one person in the office who
>> manually updates a shared calendar (or something)? Now they are used
>> to doing it that way I'm wondering how much value there is in making
>> it more complete / automated?
>
>You can send meeting requests etc and have them automatically sync
>calendars etc. You should also be able to allow people to manage
>calendars for others, do block schedules etc.

Yes, that's the sort of thing they were hoping to be able to do
(originally anyway).

> (its not something I use
>myself, so don't have much experience with it)

Ok.

>
>(I find the Thunderbird built in calendar with synch to google calendar
>and thence my phone is adequate for my needs)

I setup Thunderbird for them in the beginning but they decided they
needed Office for compatibility with both their customers and
suppliers. I still use TB to access my email account on their (123's)
system.

>
>>> Something like google calendar can work well, can be shared, works on
>>> the web and on phones etc.
>>
>> I think it would need to be something that was integrated with Outlook
>> or they would stay as they are (but hosted elsewhere).
>
>Note there are a number of google calendar to outlook sync options out
>there, so you can achieve the same end result without going full exchange...
>
>e.g. (one of a number)
>
>https://outlookgooglecalendarsync.codeplex.com/

<bookmarked>

It's quite possible that things have moved on since we first looked
into it all and I think we tried a couple of options that were
supposed to run in the background providing such (but that never
really worked). Whilst it may seem logical (for someone technical /
up_to_speed like yourself <>) to use such solutions, I'm reluctant to
put my mark on anything that could make it 'more complicated' for
everyone. I'm not saying that it is necessarily more complicated to
implement, just that it involves 'other stuff' that may make the
picture more complex. I get enough calls and texts asking me to remind
them of their passwords as it is!

>
>> It's also possible they could have a mix (with some 'dumb' mailboxes)
>> as they do have some that are used as basic enquiry / service etc.
>>
>> ATM I'm really on a reconnaissance mission for them to see if they can
>> get something that is more reliable (and with a sort of automatic 'go
>> ahead') but without costing lots more if possible. 'Some more' would
>> be ok. ;-)
>
>Sure, always worth looking at the options before you need to jump ship!

And it's that kind of feel I'm hoping for (and getting) from the good
folk here.

Cheers, T i m

p.s. Just to thank you again for your previous help re Sketchup. I am
now generally able, when faced with a requirement to come up with a 3D
printed solution that works and with reasonably subtle design. The
last hurdle was the use of the 'Follow me' tool to apply chamfers and
countersinks and I've used that to good effect quite a few times now.
;-)

[John Rumm]

On 05/02/2017 13:45, T i m wrote:
> On Sun, 5 Feb 2017 12:08:58 +0000, John Rumm
> <see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>>> One thing I'm not sure about though is would they still be able to be
>>> us...@theirdomain.com if using Office365? Is it that they get a new
>>> domain and the mails get massaged to reflect their own domain info? I
>>> think we did play with Office365 at the beginning (it was a newish
>>> thing) but didn't get anywhere (with the calendaring extension) bit
>>> particularly.
>>
>> You you can have your own domain - they office 365 portal will give you
>> the DNS changes you need to make to it to get mail routed to their servers.
>
> Your own existing domain (so I am clear)?

yup

> So, say they currently have a user, sam(at)acmetrading.com, if they
> port the email from 123 to Office365, any email sent to
> sam(at)acmetrading.com will be processed at Office365, not 123? All
> the mentions of the email / reply address will be
> sam(at)acmetrading.com (I'm pretty sure that's what you meant but I'd
> like to make sure).

You would need to set the MX records of the domain in question to point
at the MS email servers - then even though the DNS records are hosted by
123 and their name servers are the authoritative ones, you would not be
using their mail servers at all.

> Can this be done by individual email (eg, those who need calendaring
> go Office365 and the others their basic email offering) or is it all
> or nothing by domain (please)?

Its generally all or nothing - although there are ways you can fiddle
about it by creating an additional "private" email domain (i.e. one to
handle email that is not used publicly, but can be a place to host
mailboxes and to target forwarded emails.

Some providers like Rackspace also do something called split domain
routing, when you can have their email servers have first bite of the
cherry, but then allow any not matching addresses to fall through to
another mail server - creating a kind of mx chain. Don't think that 123
can do that.

>> Their web hosting is ok for basics stuff, but I
>> don't find it very good for more sophisticated stuff where it tends to
>> get a bit laggy.
>
> Do you have any thoughts re keeping the website with the likes of 123
> John? I think my man would probably rather move everything away from
> 123 just out of principal (and it might make the billing / payments
> easier)?

For a basic "brochureware" site then they are ok (I still host a few
static site with them)

>> (they also have a control panel app that will allow you to automatically
>> setup a myriad of common web apps - the main difficulty I have had with
>> that is that many then don't actually work correctly once setup!)
>
> Oh. ;-( And the thing is at my level of experience I wouldn't
> instinctively know if it was that I had done it wrong ? ;-(

Well some are quite obvious - like install mediawiki and they don't have
the default permissions set for Apache so that it can write to the image
directories.

Drupal runs out of the box - but there was a hue delay in access to the
site on the first hit (after the first connection in a session it was
then ok ish but a bit slow).

They allow mysql databases, but last time I looked the limit on size was
quite small, so even a smallish site like the diywiki would not fit.

> It's quite possible that things have moved on since we first looked
> into it all and I think we tried a couple of options that were
> supposed to run in the background providing such (but that never
> really worked). Whilst it may seem logical (for someone technical /
> up_to_speed like yourself <>) to use such solutions, I'm reluctant to
> put my mark on anything that could make it 'more complicated' for
> everyone. I'm not saying that it is necessarily more complicated to
> implement, just that it involves 'other stuff' that may make the
> picture more complex. I get enough calls and texts asking me to remind
> them of their passwords as it is!

+1

.> p.s. Just to thank you again for your previous help re Sketchup. I am

> now generally able, when faced with a requirement to come up with a 3D
> printed solution that works and with reasonably subtle design. The
> last hurdle was the use of the 'Follow me' tool to apply chamfers and
> countersinks and I've used that to good effect quite a few times now.
> ;-)

Glad to hear it. While I am certainly no expert at it, its still a very
useful tool. Its a shame they don't do the pro version at a more
sensible price!

[T i m]

On Sun, 5 Feb 2017 16:05:25 +0000, John Rumm
<see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:

<snip good stuff thanks>

>> Do you have any thoughts re keeping the website with the likes of 123
>> John? I think my man would probably rather move everything away from
>> 123 just out of principal (and it might make the billing / payments
>> easier)?
>
>For a basic "brochureware" site then they are ok (I still host a few
>static site with them)

Ok, but would you say (all else being equal) there would be any
disadvantage moving everything away from them or would doing so be
pointless / unnecessarily complicated, IYHO John (if their std domain
and webspace hosting is cheap / reliable)? I was just thinking he
would have two bills (MS / 123) and still have I don't know if they
(123) would still have the opportunity to muck things (email) up? eg,
If there are settings on the 123 panel that have a bearing on the
emails being picked up by O365 instead, could they go wrong (and going
by what you say about their other panel controls below etc).

>
>>> (they also have a control panel app that will allow you to automatically
>>> setup a myriad of common web apps - the main difficulty I have had with
>>> that is that many then don't actually work correctly once setup!)
>>

<snip>

Cheers, T i m

[John Rumm]

On 05/02/2017 17:11, T i m wrote:
> On Sun, 5 Feb 2017 16:05:25 +0000, John Rumm
> <see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:
>
> <snip good stuff thanks>
>
>>> Do you have any thoughts re keeping the website with the likes of 123
>>> John? I think my man would probably rather move everything away from
>>> 123 just out of principal (and it might make the billing / payments
>>> easier)?
>>
>> For a basic "brochureware" site then they are ok (I still host a few
>> static site with them)
>
> Ok, but would you say (all else being equal) there would be any
> disadvantage moving everything away from them or would doing so be
> pointless / unnecessarily complicated, IYHO John (if their std domain
> and webspace hosting is cheap / reliable)? I was just thinking he
> would have two bills (MS / 123) and still have I don't know if they

The difficulty with moving is if you have to keep everything working
while you port over - that can be difficult - you would have to get the
new mailboxes in place, import all the data and then effect the changeover.

> (123) would still have the opportunity to muck things (email) up? eg,
> If there are settings on the 123 panel that have a bearing on the
> emails being picked up by O365 instead, could they go wrong (and going
> by what you say about their other panel controls below etc).

Once you have pointed the MX records in the domain at new servers, the
domain host has little to do with it... (I spose if someone were to DDoS
their DNS for long enough it might cause an issue).

[T i m]

On Sun, 5 Feb 2017 23:04:16 +0000, John Rumm

<see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:

>On 05/02/2017 17:11, T i m wrote:
>> On Sun, 5 Feb 2017 16:05:25 +0000, John Rumm
>> <see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:
>>
>> <snip good stuff thanks>
>>
>>>> Do you have any thoughts re keeping the website with the likes of 123
>>>> John? I think my man would probably rather move everything away from
>>>> 123 just out of principal (and it might make the billing / payments
>>>> easier)?
>>>
>>> For a basic "brochureware" site then they are ok (I still host a few
>>> static site with them)
>>
>> Ok, but would you say (all else being equal) there would be any
>> disadvantage moving everything away from them or would doing so be
>> pointless / unnecessarily complicated, IYHO John (if their std domain
>> and webspace hosting is cheap / reliable)? I was just thinking he
>> would have two bills (MS / 123) and still have I don't know if they
>
>The difficulty with moving is if you have to keep everything working
>while you port over - that can be difficult -

That was also something I was thinking about. Can you plan these
things to happen at 5pm on a Friday?

>you would have to get the
>new mailboxes in place, import all the data and then effect the changeover.

Hmmm, I'm wondering if they would be happy to start afresh. ;-)

Is there an 'export mail' function on the Panel or is that something
you typically do via the client? It's been a long time since I was
doing anything like this. ;-(

>
>> (123) would still have the opportunity to muck things (email) up? eg,
>> If there are settings on the 123 panel that have a bearing on the
>> emails being picked up by O365 instead, could they go wrong (and going
>> by what you say about their other panel controls below etc).
>
>Once you have pointed the MX records in the domain at new servers, the
>domain host has little to do with it... (I spose if someone were to DDoS
>their DNS for long enough it might cause an issue).

Isn't that exactly what has happened to 123 a couple of times recently
(I'm not sure what impact it had but I understand they were attacked)?

Cheers, T i m

[John Rumm]

On 06/02/2017 00:03, T i m wrote:
> On Sun, 5 Feb 2017 23:04:16 +0000, John Rumm
> <see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:
>
>> On 05/02/2017 17:11, T i m wrote:
>>> On Sun, 5 Feb 2017 16:05:25 +0000, John Rumm
>>> <see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:
>>>
>>> <snip good stuff thanks>
>>>
>>>>> Do you have any thoughts re keeping the website with the likes of 123
>>>>> John? I think my man would probably rather move everything away from
>>>>> 123 just out of principal (and it might make the billing / payments
>>>>> easier)?
>>>>
>>>> For a basic "brochureware" site then they are ok (I still host a few
>>>> static site with them)
>>>
>>> Ok, but would you say (all else being equal) there would be any
>>> disadvantage moving everything away from them or would doing so be
>>> pointless / unnecessarily complicated, IYHO John (if their std domain
>>> and webspace hosting is cheap / reliable)? I was just thinking he
>>> would have two bills (MS / 123) and still have I don't know if they
>>
>> The difficulty with moving is if you have to keep everything working
>> while you port over - that can be difficult -
>
> That was also something I was thinking about. Can you plan these
> things to happen at 5pm on a Friday?

You can plan yes ;-)

>> you would have to get the
>> new mailboxes in place, import all the data and then effect the changeover.
>
> Hmmm, I'm wondering if they would be happy to start afresh. ;-)
>
> Is there an 'export mail' function on the Panel or is that something
> you typically do via the client? It's been a long time since I was
> doing anything like this. ;-(

You can do it with a client like thunderbird - it will let you access
old and new mailboxes and copy stuff between them. It does depend on how
good your broadband is though!

Alternatively there are third party sites out there that will port email
between different types of mailbox.

Lastly, talk to the new email host - they may well have automated tools
for bulk import and migration.

>>
>>> (123) would still have the opportunity to muck things (email) up? eg,
>>> If there are settings on the 123 panel that have a bearing on the
>>> emails being picked up by O365 instead, could they go wrong (and going
>>> by what you say about their other panel controls below etc).
>>
>> Once you have pointed the MX records in the domain at new servers, the
>> domain host has little to do with it... (I spose if someone were to DDoS
>> their DNS for long enough it might cause an issue).
>
> Isn't that exactly what has happened to 123 a couple of times recently
> (I'm not sure what impact it had but I understand they were attacked)?

Yup, but generally they have not usually taken out their DNS for it to
matter... (they have hit their hosting though). Also keep in mind that
any host can get DDoSed.

[Dave Liquorice]

On Sun, 05 Feb 2017 13:45:27 +0000, T i m wrote:

> https://www.fasthosts.co.uk/email-hosting

Fasthosts? Run, don't walk, away.

Spam source, don't care. unresponsive.

--
Cheers
Dave.

[T i m]

On Mon, 06 Feb 2017 09:58:06 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice"
<allsortsn...@howhill.com> wrote:

>On Sun, 05 Feb 2017 13:45:27 +0000, T i m wrote:
>
>> https://www.fasthosts.co.uk/email-hosting
>
>Fasthosts? Run, don't walk, away.
>
>Spam source, don't care. unresponsive.

Ok ... and are you in a position to be able to make a comment on 1&1
OOI please Dave?

And / or anyone else we should consider (for email if nothing else)?

Cheers, T i m

p.s. I think my 'spaced' email is with FH and TB does have trouble
getting mail from them (slightly) more often than it does from VM
(Googlemail is it)?

[Dave Liquorice]

On Mon, 06 Feb 2017 11:11:42 +0000, T i m wrote:

>> Fasthosts? Run, don't walk, away.
>>
>> Spam source, don't care. unresponsive.
>
> Ok ... and are you in a position to be able to make a comment on 1&1
> OOI please Dave?

There is a little bell ringing that links Fasthost and 1&1 either via
parent company or as brands from a single one. The bell is quite old
and ownerships do alter over time, Google is your friend...

> And / or anyone else we should consider (for email if nothing else)?

Like a lot of people in here I use 123Reg for domain registration/DNS
only. Never been aware of troubles with the DNS. I host my own MX,
Web, etc.

--
Cheers
Dave.

[T i m]

On Mon, 6 Feb 2017 00:36:20 +0000, John Rumm
<see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:

<snip>

>>> The difficulty with moving is if you have to keep everything working
>>> while you port over - that can be difficult -
>>
>> That was also something I was thinking about. Can you plan these
>> things to happen at 5pm on a Friday?
>
>You can plan yes ;-)

;-)

So, do these things happen in a predictable way (if not time) would
you say please?

Like, once we have told 123 we want to move the domain (and web /
email) away from them, do you agree a cutoff time / date, and then
does it happen around that time ... but when they getroundtuit?

>>> you would have to get the
>>> new mailboxes in place, import all the data and then effect the changeover.
>>
>> Hmmm, I'm wondering if they would be happy to start afresh. ;-)
>>
>> Is there an 'export mail' function on the Panel or is that something
>> you typically do via the client? It's been a long time since I was
>> doing anything like this. ;-(
>
>You can do it with a client like thunderbird - it will let you access
>old and new mailboxes and copy stuff between them.

Assuming we talking 'on the server(s)' John, as wouldn't that require
the original and new servers to be up concurrently or are we using a
remote / client machine as an stepping stone here?

And does it matter that they are running Outlook if I use TB to do
this transfer process? If so I could potentially setup a single
machine with TB and use that to archive all 20 mailboxes and uploaded
them to the new host when it becomes available? Am I even close? ;-(

>It does depend on how
>good your broadband is though!

I think all the places it might be done from are 'ok'. ;-)

>
>Alternatively there are third party sites out there that will port email
>between different types of mailbox.

I may have to look into that if it is likely to help make the process
more efficient.

>
>Lastly, talk to the new email host - they may well have automated tools
>for bulk import and migration.

They didn't seem to offer anything, suggesting it might be done via /
by the client.

<snip>

1&1 have suggested a .com could take up to 5 days to transfer and so
if I understand it correctly, if we were to actually make the change
on a Friday afternoon (given that it's generally quiet email wise over
the weekend) that it might not be back up till sometime on Wednesday?

Do any emails that are received during that time just get bounced?

If say we have a snapshot of the mailbox taken last thing Friday ...
and it comes back up at 4am on Tuesday and some emails come in, can
you still 'sync' the mailbox with the emails you previously archived
without losing any?

I'm trying to get a feel of the bigger picture as I've only really
ever dealt with a single mailbox and people who are generally running
SMTP/POP rather than IMAP and across several devices. ;-(

Sorry for all the confused questions ...

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

On Tue, 07 Feb 2017 20:05:33 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice"
<allsortsn...@howhill.com> wrote:

>On Mon, 06 Feb 2017 11:11:42 +0000, T i m wrote:
>
>>> Fasthosts? Run, don't walk, away.
>>>
>>> Spam source, don't care. unresponsive.
>>
>> Ok ... and are you in a position to be able to make a comment on 1&1
>> OOI please Dave?
>
>There is a little bell ringing that links Fasthost and 1&1 either via
>parent company or as brands from a single one.

So from what has been suggested here, that may not be a 'good thing'?

>The bell is quite old
>and ownerships do alter over time,

Understood.

> Google is your friend...

Unless you get a definitive statement that says the two are physically
run as one and the same then I'm not sure if we can really predict the
service from either can we? I mean, they could be two companies that
happen to be part of the same group but are otherwise completely
independent?

>
>> And / or anyone else we should consider (for email if nothing else)?
>
>Like a lot of people in here I use 123Reg for domain registration/DNS
>only.

Is there a reason for that Dave? I mean are they (particularly) cheap
or some such?

> Never been aware of troubles with the DNS. I host my own MX,
>Web, etc.

Thinking out loud on that then ... would keeping the domain / web with
123-reg and just putting the email hosting with (say) 1&1, would that
speed the transfer process over? How would they host the same email
addresses ... can the two hosts exist or is there no 'addressing' (as
in us...@domain1.com ) and these MX records just point
anyt...@domain1.com to anyt...@domain2.com ?

Can you just get email with these providers without also having a
domain / webspace?

I'm confused. ;-(

Cheers, T i m

[Dave Liquorice]

On Mon, 27 Feb 2017 12:07:46 +0000, T i m wrote:

>>>> Fasthosts? Run, don't walk, away.
>>>>
>>>> Spam source, don't care. unresponsive.
>>>
>>> Ok ... and are you in a position to be able to make a comment on
1&1
>>> OOI please Dave?
>

> Unless you get a definitive statement that says the two are physically
> run as one and the same then I'm not sure if we can really predict the
> service from either can we? I mean, they could be two companies that
> happen to be part of the same group but are otherwise completely
> independent?

Like Plus Net / BT Internet and chalk / cheese.

>> Like a lot of people in here I use 123Reg for domain
registration/DNS
>> only.
>
> Is there a reason for that Dave? I mean are they (particularly) cheap
> or some such?

Well I only have .co.uk domains registered with them at a reasonable
cost and only use the DNS side. I think at the time I was looking
they just happened to give informamtion about how much control you
had on the DNS, were a resonable cost and weren't related to
Fasthosts in anyway I could fine. B-) I don't have the .com or
.audio with them, they are with Big Rock. One for historic reasons,
the reselling registra disappeared and Big Rock was the underlying
regsitra. The .audio cost, Big Rock want about a tenner/year, 123
£35/year...

>> Never been aware of troubles with the DNS. I host my own MX,
>> Web, etc.
>
> Thinking out loud on that then ... would keeping the domain / web with
> 123-reg and just putting the email hosting with (say) 1&1, would that
> speed the transfer process over?

Transfer of what? Mail host?

> how would they host the same email addresses ... can the two hosts exist
> or is there no 'addressing' (asin us...@domain1.com ) and these MX

> records just point anyt...@domain1.com to anyt...@domain2.com ?

An MX record normally points the domain part of an email address to a
hostname. That hostname then has an A record that returns the IP
address to send the mail to. You can have more than one MX record for
a given domain with the same or different priorties. So:

MX records:
domain1.com priority 10 mail.host1.com
domain1.com priority 20 mail.host2.com

A records:
mail.host1.com <ip address of mail.host1.com>
mail.host2.com <ip address of mail.host2.com>

Normally mail.host1.com would get all mail as that has the highest
priority. If that is down then mail.host2.com would get the mail.

The MX records contain a hostname rather than an IP address (which
they could) to make maintenance easier. When (not if) the IP address
of a mail host changes you only need to change that mail hosts A
record rather than the MX records as well.

You also point multiple domains to the same mailhost:

MX records:
domain1.com priority 10 mail.host1.com
domain1.com priority 20 mail.host2.com

domain2.com priority 20 mail.host1.com
domain2.com priority 10 mail.host2.com

Note the priorities have swapped so domain2.com would normally go to
mail.host2.com with mail.host1.com as back up.

Obviously mail.host1.com and mail.host2.com need to be configured to
accept mail for the domains being pointed at them.

> Can you just get email with these providers without also having a
> domain / webspace?

Haven't clue.

> I'm confused. ;-(

It's very simple but can take a bit of getting your head round.

--
Cheers
Dave.

[Dave Liquorice]

On Mon, 27 Feb 2017 11:57:47 +0000, T i m wrote:

>>>> The difficulty with moving is if you have to keep everything
working
>>>> while you port over - that can be difficult -
>>>
>>> That was also something I was thinking about. Can you plan these
>>> things to happen at 5pm on a Friday?
>>
>> You can plan yes ;-)
>
> ;-)
>
> So, do these things happen in a predictable way (if not time) would
> you say please?

It's better to have all hosts set up and running simultaneously. Then
adjust the "time to live" (TTL) settings of the relevant DNS entries
to something short, say 5 minutes. Wait for longer than the old TTL,
change the relevant IP address's, make sure everything is working and
then increase the TTL(s). This way you are in control of when the
switch happens and the window were which host gets the traffic is
unpredictable is short (5 mins in this case). You *must* wait for
longer than the old TTL, if that is several hours it might be worth
shortening it to 30 mins or an hour the day before.

> Do any emails that are received during that time just get bounced?

That would depend on the time outs set in the sending Mail
Transmission Agent (MTA). Default used to be bounce after 7 days,
they may warn the sender earlier. Mine is set to warn if an email has
been in the queue for more than and hour and bounces after 24 hours.

--
Cheers
Dave.

[T i m]

On Mon, 27 Feb 2017 14:02:34 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice"
<allsortsn...@howhill.com> wrote:

>On Mon, 27 Feb 2017 11:57:47 +0000, T i m wrote:
>
>>>>> The difficulty with moving is if you have to keep everything
>working
>>>>> while you port over - that can be difficult -
>>>>
>>>> That was also something I was thinking about. Can you plan these
>>>> things to happen at 5pm on a Friday?
>>>
>>> You can plan yes ;-)
>>
>> ;-)
>>
>> So, do these things happen in a predictable way (if not time) would
>> you say please?
>
>It's better to have all hosts set up and running simultaneously.

So (and thanks for your reply / help on this Dave) that would me
somehow getting (say) 1&1 to provide a mail host and have it available
whilst 123 are still doing the same? It' probably because I don't
understand the underlying mechanics (of how it works ITRW with ISP's
and such) I am getting confused (like if it was my own LAN email hosts
I would probably be able to do what I wanted).

>Then
>adjust the "time to live" (TTL) settings of the relevant DNS entries
>to something short, say 5 minutes. Wait for longer than the old TTL,
>change the relevant IP address's, make sure everything is working and
>then increase the TTL(s). This way you are in control of when the
>switch happens and the window were which host gets the traffic is
>unpredictable is short (5 mins in this case). You *must* wait for
>longer than the old TTL, if that is several hours it might be worth
>shortening it to 30 mins or an hour the day before.

Ok, whilst I understand the words I don't have a feel how or if I
would be able to do any of that? I was a hardware guy who happened to
become a MCT because I happened to have installed MSMail at the
company I worked at and we ended up becoming the International eMail
hub because I had wanted something locally. It also extended to Lotus
Notes, CCMail and Internet gateways but all that was a long time ago
and because I was in charge of it all, I could add / remove the stuff
was and when *I* decided. ;-(

>
>> Do any emails that are received during that time just get bounced?
>
>That would depend on the time outs set in the sending Mail
>Transmission Agent (MTA).

So possibly numerous remote clients (that we have no control over)?

>Default used to be bounce after 7 days,
>they may warn the sender earlier.

Ok. I did suggest to my mate getting the .co.uk domain (email) he's
reserved online and giving his customers that as a backup during the
changeover but he said he's rather not and would rather just pre-warn
his key customers that they are changing systems and there may be some
outage.

> Mine is set to warn if an email has
>been in the queue for more than and hour and bounces after 24 hours.

Ok (I will continue in your later reply)

Cheers, T i m.

[T i m]

On Mon, 27 Feb 2017 13:49:00 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice"
<allsortsn...@howhill.com> wrote:

>On Mon, 27 Feb 2017 12:07:46 +0000, T i m wrote:
>
>>>>> Fasthosts? Run, don't walk, away.
>>>>>
>>>>> Spam source, don't care. unresponsive.
>>>>
>>>> Ok ... and are you in a position to be able to make a comment on
>1&1
>>>> OOI please Dave?
>>
>> Unless you get a definitive statement that says the two are physically
>> run as one and the same then I'm not sure if we can really predict the
>> service from either can we? I mean, they could be two companies that
>> happen to be part of the same group but are otherwise completely
>> independent?
>
>Like Plus Net / BT Internet and chalk / cheese.

Quite. ;-)

>
>>> Like a lot of people in here I use 123Reg for domain
>registration/DNS
>>> only.
>>
>> Is there a reason for that Dave? I mean are they (particularly) cheap
>> or some such?
>
>Well I only have .co.uk domains registered with them at a reasonable
>cost and only use the DNS side.

Ok and unless you are running a realtime ecommerce site then you may
not notice any website downtime etc (compared with email etc).

> I think at the time I was looking
>they just happened to give informamtion about how much control you
>had on the DNS, were a resonable cost and weren't related to
>Fasthosts in anyway I could fine. B-)

Hehe.

>I don't have the .com or
>.audio with them, they are with Big Rock. One for historic reasons,
>the reselling registra disappeared and Big Rock was the underlying
>regsitra. The .audio cost, Big Rock want about a tenner/year, 123
>£35/year...

Ok.

>
>>> Never been aware of troubles with the DNS. I host my own MX,
>>> Web, etc.
>>
>> Thinking out loud on that then ... would keeping the domain / web with
>> 123-reg and just putting the email hosting with (say) 1&1, would that
>> speed the transfer process over?
>
>Transfer of what? Mail host?

Sorry, yes, probably my tenuous understanding / terms there. Assuming
that we keep the bits with 123-reg that they seem to be ok at, could
we get the emails hosted elsewhere (and I think the answer to that is
yes, as per other replies in this thread) *and would doing so* make
the process quicker (as in it all going online, not mailbox content
transfers particularly) or easier somehow? eg, Could we have the new
email host up and running (tested) and then just point all 20
mailboxes across to said now host (x20 mailboxes)? Could that happen
in say a (max) couple of hours as opposed to the 'up to 5 days' as
suggested by 1&1?

>
>> how would they host the same email addresses ... can the two hosts exist
>> or is there no 'addressing' (asin us...@domain1.com ) and these MX
>> records just point anyt...@domain1.com to anyt...@domain2.com ?
>
>An MX record normally points the domain part of an email address to a
>hostname. That hostname then has an A record that returns the IP
>address to send the mail to. You can have more than one MX record for
>a given domain with the same or different priorties. So:
>
>MX records:
>domain1.com priority 10 mail.host1.com
>domain1.com priority 20 mail.host2.com
>
>A records:
>mail.host1.com <ip address of mail.host1.com>
>mail.host2.com <ip address of mail.host2.com>
>
>Normally mail.host1.com would get all mail as that has the highest
>priority. If that is down then mail.host2.com would get the mail.

Hmm, I think I get that (conceptually if nothing else). ;-)

>
>The MX records contain a hostname rather than an IP address (which
>they could) to make maintenance easier. When (not if) the IP address
>of a mail host changes you only need to change that mail hosts A
>record rather than the MX records as well.

Ok, I think I follow that ...

>
>You also point multiple domains to the same mailhost:
>
>MX records:
>domain1.com priority 10 mail.host1.com
>domain1.com priority 20 mail.host2.com
>
>domain2.com priority 20 mail.host1.com
>domain2.com priority 10 mail.host2.com
>
>Note the priorities have swapped so domain2.com would normally go to
>mail.host2.com with mail.host1.com as back up.
>
>Obviously mail.host1.com and mail.host2.com need to be configured to
>accept mail for the domains being pointed at them.

OK, Time out here if I may. Would what you have suggested above be of
specific use if we were to say stick with 123-reg as our primary email
host but have an alternative one for the times if/when they were down?

What if we didn't ... what if we just wanted to keep it simple, how
could we best get that simple solution (of an alternative host for the
emails) whilst retaining 123-red for the DNS / Website etc please?

>
>> Can you just get email with these providers without also having a
>> domain / webspace?
>
>Haven't clue.

Hmm, and that could be part of the answer to my question above.

You may have hinted at a solution but it probably isn't.

Say they are acme.com with email addresses of tom, dick and harry @
acme.com.

We want to move our emails elsewhere and find the 'easiest' way to get
that is to register another domain and have that hosted somewhere else
as say acme.co.uk. It comes with unlimited web space (which we don't
care about), unlimited 25GB capacity email addresses (that could
reflect tom, dick and harry @ acme.co.uk etc) but could we then
redirect any emails that are heading for say t...@acme.com to
t...@acme.co.uk and then finally be pushed or pulled to the client and
appear to come from t...@acme.COM ? Any replies would in turn go back
to the amce.co.uk server and end up on the clients machine as from
t...@acme.com?

>
>> I'm confused. ;-(
>
>It's very simple but can take a bit of getting your head round.

Yes, but it only becomes simple *once* you have your head around it.
;-)

I'm pretty sure I did all the sorts of things I'm asking if are
possible with all the mail gateways when set them up for the place I
worked for (primarily as a datacomms Field Support guy) ~30 years ago,
however, that was mostly in-house and so you didn't need things to
conform with / to anything on the outside world. ;-)

I have seen responses from SMTP servers who won't 'act as a relay' so
I'm aware we have to conform to / be limited by those things that are
allowed out there and ITRW.

Cheers, T i m

p.s. I'm also one of those people who learns best by doing and ideally
with some mentoring now and again. That method is perfectly ok if the
needs isn't mission / time critical and needs to be right straight
away. ;-(

[T i m]

On Tue, 07 Feb 2017 20:05:33 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice"
<allsortsn...@howhill.com> wrote:

>On Mon, 06 Feb 2017 11:11:42 +0000, T i m wrote:
>
>>> Fasthosts? Run, don't walk, away.
>>>
>>> Spam source, don't care. unresponsive.
>>
>> Ok ... and are you in a position to be able to make a comment on 1&1
>> OOI please Dave?
>
>There is a little bell ringing that links Fasthost and 1&1 either via
>parent company or as brands from a single one. The bell is quite old
>and ownerships do alter over time, Google is your friend...

The last thing I found was that 1&1 acquired Fastshosts in 2006 and
hopefully (if your feelings about them were truly representative) were
consumed by 1&1.

At least with it being that way round, rather than a merger (even)
then I'm hoping there is hope. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[The Natural Philosopher]

On 27/02/17 13:49, Dave Liquorice wrote:
> It's very simple but can take a bit of getting your head round.

If anyone wants some cribs for setting up their own mail relay and
incoming server on a virtual private server just ask.

You need minimal RAM and CPU power to do this and so the most basic VPS
at less than a £100 a year will do.

--
If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will
eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such
time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic
and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally
important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for
the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the
truth is the greatest enemy of the State.

Joseph Goebbels

[John Rumm]

On 27/02/2017 11:57, T i m wrote:
> On Mon, 6 Feb 2017 00:36:20 +0000, John Rumm
> <see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>>>> The difficulty with moving is if you have to keep everything working
>>>> while you port over - that can be difficult -
>>>
>>> That was also something I was thinking about. Can you plan these
>>> things to happen at 5pm on a Friday?
>>
>> You can plan yes ;-)
>
> ;-)
>
> So, do these things happen in a predictable way (if not time) would
> you say please?

There is always scope for stuff to not go according to plan. However the
best way to mitigate is to set everything up in parallel, so that you
can port stuff a bit at a time and keep old and new systems running
together.

Exactly how you do that will depend a bit on the circumstance and
exactly what you are trying to port.

> Like, once we have told 123 we want to move the domain (and web /
> email) away from them, do you agree a cutoff time / date, and then
> does it happen around that time ... but when they getroundtuit?

Do that bit last. Setup new mailboxes on the new host, port the content,
and do any domain level swapping about last.

>>>> you would have to get the
>>>> new mailboxes in place, import all the data and then effect the changeover.
>>>
>>> Hmmm, I'm wondering if they would be happy to start afresh. ;-)
>>>
>>> Is there an 'export mail' function on the Panel or is that something
>>> you typically do via the client? It's been a long time since I was
>>> doing anything like this. ;-(
>>
>> You can do it with a client like thunderbird - it will let you access
>> old and new mailboxes and copy stuff between them.
>
> Assuming we talking 'on the server(s)' John, as wouldn't that require
> the original and new servers to be up concurrently or are we using a
> remote / client machine as an stepping stone here?

If you use TB - then it can be on a third machine (not necessarily a
server) - just a normal desktop. However there are either applications
you can run on a server (if you have the level of access required) or
third party services you can buy that will do the same thing server to
server with data centre speeds of transfer rather than consumer ADSL etc.

You may find your new host has (or rebadges) a service like this.

> And does it matter that they are running Outlook if I use TB to do
> this transfer process? If so I could potentially setup a single
> machine with TB and use that to archive all 20 mailboxes and uploaded
> them to the new host when it becomes available? Am I even close? ;-(

You can migrate stuff that you can access via IMAP on TB, but it won't
do exchange mailboxes. So moving the mail would be possible but not the
calendars and contact lists etc. However you could do those with outlook
(probably - not tried to be sure).

The third party services will certainly do full exchange mailboxes if
required.

>> It does depend on how
>> good your broadband is though!
>
> I think all the places it might be done from are 'ok'. ;-)

Even "ok" can take a while shifting several GB of mailbox!

>> Alternatively there are third party sites out there that will port email
>> between different types of mailbox.
>
> I may have to look into that if it is likely to help make the process
> more efficient.
>>
>> Lastly, talk to the new email host - they may well have automated tools
>> for bulk import and migration.
>
> They didn't seem to offer anything, suggesting it might be done via /
> by the client.

You may find the offering is different depending on if you are going for
1&1s own mailboxes, or for their resold office 365 option. (the latter
would have MS support to do planned migrations)

(not sure if 1&1 also do their own hosted exchange mailboxes outside of
the office 365 service - I know RS do)

> <snip>
>
> 1&1 have suggested a .com could take up to 5 days to transfer and so
> if I understand it correctly, if we were to actually make the change
> on a Friday afternoon (given that it's generally quiet email wise over
> the weekend) that it might not be back up till sometime on Wednesday?

If everything is setup, then all you need to do at the end is transfer
the domain (although in reality there is not absolute requirement to do
that. You could keep the domain hosted on 123 and just update the MX
records to point at the new server(s)

> Do any emails that are received during that time just get bounced?

Depends on how its done. So long as there are valid MX handlers in place
all the time, they the mail should be delivered somewhere.

> If say we have a snapshot of the mailbox taken last thing Friday ...
> and it comes back up at 4am on Tuesday and some emails come in, can
> you still 'sync' the mailbox with the emails you previously archived
> without losing any?

Should be able to - but it does depend on where they were sent.

> I'm trying to get a feel of the bigger picture as I've only really
> ever dealt with a single mailbox and people who are generally running
> SMTP/POP rather than IMAP and across several devices. ;-(

I can give you one real world example. This was migrating many users
from 123-reg mailboxes. Fortunately by virtue of history all the email
addresses were setup on 123 as forwards (this is because in the early
days of their pophost system, mailboxes were created and given out with
a hosting package and pre-named for you - so we had loads of mailboxes
called internode-23, internode-24 etc. Hence we had to use the
forwarding at us...@somecomanydomain.com -> to deliver mail to the
unimaginatively named mailboxes (the desktop client would be setup to
send as us...@somecompanydomain.com, so the outside world would be non
the wiser that there was a "private" internal address that was not
publicly used or advertised).

Even when that system went, and you could create mailboxes with proper
names, we kept with the forward system for consistency - except
us...@somedomain.com -> would forward to user.m...@somedomain.com

When we migrated them to rackspace, we created newdomain.com and setup
rackpace as the mx handler for that. Then created a mailbox called
us...@newdomain.com on that, and updated the forward to that it was
delivering new mail to *both* 123 and RS mailboxes. Then we used their
third party migration tool to port the bulk IMAP stuff from old to new.
The next step was to then update the user's desktop to point at the new
server and mailbox. That should then get them all the mail but on the
new mailbox. At that point we could update the forward to drop delivery
to the 123 mailbox and delete the 123 reg mailbox.

In this case we never felt the need to move the actual domains
themselves (and actually find the 123 reg forwarding capabilities quite
handy as they make doing mailing lists and stuff easy without needing to
consume a mailbox creating them).

(It turns out there is a more sophisticated setup that's possible with
our rackspace setup - they can support what they call split domain email
routing, where you point your mx records at the RS servers, but then
also give them a link back to the old MX handlers. Thence all emails
come in initially to the new servers, but if they can't match the
mailbox (because its not been ported yet) they then forward the email
onto the old MX handlers)

[T i m]

On Tue, 28 Feb 2017 01:32:12 +0000, John Rumm
<see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:

<snips to try to keep me on track ...>

>> So, do these things happen in a predictable way (if not time) would
>> you say please?
>
>There is always scope for stuff to not go according to plan.

Ah, the law of Sod. ;-)

>However the
>best way to mitigate is to set everything up in parallel, so that you
>can port stuff a bit at a time and keep old and new systems running
>together.
>
>Exactly how you do that will depend a bit on the circumstance and
>exactly what you are trying to port.

Understood.

>
>> Like, once we have told 123 we want to move the domain (and web /
>> email) away from them, do you agree a cutoff time / date, and then
>> does it happen around that time ... but when they getroundtuit?
>
>Do that bit last. Setup new mailboxes on the new host, port the content,
>and do any domain level swapping about last.

That's the bit I can't get my head round (setup / porting) ... for me
to get things ready on an alternative host and because my mate would
like (if it doesn't make everything more complicated) to move his
domain registration(s), web server / space and emails away from 123.
ITRW he really only has an issue with the reliability of their email
service so it wouldn't be a big issue if we just moved the email.

So, say we went to 1&1 and asked them to host the domain name, web
site and emails, at some point 123 would need to stop doing so and 1&1
start. So, if 1&1 give us access to their (our new) email system (or
their admin panel for us to create them etc) say 5 days before 123
chops us off ... can we setup say tom, dick and ha...@acme.com on 1&1,
even though those email accounts are still live on 123? If the answer
is 'yes' (as I suspect it must be to be able to do as you suggest),
and lets say have an archive of the 3 email accounts on a PC
somewhere, how would I access them from the outside world to be able
to put the historic emails back on the new server, ready for the
switch (please)?

The only way I can think of is by directly accessing the new email
host directly via it's ip address and either using something like ftp
to put the emails / folders back or maybe my 'archive' PC can access
the same place using an ip address on TB? (Outside of 'them' doing it
for us somehow).
>
<snip>

>You can migrate stuff that you can access via IMAP on TB,

<snip exchange stuff as I believe we are only talking 'basic'
mailboxes here>.

>Even "ok" can take a while shifting several GB of mailbox!

Understood. On that / this, I've come across something that may help
this (and another matter), namely 'MailStore Server'.

http://www.mailstore.com/

I've installed their free Home solution on my W10 box and archived my
123 and Googlemail accounts. My next test is to delete *all* my emails
(Inbox / Sent) and see if I can recover them using MailStore. If I can
and given a recent issue they have had re emails being deleted
accidentally (when they have been trying to 'create space' via
webmail) this could offer a good stepping stone and future protection?

>
<snip>
>>
>> 1&1 have suggested a .com could take up to 5 days to transfer and so
>> if I understand it correctly, if we were to actually make the change
>> on a Friday afternoon (given that it's generally quiet email wise over
>> the weekend) that it might not be back up till sometime on Wednesday?
>
>If everything is setup, then all you need to do at the end is transfer
>the domain (although in reality there is not absolute requirement to do
>that. You could keep the domain hosted on 123 and just update the MX
>records to point at the new server(s)

Ah, that may (indirectly) answer my questions above in that the new
host *is* available even though the domain hasn't moved across. eg, We
can get to the new mailboxes but mail won't be delivered there
automatically?

>
>> Do any emails that are received during that time just get bounced?
>
>Depends on how its done. So long as there are valid MX handlers in place
>all the time, they the mail should be delivered somewhere.

Ok. So ideally and ignoring the fact the website wasn't available
(till 1&1 were offering it online) the mail should be ok? So could we
setup the new email accounts on 1&1 a couple of weeks before any
switch?

>
>> If say we have a snapshot of the mailbox taken last thing Friday ...
>> and it comes back up at 4am on Tuesday and some emails come in, can
>> you still 'sync' the mailbox with the emails you previously archived
>> without losing any?
>
>Should be able to - but it does depend on where they were sent.

Again, this is where something like MailStore might help (me at
least). If I understand how it works correctly, it would poll all the
(IMAP) mailbox on 123 at regular intervals and archive everything.
This doesn't matter if the email originated from an external person
(received) or sent from their PC, laptop, tablet or phone.
>
<snip the example using forwarding read, mostly understood but removed
for fear of confusing me even further!>

KISS. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Dave Liquorice]

On Mon, 27 Feb 2017 15:26:31 +0000, T i m wrote:

>> Transfer of what? Mail host?
>
> Sorry, yes, probably my tenuous understanding / terms there. Assuming
> that we keep the bits with 123-reg that they seem to be ok at, could
> we get the emails hosted elsewhere (and I think the answer to that is
> yes, as per other replies in this thread)

With the control of the DNS you have with 123 any host can be
anywhere.

> *and would doing so* make the process quicker (as in it all going
> online, not mailbox content transfers particularly) or easier somehow?

Yes, you ought to be able to setup and test the new host without it
being "live", so it doesn't matter if it falls over or has to be
taken down for some reason. There might be a gotcha with hosting
services from a third party in that without them having the domain
registration they might not want to setup email for that domain. This
must be a common "problem" so they must have a solution.

TBH migration of existing mailboxes had escaped me. I'm not sure how
one would do that, I suspect migration of existing mailboxes is the
hard part.
How much data needs to be shifted will affect how long it'll take.

If it's only going to take a few hours I'd be tempted to:

Make note of orginal MX record TTL(s).
Set the MX record(s) TTL to five minutes.
Stop the current live host accepting mail, preferably sending some
form of "not now" response.
Stop users accessing the old host.
Do the migration of the entire mail database to new host.
Start users accesing the new host.
Start the new host accepting mail.
Wait for the orginal TTL to expire, timing from when the TTL was set
to five minutes.
Change the MX records to point at the new host.
Check all is working as expected.
Set the MX record(s) TTL back to the orginal value.

With the old host saying "not now" mail should just sit in sender
queues until the MX record(s) change to point at the new host.
Stopping user access prevents them changing things. This avoids
having to sync any mails or changes that occur while the migration
takes place. You in effect freeze the databse, move it, unfreeze it.

> eg, Could we have the new email host up and running (tested) and then
> just point all 20 mailboxes across to said now host (x20 mailboxes)?

That's the idea, except the switch is done at domain level not user
mailbox level.

> Could that happen in say a (max) couple of hours as opposed to the 'up
> to 5 days' as suggested by 1&1?

The "switch" of live system from old host to new would take as long
as the short TTL you set on the MX records. Migrating the existing
mailboxes is what will take the time if you have a few gigabytes to
shift.

>> An MX record normally points the domain part of an email address
to a
>> hostname. That hostname then has an A record that returns the IP
>> address to send the mail to.
>>

>> MX record:
>> domain.com priority 10 mail.host.com
>>
>> A record:
>> mail.host.com <ip address of mail.host.com>

Above cut down to minimum.

> Hmm, I think I get that (conceptually if nothing else). ;-)

It's a chain of pointers. Basically when something wants to send mail
to domain.com. It asks the DNS for the MX record of domain.com, it
gets back the fully quaified domain name of the mail host for
domain.com. It then asks the DNS for the IP address of that fully
qualified domain. It then tries to open port 25 on that IP address to
send the mail.

> OK, Time out here if I may. Would what you have suggested above be of
> specific use if we were to say stick with 123-reg as our primary email
> host but have an alternative one for the times if/when they were down?

Yes. The MX simple priority does that, cut down again.

>> domain1.com priority 10 mail.host1.com
>> domain1.com priority 20 mail.host2.com

mail.host1.com would be tried first, if that fails mail.host2.com
would be tried. If that fails the mail stays in the sender queue for
a while then retried starting with mail.host1.com then repeat as
before.

> What if we didn't ... what if we just wanted to keep it simple, how
> could we best get that simple solution (of an alternative host for the
> emails) whilst retaining 123-red for the DNS / Website etc please?

Edit the MX record(s) on 123 to point at the alernative host(s).

> I have seen responses from SMTP servers who won't 'act as a relay' so
> I'm aware we have to conform to / be limited by those things that are
> allowed out there and ITRW.

As you are looking at third party hosts, that is their problem. If
you were aetting up you own box to handle mail you would need to make
sure that it only accepted mail for your domain(s).

--
Cheers
Dave.

[R D S]

On 03/02/17 12:28, T i m wrote:

>
> I have been asked by a friend if I could recommend an alternative
> Internet host

We use VTS Hosting, very capable and personable.

https://www.vtshosting.co.uk/

[T i m]

On Tue, 28 Feb 2017 20:28:11 +0000 (GMT), "Dave Liquorice"
<allsortsn...@howhill.com> wrote:

>On Mon, 27 Feb 2017 15:26:31 +0000, T i m wrote:
>
>>> Transfer of what? Mail host?
>>
>> Sorry, yes, probably my tenuous understanding / terms there. Assuming
>> that we keep the bits with 123-reg that they seem to be ok at, could
>> we get the emails hosted elsewhere (and I think the answer to that is
>> yes, as per other replies in this thread)
>
>With the control of the DNS you have with 123 any host can be
>anywhere.

Yes, I knew that bit ... ;-)

>
>> *and would doing so* make the process quicker (as in it all going
>> online, not mailbox content transfers particularly) or easier somehow?
>
>Yes, you ought to be able to setup and test the new host without it
>being "live", so it doesn't matter if it falls over or has to be
>taken down for some reason.

Gdgd.

> There might be a gotcha with hosting
>services from a third party in that without them having the domain
>registration they might not want to setup email for that domain. This
>must be a common "problem" so they must have a solution.

One would hope.

>
>TBH migration of existing mailboxes had escaped me. I'm not sure how
>one would do that, I suspect migration of existing mailboxes is the
>hard part.
>How much data needs to be shifted will affect how long it'll take.

Understood.

>
>If it's only going to take a few hours I'd be tempted to:
>
>Make note of orginal MX record TTL(s).
>Set the MX record(s) TTL to five minutes.
>Stop the current live host accepting mail, preferably sending some
>form of "not now" response.
>Stop users accessing the old host.
>Do the migration of the entire mail database to new host.
>Start users accesing the new host.
>Start the new host accepting mail.
>Wait for the orginal TTL to expire, timing from when the TTL was set
>to five minutes.
>Change the MX records to point at the new host.
>Check all is working as expected.
>Set the MX record(s) TTL back to the orginal value.

Whilst I follow the logic I have little idea of how much of that I
would actually have control over ITRW.

>
>With the old host saying "not now" mail should just sit in sender
>queues until the MX record(s) change to point at the new host.

Understood.

>Stopping user access prevents them changing things. This avoids
>having to sync any mails or changes that occur while the migration
>takes place. You in effect freeze the databse, move it, unfreeze it.

Sounds nice, not sure how you stop outside users / customers sending
emails in though?

>
>> eg, Could we have the new email host up and running (tested) and then
>> just point all 20 mailboxes across to said now host (x20 mailboxes)?
>
>That's the idea, except the switch is done at domain level not user
>mailbox level.

Understood.

>
>> Could that happen in say a (max) couple of hours as opposed to the 'up
>> to 5 days' as suggested by 1&1?
>
>The "switch" of live system from old host to new would take as long
>as the short TTL you set on the MX records. Migrating the existing
>mailboxes is what will take the time if you have a few gigabytes to
>shift.

5 x 5 GB max.

>
>>> An MX record normally points the domain part of an email address
>to a
>>> hostname. That hostname then has an A record that returns the IP
>>> address to send the mail to.
>>>
>>> MX record:
>>> domain.com priority 10 mail.host.com
>>>
>>> A record:
>>> mail.host.com <ip address of mail.host.com>
>
>Above cut down to minimum.

Thanks, much easier to absorb. ;-)

>
>> Hmm, I think I get that (conceptually if nothing else). ;-)
>
>It's a chain of pointers. Basically when something wants to send mail
>to domain.com. It asks the DNS for the MX record of domain.com, it
>gets back the fully quaified domain name of the mail host for
>domain.com. It then asks the DNS for the IP address of that fully
>qualified domain. It then tries to open port 25 on that IP address to
>send the mail.

Understood that ok. ;-)

>
>> OK, Time out here if I may. Would what you have suggested above be of
>> specific use if we were to say stick with 123-reg as our primary email
>> host but have an alternative one for the times if/when they were down?
>
>Yes. The MX simple priority does that, cut down again.
>
>>> domain1.com priority 10 mail.host1.com
>>> domain1.com priority 20 mail.host2.com
>
>mail.host1.com would be tried first, if that fails mail.host2.com
>would be tried. If that fails the mail stays in the sender queue for
>a while then retried starting with mail.host1.com then repeat as
>before.

Gotcha.

>
>> What if we didn't ... what if we just wanted to keep it simple, how
>> could we best get that simple solution (of an alternative host for the
>> emails) whilst retaining 123-red for the DNS / Website etc please?
>
>Edit the MX record(s) on 123 to point at the alernative host(s).

Check.

>
>> I have seen responses from SMTP servers who won't 'act as a relay' so
>> I'm aware we have to conform to / be limited by those things that are
>> allowed out there and ITRW.
>
>As you are looking at third party hosts, that is their problem. If
>you were aetting up you own box to handle mail you would need to make
>sure that it only accepted mail for your domain(s).

Understood.

So, how about this ... set up the new mail host and configure
mailboxes. Sick a firewall on it and then edit the MX records to point
to it as the primary (with 123 as the secondary). Once everything is
up and the Inet knows about them both, open the firewall and allow new
mail to come in, removing 123's MX record?

That's probably what you said above (but workable ITRW)? ;-)

The other issue is mail retention and archiving. Given that all the
clients use IMAP it's potentially quite easy for any of them to delete
everything from the server and it being authoritive (if that's the
right word), as each device syncs it will delete everything there too?

So, could we get a mail host to say retain any deleted email long
enough to be able to archive it somehow (3rd party app like MailStore
Server)?

You could setup a separate machine polling all the mailboxes with POP3
and leaving the emails on the server bit that wouldn't catch any
emails sent from elsewhere?

Cheers, T i m

[T i m]

I'll check them out as well, thanks. ;-)

Cheers, T i m

[Dave Liquorice]

On Tue, 28 Feb 2017 23:18:29 +0000, T i m wrote:

>> If it's only going to take a few hours I'd be tempted to:
>>
>> Make note of orginal MX record TTL(s).
>> Set the MX record(s) TTL to five minutes.
>> Stop the current live host accepting mail, preferably sending some
>> form of "not now" response.
>> Stop users accessing the old host.
>> Do the migration of the entire mail database to new host.
>> Start users accesing the new host.
>> Start the new host accepting mail.
>> Wait for the orginal TTL to expire, timing from when the TTL was
set
>> to five minutes.
>> Change the MX records to point at the new host.
>> Check all is working as expected.
>> Set the MX record(s) TTL back to the orginal value.
>
> Whilst I follow the logic I have little idea of how much of that I
> would actually have control over ITRW.

You ought have control of all of it. What you might not have control
of, and the only real probem maker, would not being able to stop
access from the 'net and users to the old host. Access to the new
host isn't a problem as the'net or users won't "know" about it until
the MX records change.

>> Stopping user access prevents them changing things. This avoids
>> having to sync any mails or changes that occur while the migration
>> takes place. You in effect freeze the databse, move it, unfreeze
it.
>
> Sounds nice, not sure how you stop outside users / customers sending
> emails in though?

See above, that is the bit you might not have nice control over. A
dirty method would be to change the IP address of the A record of the
FQDN of the old mail host to something that will either not respond
at all on port 25 or only respond with "not now", This IP address
really needs to be one you "own" rather than a random one. Perhaps
you could use the IP address of your home connection?

> 5 x 5 GB max.

25 GB, not a great deal of data but what is the bandwidth of the
transfer connection?

> So, how about this ... set up the new mail host and configure
> mailboxes. Sick a firewall on it and then edit the MX records to point
> to it as the primary (with 123 as the secondary). Once everything is
> up and the Inet knows about them both, open the firewall and allow new
> mail to come in, removing 123's MX record?
>
> That's probably what you said above (but workable ITRW)? ;-)

Unless you are paranoid about people running scripts to find open
relays the firewall isn't required. MTAs "out there" and users won't
know of the new host until the MX records change. So:

Orginal records:
MX:
domain.com priority 10 mail.host.com

A:

mail.host.com <ip address of mail.host.com>

New records:
MX
domain.com priority 10 new.mail.host.com

A record:
new.mail.host.com <ip address of new.mail.host.com>

Or new records retaining old host as backup:
MX:
domain.com priority 10 new.mail.host.com
domain.com priority 20 mail.host.com

A record:
new.mail.host.com <ip address of new.mail.host.com>

mail.host.com <ip address of mail.host.com>

> The other issue is mail retention and archiving. Given that all the
> clients use IMAP it's potentially quite easy for any of them to delete
> everything from the server and it being authoritive (if that's the
> right word), as each device syncs it will delete everything there too?

There are two things I don't like about IMAP. One is you really need
a net connection to be absolutely sure of being able to read an old
email. The other is that it's far to easy to delete an email and have
it disappear everywhere. I don't want my mobile devices cluttered up
with "chatter" from email lists or WHY but I do want to see that
chatter, just not keep it. However the chatter still needs to be
there when I'm home.

Thinking about it now these issues probably have a root related to
POP3 and IMAP not playing nicely together. POP3 on the home machine
is set to "delete mail on server"... This does mean the chatter
automatically gets removed from mobile devices after the home machine
has got it but it also means wanted email has gone as well. B-(

--
Cheers
Dave.

[John Rumm]

On 28/02/2017 13:02, T i m wrote:

>>> Like, once we have told 123 we want to move the domain (and web /
>>> email) away from them, do you agree a cutoff time / date, and then
>>> does it happen around that time ... but when they getroundtuit?
>>
>> Do that bit last. Setup new mailboxes on the new host, port the content,
>> and do any domain level swapping about last.
>
> That's the bit I can't get my head round (setup / porting) ... for me
> to get things ready on an alternative host and because my mate would
> like (if it doesn't make everything more complicated) to move his
> domain registration(s), web server / space and emails away from 123.
> ITRW he really only has an issue with the reliability of their email
> service so it wouldn't be a big issue if we just moved the email.

Its fine to move the lot - but do it a bit at a time.

> So, say we went to 1&1 and asked them to host the domain name, web
> site and emails, at some point 123 would need to stop doing so and 1&1
> start. So, if 1&1 give us access to their (our new) email system (or
> their admin panel for us to create them etc) say 5 days before 123
> chops us off ... can we setup say tom, dick and ha...@acme.com on 1&1,
> even though those email accounts are still live on 123?

You should be able to setup the new mailboxes etc even while the DNS is
pointing the MX records at the 123 mail servers. Once you are happy all
the new mailboxes are setup, you should be able to update the MX records
in the 123-reg control DNS control panel to point at the new servers. So
mail will now start being delivered to the new servers. You can now
migrate the mailbox contents and change the settings on the desktop to
use the new mail server.

Once you are happy that the mail is ported you can delete the old
mailboxes. At that point you can worry about moving web hosting etc.
(again, same principle - get new hosting, upload site to it, then update
the DNS to change the A records to point at the new host.

> If the answer
> is 'yes' (as I suspect it must be to be able to do as you suggest),
> and lets say have an archive of the 3 email accounts on a PC
> somewhere, how would I access them from the outside world to be able
> to put the historic emails back on the new server, ready for the
> switch (please)?

Several options... Say you had TB setup to access old and new mailboxes
simultaneously, just drag and drop from one account to the other.

Failing that, copy to "Local Folders" first and then copy back.

> The only way I can think of is by directly accessing the new email
> host directly via it's ip address and either using something like ftp
> to put the emails / folders back or maybe my 'archive' PC can access
> the same place using an ip address on TB? (Outside of 'them' doing it
> for us somehow).

You would (and in any case do) access the mailservers directly - via
IMAP rather than FTP typically. (you can also get stuff via POP, but hat
does not let you put stuff back or access stuff in folders stored on the
server)

>>
> <snip>
>
>> You can migrate stuff that you can access via IMAP on TB,
>
> <snip exchange stuff as I believe we are only talking 'basic'
> mailboxes here>.
>
>
>> Even "ok" can take a while shifting several GB of mailbox!
>
> Understood. On that / this, I've come across something that may help
> this (and another matter), namely 'MailStore Server'.
>
> http://www.mailstore.com/
>
> I've installed their free Home solution on my W10 box and archived my
> 123 and Googlemail accounts. My next test is to delete *all* my emails
> (Inbox / Sent) and see if I can recover them using MailStore. If I can
> and given a recent issue they have had re emails being deleted
> accidentally (when they have been trying to 'create space' via
> webmail) this could offer a good stepping stone and future protection?

Indeed - there are several mail backup / archiving options out there.

>> If everything is setup, then all you need to do at the end is transfer
>> the domain (although in reality there is not absolute requirement to do
>> that. You could keep the domain hosted on 123 and just update the MX
>> records to point at the new server(s)
>
> Ah, that may (indirectly) answer my questions above in that the new
> host *is* available even though the domain hasn't moved across. eg, We
> can get to the new mailboxes but mail won't be delivered there
> automatically?

Yup. Also don't confuse the domain hosting itself (i.e. the people who
give DNS space to holding all the domain's records), and the servers
that the domain identifies as being responsible for different services.
Also keep in mind that the domain can point at multiple hosts for
different services. So email can be handled by one server / company,
while web another, all the time the domain itself is hosted by a third.

When you move the domain itself, keep in mind that you may need to setup
the records again on the new host.

[Dave Plowman (News)]

In article <l1f8bc1keulag12nl...@4ax.com>,

T i m <ne...@spaced.me.uk> wrote:
> >Like Plus Net / BT Internet and chalk / cheese.

> Quite. ;-)

How does PlusNet do email? Email is the only problem I've had with BT (but
OK now) and I've heard of a few having problems with their PlusNet email
too.

--
*This message has been ROT-13 encrypted twice for extra security *

Dave Plowman da...@davenoise.co.uk London SW
To e-mail, change noise into sound.

[Andy Burns]

Dave Plowman wrote:

> How does PlusNet do email?

Fairly standard. They supply SMTP/POP3/IMAP4 servers, you can have
multiple mailboxes but not especially large storage before they moan at
you, you can set delivery rules/aliases/autoresponders for them, they
also have webmail but it's pretty old-hat.

> I've heard of a few having problems with their PlusNet email too.

It's their webmail that has been mainly what they've had problems with
"recently" the problems have affected some non-webmail users (e.g. my
neighbour but not me) but we worked around it in his case by increasing
outlook timeouts. They had a few overnight maintenance periods last
year where I think they replaced and/or increased the number of servers
involved.

One issue they are still working on is SSL for the email protocols, at
the moment it's clear text passwords only, which is OK if you're
accessing from home and the password isn't leaving their network, not
really usable if you're away from home and using 3G or someone else's wifi.

[John Rumm]

On 28/02/2017 23:18, T i m wrote:

> The other issue is mail retention and archiving. Given that all the
> clients use IMAP it's potentially quite easy for any of them to delete
> everything from the server and it being authoritive (if that's the
> right word), as each device syncs it will delete everything there too?

That's one time where retaining the email address on the 123-reg servers
as a forward to the new mailbox be handy - its then easy to add a second
target to the forward so direct mail to an archive mailbox.

> So, could we get a mail host to say retain any deleted email long
> enough to be able to archive it somehow (3rd party app like MailStore
> Server)?
>
> You could setup a separate machine polling all the mailboxes with POP3
> and leaving the emails on the server bit that wouldn't catch any
> emails sent from elsewhere?

Could also work - but won't see stuff in folders. So that would not
archive any sent email - only incoming.

[John Rumm]

One of the ways round that is to create selective filters on the
receiving mailbox to forward messages to a different one that the phone
reads - that way you can reduce the volume of mail sent to the phone by
dropping stuff you don't need there, and can also delete stuff on the
phone without killing your "main" copy of it.

(many modern email systems allow you to create email filters in their
"webmail" facility - this means they then run on the server and don't
require the client to be running on the desktop for the filtering to
happen).

>
> Thinking about it now these issues probably have a root related to
> POP3 and IMAP not playing nicely together. POP3 on the home machine
> is set to "delete mail on server"... This does mean the chatter
> automatically gets removed from mobile devices after the home machine
> has got it but it also means wanted email has gone as well. B-(
>


--

[Dave Liquorice]

On Thu, 2 Mar 2017 12:35:07 +0000, John Rumm wrote:

>> There are two things I don't like about IMAP. One is you really
need
>> a net connection to be absolutely sure of being able to read an
old
>> email. The other is that it's far to easy to delete an email and
have
>> it disappear everywhere. I don't want my mobile devices cluttered
up
>> with "chatter" from email lists or WHY but I do want to see that
>> chatter, just not keep it. However the chatter still needs to be
>> there when I'm home.
>
> One of the ways round that is to create selective filters on the
> receiving mailbox to forward messages to a different one that the phone
> reads - that way you can reduce the volume of mail sent to the phone by
> dropping stuff you don't need there,

I want to see all new mail on my mobile devices and it can all be in
a single inbox rather than filtered to folders. Generally I don't
want to keep mail on the mobile devices but how long I want to keep
it is variable, from seen (not even read...) it/delete it to read
it/keep for 6 months.

The POP3 client set to "delete on server" buggers up the IMAP clients
that expect to be able to find items on the server. I shall have to
have a play with the various delete settings and target IMAP folders
for deleted items.

That POP3 client is <cough> a little old as in probably predating
IMAP and only understands plain text, so no stupid colours, fonts,
images, backgrounds, etc but it does everything I want it to do and
has for decades. But if some one knows of an OS/2 email client that
supports IMAP and is equal to PMMail/2 v2.20.2380 (copyright
1994-2001) I might be tempted to move client.

--
Cheers
Dave.

[T i m]

On Wed, 1 Mar 2017 14:18:32 +0000, John Rumm
<see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:

<snip>

>You should be able to setup the new mailboxes etc even while the DNS is
>pointing the MX records at the 123 mail servers.

I think that was the bit that was throwing me ... forgetting as well
(/of course) that the old imap server would be 'imap.123-reg.co.uk'
and the new one would be something different. I think I was merging
the domain move with the email 'address' etc.

>Once you are happy all
>the new mailboxes are setup, you should be able to update the MX records
>in the 123-reg control DNS control panel to point at the new servers. So
>mail will now start being delivered to the new servers. You can now
>migrate the mailbox contents and change the settings on the desktop to
>use the new mail server.

Now it makes more sense. ;-)

>
>Once you are happy that the mail is ported you can delete the old
>mailboxes. At that point you can worry about moving web hosting etc.
>(again, same principle - get new hosting, upload site to it, then update
>the DNS to change the A records to point at the new host.

Yup (smacks forehead).

>
>> If the answer
>> is 'yes' (as I suspect it must be to be able to do as you suggest),
>> and lets say have an archive of the 3 email accounts on a PC
>> somewhere, how would I access them from the outside world to be able
>> to put the historic emails back on the new server, ready for the
>> switch (please)?
>
>Several options... Say you had TB setup to access old and new mailboxes
>simultaneously, just drag and drop from one account to the other.

And of course that (assuming we still have access to the old
mailserver), makes perfect sense.

>
>Failing that, copy to "Local Folders" first and then copy back.

Understood.

>
>> The only way I can think of is by directly accessing the new email
>> host directly via it's ip address and either using something like ftp
>> to put the emails / folders back or maybe my 'archive' PC can access
>> the same place using an ip address on TB? (Outside of 'them' doing it
>> for us somehow).
>
>You would (and in any case do) access the mailservers directly - via
>IMAP rather than FTP typically. (you can also get stuff via POP, but hat
>does not let you put stuff back or access stuff in folders stored on the
>server)

Understood.
>
<snip>

>
>Indeed - there are several mail backup / archiving options out there.

And for the last 5 years I thought they were (via WHS). ;-(

The thing is, I'm still not convinces I understand the whole IMAP and
how Outlook 2013/6 uses it.

eg. Looking at a PC running Outlook 2013 holding several IMAP
accounts, if you see a new email (header?), then disconnect the PC
from the network (potentially cutting off access to the 'live' /
server view), you can still open the email fine? So, they are either
stored (or cached) in a file somewhere (<imap email account.ost>) or
in RAM? The issue there is what / however they are stored and in spite
of the who PC being backed up to the point where you could do a bare
iron restore from (just) the last backup, it doesn't seem to backup
these .ost's. Even if it did, most of the stuff you read on the net
seems to think it would be pointless as you can't so much with them.
That said, there are .ost > .pst converters and the one I tried seem
to work. ???

So, about the only solution I have come up with so far (with the above
ghost files in mind) is along the line of:

1) To prevent IMAP, bugs or the users (meaningfully or otherwise)
deleting messages and having that deletion reflected across all other
devices holding that (IMAP) account ... is to set up some (two) rules
(/account they access) that take a copy of anything that arrives in
the Inbox or Sent (or whatever the sent folder is called) to a local
(and importantly) 'offline' folder. This would still be a .ost file by
the looks of it and so still nor backed up by WHS.

2) To fix the backup issue, you could setup an Autoarchive on those
new local folders and this creates .pst files, and these 'are' backed
up by WHS.

The hope is that those two steps would ensure no emails are ever lost
and 2 they are backed up (as well).

Now, the next problem is I'm not sure how useable the Autoarchived
data will be (is it easy to include in Outlook as just part of the std
view) and / or might it still be better to go for something like
MailStore to make the data easier to search / retrieve across all the
mailboxes? This (as far as I understand it) might require the
MailStore being able to access the Outlook Local or Autoarchive
folders to ensure all emails are captured (I think it has the ability
to recognise if the exact same email isn't stored duplicated).

<snip>

I might also check to see if this process might be made easier (or be
equally easy) by running Thunderbird but I still need to check that
WHS can backup .msf and other mailbox files.

Cheers, T i m

[John Rumm]

On 05/03/2017 23:33, T i m wrote:
> On Wed, 1 Mar 2017 14:18:32 +0000, John Rumm
> <see.my.s...@nowhere.null> wrote:

> The thing is, I'm still not convinces I understand the whole IMAP and
> how Outlook 2013/6 uses it.
>
> eg. Looking at a PC running Outlook 2013 holding several IMAP
> accounts, if you see a new email (header?), then disconnect the PC
> from the network (potentially cutting off access to the 'live' /
> server view), you can still open the email fine?

Most of the email clients cache the IMAP content - speeds it up on
subsequent accesses.

> So, they are either
> stored (or cached) in a file somewhere (<imap email account.ost>) or
> in RAM?

A file I would expect... probably in the Local section of the users
AppData folder.

> The issue there is what / however they are stored and in spite
> of the who PC being backed up to the point where you could do a bare
> iron restore from (just) the last backup, it doesn't seem to backup
> these .ost's. Even if it did, most of the stuff you read on the net
> seems to think it would be pointless as you can't so much with them.
> That said, there are .ost > .pst converters and the one I tried seem
> to work. ???

The account information used by outlook is held in the registry - so the
data files alone are not enough to get back to a fully working setup.

> So, about the only solution I have come up with so far (with the above
> ghost files in mind) is along the line of:
>
> 1) To prevent IMAP, bugs or the users (meaningfully or otherwise)
> deleting messages and having that deletion reflected across all other
> devices holding that (IMAP) account ... is to set up some (two) rules
> (/account they access) that take a copy of anything that arrives in
> the Inbox or Sent (or whatever the sent folder is called) to a local
> (and importantly) 'offline' folder. This would still be a .ost file by
> the looks of it and so still nor backed up by WHS.
>
> 2) To fix the backup issue, you could setup an Autoarchive on those
> new local folders and this creates .pst files, and these 'are' backed
> up by WHS.
>
> The hope is that those two steps would ensure no emails are ever lost
> and 2 they are backed up (as well).

Another option to consider is to see if the email box provider has an
archive option - they may be able to do it at the server level before
the user is set lose on it.

Various desktop options exist for archiving email as well. AVG Cloudcare
for example has a (paid for) add on for archiving email.

> Now, the next problem is I'm not sure how useable the Autoarchived
> data will be (is it easy to include in Outlook as just part of the std
> view) and / or might it still be better to go for something like
> MailStore to make the data easier to search / retrieve across all the
> mailboxes? This (as far as I understand it) might require the
> MailStore being able to access the Outlook Local or Autoarchive
> folders to ensure all emails are captured (I think it has the ability
> to recognise if the exact same email isn't stored duplicated).

You may find creating separate archive email boxes works better - they
having rules forward relevant messages to them. That way they can be
accessed independently of the users machine(s).

> <snip>
>
> I might also check to see if this process might be made easier (or be
> equally easy) by running Thunderbird but I still need to check that
> WHS can backup .msf and other mailbox files.