All Systems Are A Go

The issues related to upgrading to cPanel version 11.25 have been resolved. Oddly enough no client domains nor email accounts were affected - only our domain where the support ticket system resides.

The method in which the ticket system imports ticket emails has been changed to prevent future problems such as this, so that in the unlikely event that the ticket system was inoperable, we would still receive your support and design order requests.

We view client communication as a very important part of what we do, and strive to keep you as informed as possible on all issues relating to your website hosting.

cPanel 11.25 upgrade causes email forward issues

A cPanel upgrade to version 11.25, performed 2 days ago, has introduced a lot of changes to a number of different functions in how Exim, the mail server, routes email. So far the only issue we've seen has been a change to how email forwards are being piped to a program functions. At the moment...they're not.

POP3 and IMAP email functions, as well as regular email forwards (forwarding to another email address) are all working as intended. Unfortunately our support desk and all client portal departments (design services, etc) all use email piping to open support tickets by email. This only effects tickets replied to by email...the client portal's web-interface is working correctly.

Both the NOC and cPanel techs are currently working to resolve this issue, and if it's not resolved by morning a backup plan for the support tickets will be implemented until the issue is fixed. In the meantime, if you need to open a new ticket or reply to an ongoing one, please use the web-based interface.

If you've replied to a ticket by email in the last two days your response may not have been received. As always, every ticket notification contains a direct link to the ticket reply so you can view and reply online.

This bug not withstanding, cPanel's version 11.25 promises to bring a lot of new goodies for users. Once I get past this initial bad first impression - and finish reading the 39-page PDF detailing the newly released changes - appropriate announcements will be made.

Y2K revisited

This morning a Spam Assassin date bug was discovered, causing any email sent since the turn-over of 01/01/2010 to be tagged with the following rule:

FH_DATE_PAST_20XX The date is grossly in the future, and assigned a score of 3.2. Since the default spam score for SpamAssassin is 5.0 (on our server it's set to 6.0, to guard against false positives), this could be a problem.

It's presumably been fixed and will be pushed out in the next sa-update, but we've disabled the rule just the same. If you're not a hosting customer of ours you might want to check to see if your provider has fixed this issue, and/or check your spam folder for false positives.

With the turn of the decade there's been a lot of "Where were you 10 years ago?" memes going around on social networking sites. I didn't really think much about it until this morning, where dealing with this "date bug" has given me a Y2K flashback.

I was invited to the Sun holiday party, though it was scheduled for late January 2000, because everyone was on high alert for Y2K issues. In case you're wondering...the party was incredible, and the Y2K issues were far less than expected, mostly due to proper preparations.

I'd really thought this wouldn't be an issue again until 2038. Guess I was wrong. *smiles*

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday, and wish you all a prosperous, happy and healthy new year.