There are no stupid questions....

[jcrismore]

...just stupid people that ask questions.

I was hosting my business site (www.westhighlandtech.com) at a hosting company. I got a dedicated server, and named it server153.westhighlandtech.com. I created my business site on the new server using Ensim, and confirmed that it was operational by using the virtual directory name to get to it.

Then, I added my DNS entries using Server Beach's DNS Tool. All looked well, so I put in the request for the nameserver to change to ns1.geodns.net. After 3 days, I'm to the place where I can ping my host name (either westhighlandtech.com or www.westhighlandtech.com) and they both resolve to 69.44.60.136 which is the correct address.

However, mail always tells me that I have either the wrong password, or the wrong username. The website gives me the famous IE screen telling me that I "Cannot find server or DNS Error."

If mail were pointing to the correct place, I would still be able to log in.

Can you tell me if I'm just being impatient, and need more time to pass before everything takes hold, or if doing the nameservers last would lead to things not working? Or, is it illegal to host my own web site using headers on a server that bears the actual name of my host?

Thanks,

-Jason :flush:

[knightfoo]

I don't believe this is a DNS issue. Your domain is resolving properly, except for the fact that mail.westhighlandtech.com is a CNAME (it should be an A record). If your mail client is telling you "incorrect username or password" then .. your username or password is incorrect. DNS will not cause password errors, unless you're logging into the wrong server because DNS resolution is off. Make sure your username is "user@domain.com" instead of just "user".

The website is giving you an error in IE because your server is dropping the connection before any data can be sent. This is what I get from lynx:

Looking up www.westhighlandtech.com
www.westhighlandtech.com
Making HTTP connection to www.westhighlandtech.com
Sending HTTP request.
HTTP request sent; waiting for response.
Alert!: Unexpected network read error; connection aborted.
Can't Access `http://www.westhighlandtech.com/'
Alert!: Unable to access document.

Something is causing the web server to puke before it can serve any pages. Interestingly enough, it seems to work if the IP address is used instead of a hostname.

When adding domains to Ensim, make sure you do *not* add them to local DNS .. there is a checkbox for this. Since you are using GeoDNS, adding your domains to local DNS will just cause problems. Also make sure the TCP/IP settings on your server have the correct nameservers (69.44.56.86 and 69.44.56.102 for Virginia). If all of this is correct and you still can't pull up the web page, there is something wrong with Ensim or IIS. Unfortunately, I don't do Windows. :D

-knightfoo

[jcrismore]

Thanks knightfoo for a quick response!

First, the good news. I deleted all of my Ensim DNS entries, and it didn't fix anything. So, I found an odd listing in Ensim pointing my server to server153.westhighlandtech.com. I added this DNS entry to the Server Beach DNS Tool, and that still didn't work. So, I deleted the web site entry in Ensim, and re-added it, and now all web browsing activities work just fine. Thanks for the hint on where to go on this!!

Now, for the bad news. Mail still doesn't work, and it doesn't matter how I try to log in. Furthermore, if I go in from my site administrator or my user administrator console, it tries to go to a mythological page located at:

https://69.44.60.136:19638/webhost/services/winvirtualhosting/siteadmin/F

At this point, it returns a message saying "The requested page could not be found." Logins through both MS Outlook and ACT! both were failing. The problem with both of these programs is that if you put in a username of abc@somecompany.com, it shortens your username to abc. After I figured out how to bypass this change, it allowed me to log in, and receive one email from MailEnable.

This gave me the idea to go visit MailEnable. They say I need a PTR record, and a tracert does tell me that I'm missing such an entry. This very well could be one of the entries I deleted from Ensim. However, I'm unclear on whether or not I should have any DNS entries in Ensim.

Now I'm unable to send emails, and when I send myself emails from other accounts, they don't make it. If I add a new fake domain to Ensim, then it does successfully send an email to the administrative contact.

QT said in another thread that we (customers) don't need to worry about PTR records.

Any ideas?

[knightfoo]

It looks like someone enabled MS SMTP services, which is running on port 25 and blocking MailEnable from binding the port:

220 server136 Microsoft ESMTP MAIL Service, Version: 6.0.3790.0 ready at Fri, 5 Dec 2003 15:51:48 -0600

If you need to use MS SMTP to send mail from IIS, you will need to move the listening port to something other than 25. Make sure you don't change the outbound port, or scripts running under IIS won't be able to send mail. After you change the port for MS SMTP, restart MailEnable and it should work fine.

The thread where QT said you didn't have to worry about PTRs was related to hosting web sites, not mail. I think she also meant that you don't have to worry about configuring PTRs on your server .. all PTRs are handled by ServerBeach. The only time the PTR will affect mail is when your server is trying to send mail to another SMTP server. If the PTR record does not exist or does not match your hostname, then the mail may be rejected. If your PTR is not set to your server hostname (FQDN), submit a PTR Request through MyServerBeach and we'll set it up for you.

-knightfoo

[jcrismore]

Thanks for another response!

I must confess that I'm the culprit that enabled the SMTP service. At the point that I did that, I was right down to deciding whether to post on this forum, or call Dr. Muombo to arrange a chicken sacrifice. I disabled the service, and rebooted, and made a little progress.

I no longer get the emails bounced back at me. However, I don't receive them either.

Also, I still can't get to the webmail page to view my mail online.

Any ideas?


Disclaimer: no chickens were harmed during the debugging of this problem.

[knightfoo]

Now MailEnable isn't running either. :D

You don't need to restart your server to restart MailEnable. There should be MailEnable control panel on your desktop or in the start menu. You can check the debug logs in the control panel too to find out what is going on.

-knightfoo

[jcrismore]

I think you just gave me the clue that will fix this thing!

I just went in, and all of the mail enable services were running, but they were unreachable by web page. I had to run the diagnostics tool off of the Start | Programs menu because it wouldn't run from within the MMC. It said my Virtual Directory was missing. It was, and although I did a great many things during my earlier troubleshooting, I definitely did not delete the virtual directory. The tool also says I have a missing DNS entry for the local server. I don't get that?

I reinstalled the virtual directory on my own, and found that I had some other normal directories missing, and that apparently, some DLLs were missing too. The MMC won't let me get to the property pages of anything. It keeps erroring.

I think I'm going submit a trouble ticket to get MailEnable re-installed. The MailEnable knowledgebase says that all these things are symptoms of an incomplete install.

Thanks, :thanks:

-Jason

[jcrismore]

Just a quick update....the reinstall of MailEnable fixed the mail issues.

Thanks for all the help! :thanks: