multiple issues or just one?

Lynne Desrochers · January 25, 2011, 11:58:53 AM

I had a long Monday yesterday, here's what happened. I'm hoping someone can tell me if the two issues were related. First, we were getting a ton of spam, which is odd, because we have AppRiver which normally does a great job before it hits our POP account. When I looked at the headers, none of the spam was being sent through AppRiver. Hmm.
Next I got a call that our website was down. We are currently re-doing our website and will be moving from our current provider shortly. I had called last week to have my phone line provider add website hosting to our account, since they already host our email and they had purchased the old provider we had used in the past. I stressed, do not make any changes to our account, we just need to set up the account.
Well, after a few calls, I got someone to admit, yes they made a change and they were sorry, and they would try to put everything back.
Well, it took a while for everything to go back (why does everyone say, it should resolve pretty quickly?) but my question is this, did the spam finding us and skipping AppRiver have anything to do with them enabling the new website?
Oh, this morning I got a call from an upper level support and they were sorry it took so long for them to resolve my issue and that they would be reviewing it with everyone, so it doesn't happen again. He said he heard the call and the tech wasn't giving me the feeling of confidence, etc and he was sorry.
So, are my two issues related? Thanks!

Bob · January 25, 2011, 12:12:18 PM

Regarding spam, some spam bypasses your Appriver account and will go directly to your server using smtp and deliver. Why it wasn't stopped. You can point your server to only accept smtp mail from the Appriver servers and it will stop most of this. Article on the AppRiver portal/knowledge base.

Sounds like the second issue if I read correctly affected your domain records and could take up to 24 hours to fix self.

Orlando Alonzo · January 25, 2011, 12:33:19 PM

The spam was probably a result of your provider making DNS changes to your domain. This would also explain your website being down. They may have put the DNS records back to where they belong, but it could take upto 48 hours for the changes to propagate. So it's possible that during that time that spam was getting through.

Appriver should've been abe to tell if your email domain (mx record) was pointing to the Appriver servers or not. Why they weren't able to is a question for them. Going forward, you need to make sure that your MX (email) record points to Appriver, if you're going to continue using them. In turn, you need to make sure that Appriver has the proper ip address for your mail server for them to forward emails to.

Bloody Jack Kidd · January 25, 2011, 12:51:30 PM

I'm not 100% sure what your email setup is - but if you are using a service like Appriver to filter mail for you domain, your mail server should only accept smtp from the Appriver servers - otherwise, email can skip Appriver and be delivered straight to your server unfiltered. This is easy to setup if your mail server is on-premise - not nearly as easy if your mail is hosted by ISP etc.

As for your two issues - if your ISP was messing around with your DNS records, all sorts of odd things could transpire.

Lynne Desrochers · January 25, 2011, 02:08:59 PM

Thanks everyone! To answer a few questions, we do not have an in-house server, I found that article about only accepting email from AppRiver, but don't think it applies, because I doubt they can limit just our email, but I'm going to call them later to see if we can work something out.
Orlando, I didn't ask AppRiver what they were seeing, i just contacted them for their most current MX records, to make sure nothing else got messed up!
Overall it was a Monday, but like I said before, I appreciate the honesty from the person who made the mistake and the call from the supervisor this morning.
However when we make our real switch to our new website, it will be on a Friday night! This will give it the weekend to populate! (I don't care if it's old school thinking, i just saw it in action yesterday).
Thanks!
Lynne

Orlando Alonzo · January 25, 2011, 03:38:39 PM

When you do make your switch, you can ask Appriver to bag emails. You can have them release it once all the changes are done. This way you don't lose anything. Making changes on a Friday, is never a bad thing. Good luck.

Lynne Desrochers · January 25, 2011, 04:13:14 PM

Oh, good reminder! Thanks.

Lynne Desrochers · January 25, 2011, 08:52:32 PM

Oh, Bob! one more thing, my day got better when I went to the Sixers game last night and had seats right behind the bench and got to watch them beat the Suns.
Lynne

Bob · January 26, 2011, 11:24:25 AM

That all sounds great except for the loss!

Great seats, behind bench! Suns are horrible this year and I feel bad for Steve Nash who isn't getting any younger and deserves better. Glad you had a good time! Those kind of seats I would have had a good time even with a loss.

Lynne Desrochers · January 26, 2011, 11:53:32 AM

yes, i am a sixers fan, but do love little stevie nash. It was good to see Grant Hill as well. Supposedly I had a goofy grin on my face the entire game.
When we took a picture of Doug Collins (Sixers coach) shaking hands with Steve, doug said to us "you're taking pictures of the wrong team!"