Speed Zone Roping » Plesk http://www.speedzoneroping.com Because our users Love PLESK, and i hate it Sat, 10 Jul 2010 17:07:19 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 Plesk for Windows Auto Update http://www.speedzoneroping.com/2009/04/29/plesk-for-windows-auto-update/ http://www.speedzoneroping.com/2009/04/29/plesk-for-windows-auto-update/#comments Wed, 29 Apr 2009 18:01:15 +0000 szr http://www.speedzoneroping.com/?p=47 Plesk for Windows does NOT auto update, the feature is entierly not implemented.

What you do it Download plesk for Windows from the Parallels website, and run the installer, I upgraded today from 9.0.1 to 9.2.1

Sounds like it went smoothly (Did not check yet), but the update from 8.6 to 9.0.1 went smooth that is for sure

As for this update, the setup file (About 600MB) can be extracted if you open it with 7ZIP

]]> http://www.speedzoneroping.com/2009/04/29/plesk-for-windows-auto-update/feed/ 0 Linking Windows Plesk to external Database http://www.speedzoneroping.com/2009/04/27/linking-windows-plesk-to-external-database/ http://www.speedzoneroping.com/2009/04/27/linking-windows-plesk-to-external-database/#comments Tue, 28 Apr 2009 03:38:51 +0000 szr http://www.speedzoneroping.com/?p=30 So, I setup Windows in a VM with that old version of windows i had on the shelf for some time. (Thanks XEN HVM), Installed .NET 3.5 SP1 and the KB959209 , Setup MSSQL Express 2008

Things that got setup

SQL SERVER REPLICATION
FULL TEXT SEARCH
REPORTING SERVICES
BUSINESS INTELLIGENCE DEV STUDIO
Management Tools
SQL Client Connectivity
ms sync framework

From the SQL SERVER CONFIGURATION MANAGER, i enabled TCP/IP from protocols for SQL express

Opened a hole in the firewall for both MSSQL\Binn\sqlservr.exe and \90\Shared\sqlbrowser.exe

and then from within Plesk i added the server

Server Host: mywin.server.com.\MSSQLExpress

Admin User: sa

Admin Pass: Same pass i entered in Mixed authentication for the sa user !

Done, Plesk thinks this is a great thing i have done and accepts the thing instantly

MS advises that i read Understanding Surface Area – In setup help Minimize SQL Server 2008 surface Area

]]> http://www.speedzoneroping.com/2009/04/27/linking-windows-plesk-to-external-database/feed/ 0 .NET 3.5 on PLESK http://www.speedzoneroping.com/2009/04/27/net-35-on-plesk/ http://www.speedzoneroping.com/2009/04/27/net-35-on-plesk/#comments Tue, 28 Apr 2009 03:26:02 +0000 szr http://www.speedzoneroping.com/?p=27 So, My PLESK 9.0.1 comes with .NET 2.0 Version 2.0.50727.0 is what PLESK reports, Installing .NET 3.5 SP1 and the KB959209 did not bump that from within PLESK.

So maybe with IIS i can assign 3.5 ?

Well, i am just setting up this server so i don’t know how plesk works in this regard yet, But i sure will very very soon.

As you may well know 3.5 is an upgrade to 2.0, it is not really different at the core, it is just a larger 2.0

I will let you know as soon as i do about how this thing works, for now i have to go finish setting up this thing to use MS SQL Express edition 2008.

]]> http://www.speedzoneroping.com/2009/04/27/net-35-on-plesk/feed/ 0 Mail message submission MAIL PORT 587 http://www.speedzoneroping.com/2009/04/26/mail-message-submission-mail-port-587/ http://www.speedzoneroping.com/2009/04/26/mail-message-submission-mail-port-587/#comments Mon, 27 Apr 2009 01:30:41 +0000 szr http://www.speedzoneroping.com/?p=23 According to PLESK, the point of the Mail message submission feature is to “protect your server against unauthorized mail relaying or injection of unsolicited bulk mail.”, So in other words, They mean security through obscurity, or in other words, if the hacker does not know that the port is 587 rather than 25 then they will not be able to relay mail right ?

security through obscurity is in a few words “A system relying on security through obscurity may have theoretical or actual security vulnerabilities, but its owners or designers believe that the flaws are not known, and that attackers are unlikely to find them.”

Well, i don’t think so, surely not when PLESK hard codes a port !

You see, Mail span software evolves daily, and when you popularise a port, it is probably on the checklist of spammer software.

So how do you stop the spam ? I personally implement a system to limit the amount of email a Domain name can send and requier authentication to send mail.

So, not to go off topic, the Mail Message submission feature does have a use to me, Even though it is not rocket science to open extra ports for mail, This feature is rather useful for users who have there port 25 blocked for example.

In Jordan, Most ISPs block port 25 to reduce spam, as an expert i have no clue how they intend to stop spam by blocking port 25, They can’t be serious, Spammers are power users and they know how to overcome the Port 25 issue, and there are not many servers on the internet that are open relays are there ?

Anyway, i am not here to critisize them either, the point is, You can always open alternative ports for your users (Any port you wish) and instruct them to use it, and plesk makes it easier with a single click.

As i write, A PLESK 8.6 Windows machine displays the message next to Switch on message submission, i will let you know about this feature in Plesk 9 and if it is available and what workarounds exist for this as soon as i get PLESK 9

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