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TwitterI think I found a small bug or at least an unlogical setup in Plesk. When creating a subscription without hosting, an e-mail server account is created but it is impossible to manage or disable it until a hosting account is set up.
Here is a more description explanation of the issue:
We manage all our domains through Plesk, we use it as our primary DNS server. That is very convenient. However, not all our sites are running on the same server. Some, for example, will need a more advanced manual configuration, or they need e-mail to run on a different server. This is a quite common scenario, think for example of a client who already has an advanced e-mail setup (eg. Exchange) with a different provider, but turns to us for site development.
For this purpose we have created a subscription type DNS only with the option No Hosting. That works perfectly well - almost. There is just one little caveat which I think amounts to an actual bug.
When setting up an account with the option No Hosting, no IIS site is setup, but an e-mail account is always created in the mail server (we use SmarterMail). But when the option No Hosting is selected, is it not actually possible to manage e-mail through Plesk, and it can also not be viewed or disabled until hosting is setup.
Now, we can manually change the MX record through Plesk DNS management to use an external mail server, that works fine. There is only one practical problem: if you try to send a mail from an account on the same Plesk server (i.e. same mail server), it tries to deliver the mail locally because there is this stealth account for the same domain created by Plesk on the server.
There is a solution: going into your mail server software and manually deleting the mail domain. The tricky part is that the problem might go undetected for a while, and if it is detected it might not be obvious what the cause is. Also, with Plesk you are never really sure if Plesk during some maintenance procedure re-creates the unwanted account.
The current situation is not logical: if no hosting is selected, creating a mail server account is obligatory, but for managing or disabling the mail server domain, hosting is required.
I think one of two solutions makes sense:
- Do not set up an e-mail account unless an hosting account is also set up, or better yet: make creating the mail server account an additional setting that can be disabled while creating the subscription.
- Second best: if the e-mail account somehow needs to be created automatically by Plesk for technical purposes, it should be possible to also see and manage it through Plesk and, if at all possible, disable or delete it through Plesk without the need to log into the mail server directly.
Regs,
Andor
Here is a more description explanation of the issue:
We manage all our domains through Plesk, we use it as our primary DNS server. That is very convenient. However, not all our sites are running on the same server. Some, for example, will need a more advanced manual configuration, or they need e-mail to run on a different server. This is a quite common scenario, think for example of a client who already has an advanced e-mail setup (eg. Exchange) with a different provider, but turns to us for site development.
For this purpose we have created a subscription type DNS only with the option No Hosting. That works perfectly well - almost. There is just one little caveat which I think amounts to an actual bug.
When setting up an account with the option No Hosting, no IIS site is setup, but an e-mail account is always created in the mail server (we use SmarterMail). But when the option No Hosting is selected, is it not actually possible to manage e-mail through Plesk, and it can also not be viewed or disabled until hosting is setup.
Now, we can manually change the MX record through Plesk DNS management to use an external mail server, that works fine. There is only one practical problem: if you try to send a mail from an account on the same Plesk server (i.e. same mail server), it tries to deliver the mail locally because there is this stealth account for the same domain created by Plesk on the server.
There is a solution: going into your mail server software and manually deleting the mail domain. The tricky part is that the problem might go undetected for a while, and if it is detected it might not be obvious what the cause is. Also, with Plesk you are never really sure if Plesk during some maintenance procedure re-creates the unwanted account.
The current situation is not logical: if no hosting is selected, creating a mail server account is obligatory, but for managing or disabling the mail server domain, hosting is required.
I think one of two solutions makes sense:
- Do not set up an e-mail account unless an hosting account is also set up, or better yet: make creating the mail server account an additional setting that can be disabled while creating the subscription.
- Second best: if the e-mail account somehow needs to be created automatically by Plesk for technical purposes, it should be possible to also see and manage it through Plesk and, if at all possible, disable or delete it through Plesk without the need to log into the mail server directly.
Regs,
Andor