VPS Plus Email Help Needed

Thor

Thor

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Hello :)

I was wondering if someone can assist me.

I want to a buy a VPS, BUT I want to know what would be the best OS to take with it, I have only used Cpanal and WHM in the past, but lately the licenses just became ridiculous, so I am looking to start going to open source route.

Perhaps I should have leaded with this:

I want to use the VPS purely as a mail server, I a have list of subscribers ( All Legit ) whom I send a monthly newsletter too, but I've always used mailchimp, but the list grew and I don't want to buy a mailchimp account so I was wondering how complicated would it be to create my own "mailchimp" ?

This is for private use only, It's literally just me sending out newsletters.

I would greatly appreciate the help
 
Last edited:
Thor187 said:
Hello :)

I was wondering if someone can assist me.

I want to a buy a VPS, BUT I want to know what would be the best OS to take with it, I have only used Cpanal and WHM in the past, but lately the licenses just became ridiculous, so I am looking to start going to open source route.

Perhaps I should have leaded with this:

I want to use the VPS purely as a mail server, I a have list of subscribers ( All Legit ) whom I send a monthly newsletter too, but I've always used mailchimp, but the list grew and I don't want to buy a mailchimp account so I was wondering how complicated would it be to create my own "mailchimp" ?

This is for private use only, It's literally just me sending out newsletters.

I would greatly appreciate the help
Click to expand...

What kind of volume are we talking? I'm assuming greater than 12k per mailing?

I wouldn't waste time trying to send bulk mail directly from a VPS, sure it's possible but it's going to be a pain when your stuff starts getting blacklisted (or the IP you get already be on multiple blacklists).

I'd recommend using Sendy (www.sendy.co). It's a once-off software purchase which you then install on your own hardware/VPS/whatever. It uses Amazon's SES service as your mail relay.

It's crazy cheap when compared to other solutions like MailChimp. We sent just over a half a million mails during December last year and it cost around $50.

If you're interested with this and have any questions you can pm me, I've become quite well acquainted with Sendy.
 
The price for cpanel has kinda remained the same for a long time. Also dont forget you get a cheaper version of cpanel for a VPS. Its only $14.
 
Provided your news letters specifically state that the subscriber opted in to receive the news letter and you provide a legitimate link to unsubscribe, you should not have issues with your IP being blacklisted.. but this is also dependent on whether you ensure your email accounts dont get hijacked by spammers.. worst case scenario, you get a vps, add an additional 1 or 2 ip's, which will then allow you to switch between ip's if one of gets blacklisted.. you can then send mail while you attend to getting the ip delisted..

to answer your question though, going open source, you will need a linux OS, and then you will have to setup something like exim as your mta, or mail sending service.. you will need dovecot and something like horde or squirrelmail to have a web based interface for your mailboxes.. if you are comfortable using linux, this will be an easy enough thing to setup..
 
WAslayer said:
Provided your news letters specifically state that the subscriber opted in to receive the news letter and you provide a legitimate link to unsubscribe, you should not have issues with your IP being blacklisted.. but this is also dependent on whether you ensure your email accounts dont get hijacked by spammers.. worst case scenario, you get a vps, add an additional 1 or 2 ip's, which will then allow you to switch between ip's if one of gets blacklisted.. you can then send mail while you attend to getting the ip delisted..

to answer your question though, going open source, you will need a linux OS, and then you will have to setup something like exim as your mta, or mail sending service.. you will need dovecot and something like horde or squirrelmail to have a web based interface for your mailboxes.. if you are comfortable using linux, this will be an easy enough thing to setup..
Click to expand...

I am going with the Dr's prescription
 
Hey, I am stuck...


I ordered a VPS loaded Centos and CentOS Web Panel, I created the hosting package and I bought the domain on hostkings yesterday ( Brilliant, brilliant support btw ).... However i am now stuck, I just cannot figure out how to configure the DNS settings, in WHM I usually create the account then I go to the list accounts and then access the specific accounts Cpnal and then I go to go daddy and put in the nameservers of the dedicated server, but on CentOS Web Panel I am a bit lost and not sure what the fudge I am doing to be honest.
 
On hostkings do they provide a dns service? If so you can create A records to you vps and mx records for mail.
 
paul5186 said:
On hostkings do they provide a dns service? If so you can create A records to you vps and mx records for mail.
Click to expand...

I am not entirely sure, I will go look quickly, so I just create an A record to the VPS's IP address.

( I still get confused how the VPS knows what domain is what if I point 30 domains from hostkings for example all to the 1 IP of the VPS
 
Thor187 said:
I can only find Nameservers and Glue records ?
Click to expand...
I am not familiar with hostkings, but they should provide some sort of authoritative dns service? Maybe they charge extra for it? Then in apache you will need to create a vhosts file if you are going to use subdomains and multiple domain names to point them at the folder where the content resides as well as where the log files sit. You will need to also gracefully restart apache each time changes are made to this file.
 
Thor187 said:
I can only find Nameservers and Glue records ?
Click to expand...

May I suggest you use Amazon's Route 53 as your DNS management tool. It costs a little ($0.51 per domain) but it's well worth it especially since you're going to be using SES with Sendy. Some DNS editors don't play along nicely with the format of the TXT records you have to use for DKIM, Route 53 just works.

To do this:

1. Login to your AWS account.
2. Select the Services menu and choose Route 53.
3. Select Hosted Zones.
4. Create Hosted Zone.
5. Enter Domain Name and comment, leave Type on the default.
6. You will now receive a list of 4 names ervers.
7. In your Hostking control panel change the name servers to the ones shown above.

Wait for a few hours for propagation, now you can manage your DNS through AWS.

To check which nameservers are being used you can run:

Code: 
dig yourdomain.com NS

This works on Mac and Linux, not sure what the Windows command is.
 
This is what I want to het right:

I have the VPS

I have set up Centos 6
I have set up CentOS Web Panel
I have created the hosting package

If I type in my_server_ip/~username then I can see the website, but how do I set up the NameServers on CentOS so that I can type them into Hostking.

So that I can use the actual URL and not this temporary one

---------------------------------------------

I really hope I am making sense, it might help if I add that I do not really fully understand nameservers yet and I am learning.
 
Last edited:
Thor187 said:
This is what I want to het right:

I have the VPS

I have set up Centos 6
I have set up CentOS Web Panel
I have created the hosting package

If I type in my_server_ip/~username then I can see the website, but how do I set up the NameServers on CentOS so that I can type them into Hostking.

So that I can use the actual URL and not this temporary one

---------------------------------------------

I really hope I am making sense, it might help if I add that I do not really fully understand nameservers yet and I am learning.
Click to expand...

bump...
 
DrJohnZoidberg said:
Did you take a look at my suggestion regarding Route 53 DNS management?
Click to expand...

I did and I am keeping that as a last resort.

I really want to get this working without resorting to that yet, we have another dedicated server with the dns set up etc, but it was before my time and I am only just starting.

So I am actually more confused than anything else simply because I do not fully grasp the whole picture regarding domains yet so I do not really know what I am doing wrong etc if that makes sense.
 
Thor187 said:
I did and I am keeping that as a last resort.

I really want to get this working without resorting to that yet, we have another dedicated server with the dns set up etc, but it was before my time and I am only just starting.

So I am actually more confused than anything else simply because I do not fully grasp the whole picture regarding domains yet so I do not really know what I am doing wrong etc if that makes sense.
Click to expand...

You need a DNS management tool where you can change and edit records for that domain. Are you saying you already have a public DNS server (the dedicated server you're talking about)? If so what software is it running?
 
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