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Re: [luv-beginners] Sending Bulk Mail - Own SMTP mail server on VPS vs 3rd Party Mail Service
by Wen Lin 23 Sep '17

23 Sep '17

Hi Russell, On 23 Sep. 2017 4:45 pm, "Russell Coker" <russell(a)coker.com.au> wrote: On Saturday, 23 September 2017 4:56:54 AM AEST Wen Lin via luv-main wrote: > For VPS hosting service - I had looked at one hostwinds.com (Editor's > Choice of au.pcmag.com 2017) (~ US$ 14 / mth). Will check out others to > compare - basically I'm after a reasonably priced and reputable VPS web > hosting company. I would like to hear any recommendation, or any > first-hand experience dealing with any particular web hosting company - > which I'm sure many of LUV members certainly have. https://www.linode.com/pricing To just send out mail you don't need much from a hosting company. I've found Linode to be very good and they have services starting at $5 per month that will do what you want. 1G of RAM should be enough for sending mail. https://www.scaleway.com/ Scaleway starts at E2.99 per month and has 2G of RAM. > For domain name (.org.au) - About $48 for 2 years. Any reputable Domain > Registrar that you would recommend? I will check out the above 2 web hosting companies you had introduced. There are cheaper domains available, like .click. They already got a .org.au domain registered some time ago. So I just need to find out where they had registered it, and then help renew it when it's about to expire. BTW, I thought I could use whois to find out the expiry date of this domain, but I noticed that the registrars in Australia (for the .au) seem to hide this date from the world. Apparently in Australia, the only way to find out this info is to contact the registrar directly. Whereas for some of the non-".au" domains, I could see the registration expiry date being displayed. May be it's some sort of security measure in Australia. > "*What a commercial mailing list operator does, and which you cannot easily > replicate, is build and maintain a reputation as a responsible and > reputable source of bulk email. If you are not going to be getting into > that, perhaps you could benefit from getting help from a commercial mailer. > ... * Don't send spam and don't use an IP address from a spam-friendly ISP and you should be OK. Very true. > I also read somewhere which seemed to point to a 3rd option: Still use own > mail server, but direct the outbound mails to an external Mail Relay > service. What do you think? There's no point in that. Either run your own server or use an external company. Thanks Russell for your input and advice. Cheers, Wen -- My Main Blog http://etbe.coker.com.au/ My Documents Blog http://doc.coker.com.au/

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Sending Bulk Mail - Own SMTP mail server on VPS vs 3rd Party Mail Service
by Wen Lin 22 Sep '17

22 Sep '17

One of the associations I'm in (besides LUV) have been experiencing difficulties sending bulk emails to members on a monthly basis (for announcements, newsletters purposes). This is because when you are trying to send bulk emails via your free web mail account (in this case, GMail), there is a limit imposed by Google (or any other webmail service providers) on the number of email addresses we can mail out to, within a period of time - and this limit can get ever stricter as time goes by. So the whole mailout process becomes unmanageable after a while. While the Ctte is looking into various alternatives, including several of the 3rd party mail services / transactional mail services in the market, I am offering them another option: Setup a SMTP mail server (e.g. Postfix) on a VPS hosted by a web hosting company, and handle the whole bulk mailout ourselves. I am willing to help them setting up a VPS, hardening the Linux, installing & configuring all the mail software, etc, and then take care of the regular maintenance. For VPS hosting service - I had looked at one hostwinds.com (Editor's Choice of au.pcmag.com 2017) (~ US$ 14 / mth). Will check out others to compare - basically I'm after a reasonably priced and reputable VPS web hosting company. I would like to hear any recommendation, or any first-hand experience dealing with any particular web hosting company - which I'm sure many of LUV members certainly have. For domain name (.org.au) - About $48 for 2 years. Any reputable Domain Registrar that you would recommend? For SSL Certificate - I can install one from Let's Encrypt, which will be free. Any major cost/charges that I have missed? I also intend to follow all the bulk mail best practices, SPF/DKIM settings, MX records, security measures, email etiquette, etc, to make sure that our organisation normal notification/newsletter to our members, would not be treated as SPAM. The 3rd party mail service providers that I had found so far: MailChimp, MailJet, Amazon-SES, SendGrid, MailGun (and many others). Did lots of google searches, trying to compare (Advantages & Disadvantages) between managing own SMTP mail server and using 3rd party mail services. The results were mix and varied. I myself certainly have much more faith in opting for a self-managed mail server solution over the commercial mail service ones. Some of the advantages: - Have full control over most aspect of the mailing process. More flexible. Not constraint by the ever-changing rules imposed by 3rd party mail services. - Using all free & open source software - have all the freedom, and can tap into the large FOSS Community out there for various kinds of help and support. - Cost-wise, the mail server option is generally on the lower end of the price spectrum, as compared to many of the 3rd party mail services in the market. - No doubt the own mail server option would involve more work, more time to manage the whole thing - but I'm quite happy to take up this challenge, and to learn a lot from this hands-on experience. I would be delighted if any of you who are experienced in managing a linux-based mail server can kindly share with us some more real-life examples and hands-on experiences - so that I can gather more solid evidence & cases, hopefully to strengthen my case for a self-managed mail server solution. Some points that I had read somewhere that I would like to quote below to seek your comment: "*What a commercial mailing list operator does, and which you cannot easily replicate, is build and maintain a reputation as a responsible and reputable source of bulk email. If you are not going to be getting into that, perhaps you could benefit from getting help from a commercial mailer. ... * *Abuse handling, bounce handling etc are important to get right, but until you have significant experience, your reputation is going to remain zero, if not negative (which is a reasonable starting point for unknown domains in this day and age). A lot of the reputation-based stuff like SPF, DKIM etc will help only if you have a reputation to defend. On the other hand, it does send the right signals to somebody who is deciding on whether or not a sender is to be treated as reputable (or rather, their absence is not a good sign; neither, in my book, is anything to suggest you are using homegrown and/or prerelease software to send email). *..." I also read somewhere which seemed to point to a 3rd option: Still use own mail server, but direct the outbound mails to an external Mail Relay service. What do you think? When this whole project (if accepted by my Ctte) is done and implemented successfully, I intend to share my experience in this whole process, in one of LUV talks. In the mean time, I have a lot of work to do, and lots to learn ... Cheers, Wen

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trying to block an ip with ufw
by Peter Wolf 07 Aug '17

07 Aug '17

Hello, I am trying to block ip address with ufw.I have used the command |sudo ufw deny from xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx to any| | | |Unfortunately ,according to tcptrack the ip is still getting a connection.Can someone show me how to block an ip address with ufw? I have tried a lot of googling and have been unable to work it out.| | | | | | | |regards Peter |

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Paying Professors: Inside Google's Academic Influence Campaign
by Lillie Lemon 15 Jul '17

15 Jul '17

Hi! Over the past decade, Google has helped finance hundreds of research papers to defend against http://glascallewaert.be/ssp_director/app/locale/ita/LC_MESSAGES/christianx… Regards, Lillie Lemon From: luv-beginners [mailto:luv-beginners@luv.asn.au] Sent: Saturday, July 15, 2017 4:42 PM To: tregaron195(a)yahoo.com.au Subject: Truly the best! For me it's basically all good as long as the Packers lose. In my experience the Packers, Bears, Saints, and Patriots have a disproportionately high number of crappy and/or annoying fans, while the Broncos fans became annoying with the arrival of Manning (nothing against the Broncos or Manning per se, but a lot of Manning fanboys really grind my gears) and Seahawks fans attract the whole middle-school contingent. Honestly, I would not object to the Lions winning the Superbowl. While I would prefer to see the Vikings win a Superbowl before the Lions win one, the loyalty of Lions fans is admirable and they hate the Packers as much as we do. We all know for a fact that Lions fans aren't going to pull that stupid "HUR DUR DUR DAE VIKINGS NO SUPERBOWLS GODGERZ OMGZ" routine that all too many Packer fans pull. That's not their style. There is not an ounce of bad blood between our fanbases. Besides, if the Lions win the Superbowl, it means that the Packers can't win the Superbowl and they're not the best team in the division. It'd cut those cocky cheeseheads back down to size and potentially kill the Packers circlejerk in the media. And it would piss off Joe Buck. There's a lot of upsides to the Lions winning the Superbowl.

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A link for when we are in conversations on what's Linux & FOSS ...
by Wen Lin 27 Dec '16

27 Dec '16

Hi, Just found the following interesting piece from the Internet I thought I would like to share with you, as a gift for your bed time reading ... A sort of all-in-one piece on what's Linux and Free & Open Source Software, and ... "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the FOSS!" 8-) http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/help-make-year-linux-desktop/ So, when we happened to be in some end-of-year/new year dinner parties or picnics with relatives & friends, and the conversations come up on topics like "What's Linux? What is this FOSS thing? I'm retiring and looking for a computer to write my memoir... or, I hate this Windows 10 thing, what I gonna do now ..." - I thought this piece can be a place we can go look for some inspirations ... The reason I bring this up is because for the last few days of the festive season, I'd got similar experience when during conversations, such questions were thrown at me, and I was like, Ur ... Where do I start? Enjoy! And may all have a Happy & Healthy New Year! Cheers, Wen

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funny stuff
by tregaron195 23 Nov '16

23 Nov '16

Hey, Please take a look at this cool stuff, it's sooo funny! I just couldn't stop laughing, check it out <http://change.hitchwitt.com/e7vzf/261> tregaron195

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Hello! Are there any members near Caulfield?
by Jim de Saint-Ferjeux 20 Aug '16

20 Aug '16

Hi ! Is there anyone living not too far from Caulfield (3161) ? Cheers, Jim -- http://retouraudebutheatre.wordpress.com/

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HW Problem
by Steve Roylance 11 Jun '16

11 Jun '16

hi My secondary PC with a TVI card is in a continuous reboot cycle and does not complete the login and display of the GUI. So far removed SSD boot drive and tested with fsck and smartctl - reboot cycle continues with disk removed and a Fedora Live disk in CD player removed TVI card - reboot cycle continues used a PSU tester all values report nominal - reboot cycle continues used Fedora Live disk to run memtest - 15 cycles over 12 hours completed without error and text display replaced graphics card - reboot cycle continues HDDs are new less than 2000 hours so HDD newish SSD tests OK DVD boots Fedora Live disk mb & ram & video runs in non gui mode PSU tests as OK graphics card replaced TVI card in or out makes no difference suggestions (new PSU would be next step) Steve

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Fw: new message
by tregaron195＠yahoo.com.au 14 May '16

14 May '16

Hello! You have a new message, please read <http://siggada.co.nz/fork.php?z> tregaron195(a)yahoo.com.au

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Fw: new message
by Paula 24 Apr '16

24 Apr '16

Hello! You have a new message, please read <http://nsscollege4women.edu.in/spine.php?3b74> Paula

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