RainDrop Laboratories Status

Since September, the spam load on agora has jumped dramatically, with the result that the mail system has been faltering. To deal with the onslaught, a couple of changes have been made:

1. I’ve made arrangements with Peak Internet, the ISP I work full time for, to use their spam filter, a Barracuda Spam Firewall 600 (actually, a pair clustered to look like one). This does a very effective job, with only a few annoyances. For more info, there is some documentation, and you can see the current statistics.

   One of the things the barracuda is bad about is that users can’t manage their passwords.  It wouldn’t be good to flood Peak with calls to set them to something known (they shouldn’t be called about anything rdrop related), so I’ll handle it as needed.  It actually shouldn’t be necessary: When you get your daily quarantine notice (assuming you have something quarantined, but that’s almost a given), there will be a “click here” link at the bottom of the message.  That will, for about a day, work to get you into it and you can twiddle things from there.

   Note that because the barracuda is a separate, independent, system, it can’t tell what addresses are aliased to the same mailbox, so each email address you use will be managed separately.  That’s one of the other things I plan to fix when I get a new one built… (I plan to build my own eventually to fix some of the shortcomings of the Barracuda).

2. To keep spammers from going directly to the mail server and bypassing the spam filter, as well as to start the move to a new, updated, mail server, I’ve put a block so that only the spam filter can send mail into the rdrop mail servers. For similar reasons, the new dialup service blocks standard mail access, so users need to update their outgoing mail server configuration. I have documentation for configuring Outlook to help, though I still need to update it: for now, change references to smtp.rdrop.com to vmail.rdrop.com, and port 25 to port 465. You will also want to visit a page to install a new certificate so your mail program will trust the new mail server. NOTE: If you have trouble logging into vmail.rdrop.com, go to the User Account Management page and reset your password. Some accounts have an old format password that the new system doesn’t understand, and this will update it to the new format. Be sure to use a good password — spammers are getting really sophisticated and cracking accounts so they can send authenticated spam using hijacked accounts.

I’ll be moving incoming mail to vmail early next year, but I’ll have updated docs and separate info for that change…

As previously mentioned, dialup usage has dropped off to the point where it’s no longer practical to continue offering dialup service (all other services will continue unchanged).  As a result, I’ve made arrangements with Peak Internet, the ISP I work full time at, to pickup my dialup users.  They will continue accounts as-is: accounts will expire at the same time, and the rates will be the same.  Only the dialup service is moving; in order to minimize disruption, I’ll continue email service at rdrop.com as long as you have your Peak account.  You should already have the new connect info, if not, use the support form to let me know and I’ll get you all setup.

There’s a number of updates happening, long overdue; here’s an overview:

1. There are only 50 people actively using dialups, and dropping, and that isn’t covering the $600 phone bill, so the dialups are being handed off to Peak Internet, the ISP I work for for a day job in Corvallis, OR (they have Portland numbers).
2. The level of spam took a dramatic increase in September, causing things to break on agora all too often.  As a result, I made arrangements with Peak to route Raindrop’s mail through their spam filter.  I’m also making other related changes to keep spammers from bypassing the spam filter (this is why pop/imap clients need to use vmail.rdrop.com:587 to send mail).
3. Agora is several years out of date, and I’m making progress on getting new versions of the various services up and running.  webmail has already moved to new software, vmail for outgoing is the next step

After that, I’ll be moving mailboxes to a new imap server on it (that, unfortunately, will be another painful transition, but should allow for transparent upgrades afterwards).  After that, I’ll be moving web sites to a new server (that *should* be mostly transparent), and finally a new shell server for shell users.  Once I get everything moved off the old server, I can rebuild it, and make some more improvements behind the scenes to improve things, but after the initial transitions, which should be done by this spring, everything should be pretty transparent.

I’ve recently been made aware of a really cool new tool for customer support: https://secure.logmein.com/products/free/

What it does is allow you to “send an invite” to me, then I can click on a web link and get remote access to your desktop (it prompts you for confirmation, so you have to be there watching, and it’s all done over a secure connection).  Then I can easily check your configs and get you going.  It also has a chat feature and lets me draw on your screen to
point things out if need be.  I’m pretty excited about it actually ;-) — it’ll make support a ton easier…

All you have to do is go to that link ahead of time and install the free app; when you need help with a configuration or troubleshooting, coordinate a time with me and use the app to send me the “invite”.  It takes care of the rest…