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smtp authentication

I've bought some reseller hosting and found out that all migrated accounts have broken contact forms because the new provider requires SMTP authentication. No hint of the requirement on the main site, and it's not a limitation I ever experienced with shared/reseller hosting before. Are they taking the piss, or is this more common that I think?

Comments

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran
    edited December 2016

    I'd say that's a good requirement. In today's email climate you don't want to be sending emails as [email protected]. Primarily because that address cannot receive email from outside (I'm assuming cPanel), and also because no one is going to be setting up SPF for that shared server's hostname. If you spoof the from address while sending as that, it doesn't make anything better, especially if the server continues to write that address to at least one header.

    You should SMTP authenticate because you want your contact forms to work consistently. You shouldn't want to use PHP mail() on a shared server.

    The days of "set it and forget it using the simplest possible method" are long gone. Email is a more complex game today than it was 5 years ago.

    (Also, compromised scripts often jump straight to trying PHP mail(), and so forbidding this is a huge burden off of them)

    Thanked by 1squibs
  • jarland said: The days of "set it and forget it using the simplest possible method" are long gone. Email is a more complex game today than it was 5 years ago.

    Where is the shameless (but well-deserved!) plug?

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    jiggawattz said: Where is the shameless (but well-deserved!) plug?

    ;)

  • Thanks for the considered response @jarland.

    In my position, would you set up one email account and use that for SMTP authentication on all client accounts so contact forms will work? It would be taxing to set up separate accounts for each client, and costly if they're on gsuite or similar.

  • jarjar Patron Provider, Top Host, Veteran

    @squibs said:
    Thanks for the considered response @jarland.

    In my position, would you set up one email account and use that for SMTP authentication on all client accounts so contact forms will work? It would be taxing to set up separate accounts for each client, and costly if they're on gsuite or similar.

    Yeah I'd say that's plenty to get the job done :)

  • gestiondbigestiondbi Member, Patron Provider

    More and more common

  • One of my hosts has the same requirements, since a lot of my websites run WordPress I got the WP SMTP plugin and made a single mail account for each domain to send from. Works perfectly fine.

  • squibs said: I've bought some reseller hosting and found out that all migrated accounts have broken contact forms because the new provider requires SMTP authentication. No hint of the requirement on the main site, and it's not a limitation I ever experienced with shared/reseller hosting before. Are they taking the piss, or is this more common that I think?

    That wouldn't work for me. The ability to not able to diagnose and fault find issues directly with the sending server would be a deal breaker.

    There are also, some providers out there who will suspend your VPS just for sending an email, regardless if its legitimate or not.

  • Thanks for the replies. I've ended up using Gmail SMTP plugin with good results in WordPress.

    If I'd cottoned onto the issue a week ago, I'd have ditched the provider, but I migrated a good number of cpanel accounts, made the dns changes and told the clients before a client flagged the problem, so reverting now would be a pain. Also, apart from this one issue, speed has been great, and support excellent.>

  • It's not all that difficult to wrap mail() with PHPMailer..

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