Is nginx really worth it for me

[ibaker]

I am completely dumb when it comes to server admin however I could do what I needed when I had cPanel/WHM installed on a standard dedicated server running CentOS. Back then I was running Xenforo which is also easy to manage...very much set and forget. I went to IPS and with IPS being more resource hungry I got a new dedicated server and got a Server Admin guy to set it all up for me and he setup CloudFlare, nginx and CentminMod however I now have to completely rely on him as I know nothing about any of this and it costs me dollars every time I need something done.

The server guy says that he wont put cPanel or any other server contriol panel on the server nor will he add any email setup/handling on it as well as he says these won't work properly with my setup plus they take resources away form the server. I also note that cPanel has now increased in price and thus priced itself out of my pocket.

However, my dedicated server is an extreme overkill for my needs, 2 IPS sites and 1 ecom shopping cart site, as it has Intel Xeon E-2288G, 64GB DDR4 ECC, 1.2TB NVMe, 1Gbps Port, /29 but $150 USD a month ($225 AUD) and if I want, I can get DirectAdmin installed on it by the server provider for free but as I said the server admin guy advises I shouldn't do that as there will be a performance hit. If I was to reduce the spec's of the server to only what I really need I wouldn't really save that much. The server is based in Los Angeles however 90% of my users are in Australia but servers in Australia are extremely expensive.

I am plagued with issues with IPS and every time I go to IPS support they ask me questions that I have to go to the server guy to get an answer. Currently I seem to have major issues with things like cacheing. Also email, site emails are ending up in the user's spam folder. When I tried to look into it I went to IPS support and they said it was the fault of the server set up, the server guy says there is nothing wrong with the server setup, IPs are all clean etc etc etc. He advises to pay extra and get Amazon SES and run emails from needs some info to set it up in IPS, IPS support says it is out of their scope and round and round it all goes mean while I have had enough of it all. I have noticed that sometimes when I log out of the IPS ACP I get an error saying Sorry you don't have permission to do that. I lodged an IPS support and they come back with "Do you have any cacheing?"...I don't know, so i have to go to the server guy and wait over night for an answer (different time zones). he helps me with answers to questions but if I wanted to pay a further $30 a month extra I could have full server management (seems the going rate)...aargh. I've had enough!!!

I wish it could just be like it use to be...a dedicated server with cPanel that was cheap enough to run my sites comfortable and I could add en email account, add a domain, do this, do that etc etc etc.

The server is fast though, but is there a solution that doesn't compromise the performance that much?

Like with the server having such high specs could I just go with Centos and DirectAdmin, making life simple again, and be ok for the sites I have and my Australian audience (main site has 500k posts, 11,000 users, about 100 users concurrent).

Do any of you learned people have any advice in laymen words for me...it is so much appreciated any help you can give

 

Edited October 21, 2020 by ibaker

[CoffeeCake]

I think the solution is rather straight forward. Go with what you're comfortable with, sized adequately to what you need it to do, or educate yourself to the ability you're able out of relying on this person so much.

 

[ibaker]

2 minutes ago, Paul E. said:

I think the solution is rather straight forward. Go with what you're comfortable with, sized adequately to what you need it to do, or educate yourself to the ability you're able out of relying on this person so much.

 

Thanks, I am 61 years old so too old to start learning all this again besides it has become more complicated than in my day...but would I end up with more problems with a dog of a site?

[CoffeeCake]

2 minutes ago, ibaker said:

Thanks, I am 61 years old so too old to start learning all this again besides it has become more complicated than in my day...but would I end up with more problems with a dog of a site?

You're never too old to learn! There are lots of online courses available for free, such as MOCs and such that teach all the things you'd need to know about these things, and most of what you'd need is a set-and-forget thing. You seem to have two big issues:

• AdminCP issues with Cloudflare (you should disable caching for your AdminCP in Cloudflare using page rules)
• E-mail being flagged as spam

Your server guy, whoever he is, blaming IPS for the spam bit is a really good sign that your server guy is worthless. Replace him. A rock with a painted face and googly eyes would be a better investment. E-mail is flagged as spam by providers because you've been blacklisted, or because someone on your shared hosting has gotten you blacklisted. You may have gotten blacklisted by having a hacker exploit the send via e-mail vulnerability that was patched in the later 4.4.x series, though, to be fair to server guy. Isolating yourself from other sites is your only hope here.

Amazon SES isn't supported through an API, so you need to use the SMTP option. Search the forums here for more on this. We don't use Amazon, so I can't speak to what's required, but lots of folks have asked for API integration. It's just not a feature of IPS at this time to configure the way you'd expect, but it can be done using SMTP. This can be done on the server (if that's what server guy is comfortable with) by routing mail sent to the local machine to Amazon SES, or more easily and quickly by plugging in the necessary values into the IPS AdminCP.

If you tell this all to server guy, and he charges you, tell him he owes me $50.

[Makoto]

It honestly might not matter whether your IP is on any blacklists or not. If you're delivering mail from your bare metal server, it's likely going to end up in spam. So your server guy may not be lying when he says there's nothing wrong with your server IP's reputation, but he is lying by blaming it on IPS. It has little to nothing to do with the software, unless the software itself is sending e-mail that is spammy, which IPS does not do.

There are things you can do to try and help mitigate it, but it's unfortunately just the way it is. Setting up things like DKIM and SPF records help make your mailing domain more trustworthy. If your server admin doesn't recognize the challenges and issues that are pressed when trying to deliver mail from a self-hosted server, my personal opinion is he doesn't sound very competent.

The best mailing solution I've personally found is integrating GSuite into IPS, which sadly isn't very straightforward to do. But it's literally delivering e-mail with Google. Considering the vast majority of people use GMail, and Google isn't likely to consider messages from other Google users to be spam, it naturally works out as a good solution. There are some caveats, but they're generally not relevant unless you're needing to send more than 10,000 messages per day.

I don't know who your server admin is, how much your paying him, or so on, but I'd have to agree with Paul E. that it sounds like he has no vested interest in you. I'm on retainer for a few clients as both a system admin and programmer but I would never treat my clients this way.

Edited October 20, 2020 by Makoto

[ibaker]

In regards to the Email...my server guy has advised that DKIM and SPF are set up and ok, and he tested it. The Outgoing and Incoming email address I am using in the IPS email settings on my site at the domain recreationalflying is my own email address x@jackarx, the domain jackarx is also on the server, and the email records (MX???) are set to use Gmail, (I have grandfather rights to GSuite from years ago).

When I asked the server guy why the site emails are going to spam folders he advised that the emails are not seen as coming from the domain recreationalflying that they originate from but instead from the domain jackarx and thus Google is marking them as spam...or something like that...which is why he said I should use Amazon SES.

This is one of the reasons why I am raising the question on whether to drop the whole nginx/no server control panel option and go for something more simplier like being able to have emails being sent from the correct domain...I don't know if even what I am saying is right or not 🙃

Edited October 21, 2020 by ibaker

[Makoto]

This sounds like it may be an IPS configuration issue then.

When you login to your AdminCP, look for Email Settings 

Verify that your Outgoing email address is set to the correct address/domain.

[ibaker]

This is what I have

 

Edited October 20, 2020 by ibaker

[Makoto]

Are you only using this domain to receive e-mail via GSuite, or do you have IPS configured to deliver mail via GSuite Gmail through their SMTP relay?

If you're delivering mail via Google, this would be your e-mail delivery configuration,

If you're using the PHP mail method, you're not delivering mail via Google, and instead delivering it through your local server.

[ibaker]

I have php ticked, this is how it was setup for me but perhaps it was just left as default...should I change it to SMTP with smtp-relay.gmail.com?

I use Gmail as my mail client and as noted I have the grandfathered rights of GSuite as many years ago I set up GSuite for my jackar... domain when GSuite was free. I use the email address of jackar... domain for everything and I have just kept it that way.

Edited October 20, 2020 by ibaker

[Makoto]

No, you shouldn't change that for now, I just wanted to confirm you were indeed having mail sent from your local server.

This is unfortunately why your messages are likely being delivered to spam. Local mail servers are generally seen as a high potential for abuse even with a clean IP reputation, DKIM, SPF records and the whole shebang. That's why it's generally worth investing in a good mail solution like Amazon SES or GSuite nowadays.

The process in getting these configured is a bit involved though. I don't know for sure if there are any limits placed on your grandfathered GSuite account or not, but in general I recommend having a separate GSuite account (it can be on the same administrative domain) used for delivering site related e-mail, so this would run you an extra $6/mo if you wanted to configure it.

The reason I recommend this is otherwise you're going to get all those bounced e-mail messages and people accidentally replying to your site notifications to your main inbox, which you definitely don't want.

Edited October 20, 2020 by Makoto

[ibaker]

I very much appreciate all your advice...thank you

Just to fix one of the issues i.e. Emails going to spam folders, it seems that I could go the route of Amazon SES or GSuite which would add further costs, keep a high performance server possibly with more resources than I need, keep the nginx and CentminMod requiring a professional server admin person which is more costs...OR...go to Centos with DirectAdmin and have a server control panel where I could set up email account within the domain but possibly ??? have a lower performing site and perhaps still have the email issue.

[Rhett]

20 hours ago, ibaker said:

I very much appreciate all your advice...thank you

Just to fix one of the issues i.e. Emails going to spam folders, it seems that I could go the route of Amazon SES or GSuite which would add further costs, keep a high performance server possibly with more resources than I need, keep the nginx and CentminMod requiring a professional server admin person which is more costs...OR...go to Centos with DirectAdmin and have a server control panel where I could set up email account within the domain but possibly ??? have a lower performing site and perhaps still have the email issue.

The solution is to get a provider that actually knows what they are doing, by the information you have posted over time, you should get a fully managed provider, you can't really have the best of both worlds, the cost of an unmanaged server, and a properly working one without a proper server admin running things for you.  Email can be sent just fine from a dedicated server if it's setup properly and maintained properly.  This isn't anything new nor is it rocket science, but it does take someone willing to do things right. 

Best of luck to you, I hope you find a provider that can offer you some better service though, based on what you posted they replied with, I would run from them fast, as there are likely many other issues they are not paying attention to as well.

 

 

[CoffeeCake]

22 hours ago, ibaker said:

Just to fix one of the issues i.e. Emails going to spam folders

Fixing this involves ensuring your outbound IP address(es) for email are not used by someone else, that your email server is configured according to best practices, that you do what is required to define authorized servers for your domain, and perhaps most importantly that you don't do spammy things.

This could be done on a shared server (assuming your outbound email is unique to you). The issue is that you may be hard-pressed to find a server provisioned like that. You don't want the ip address sending your mail to be the same as another site on your shared server sending out spam.

Again, I think your problem is you are relying on someone who you shouldn't be. Get with one of the experienced folks on here if you want to keep on that route.

[ibaker]

I am finding many many issues in v4.5 and several of them including permission settings that still allow guests to posts even though you have not given them permission to, that I have advised IPS Support of and for several of those issues they advise they know about and will release a fix in due course. I have memcache, redis and zend opcache all installed but IPS v4.5 only shows that I can use redis. Apparently IPS changed in v4.5 and only allow for redis. I have addons that have css templates but v4.5 is not acknowledging the css templates as there are errors but if I copy the css templates into my custom.css template they work. I have had my server guy disable ALL cacheing but some css is still not being pulled up. I am convinced that v4.5 is extremely buggy and causing a huge amount of issues in my site.

Edited October 21, 2020 by ibaker