When trying to login to WHMCS admin, you receive an error “Please complete the captcha and try again.”

In our experience this occurred with Safari on a Mac, and after a recent update.

On other browsers, this was not an issue at the time of writing this article.

Our WHMCS system has Invisible reCAPTCHA enabled

The Solution

It appears that a recent update in May 2023 has enabled a feature that “Hide IP address from trackers”

This is the feature that when enabled made the reCAPTCHA fail consistently on the admin login. Turn this feature off and the problem goes away. Hope this helps others.

This post WHMCS Admin Login – Please complete the captcha and try again – Safari first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

WordPress Geo Location Redirection fast SEO friendly

So the problem for us started out as this. We have a WordPress website that has content that is location specific. This content has been setup in WordPress using Elementor with essentially a duplication of the core site pages like contact-us, about-us, homepage, services, etc that had specific content if someone was in Europe vs Australia.

So for example, the home page has images related to either Australia or UK

.

How this was created

Kind of a different story than the context of this post, but within Elementor Header we have created 4 headings. These headings use the flags with set links in them to allow someone to redirect to a URL that will show UK content or not.

Each of the 4 headers have one of two menus, either a UK menu with links to all the UK content specific pages, or NON UK pages that are intended for all other countries but specifically Australia.

The idea is that just like a normal site you may have: home, about-us, contact-us etc. giving domain.com/contact-us/ for the base of the site, then content specific for UK with domain.com/contact-us/uk/ taking the user to a UK specific version of the contact us page. All the headers linking as they should to the relevant versions or the pages.

The Redirection Problem

So we have several redirection needs.

1. Google indexes the content and in time displays home pages linking that briefs the relevant content for searches in Europe that are SEO friendly there and the same for Australia.

2. A user directly entering a URL like domain.com/contact-us  or domain.com/contact-us/ needs to end up at the correct pages based on their Geo Location. This had to work for all pages on the site with specific content.

3. We have the pages cached and on page code optimised for SEO. Nothing we do can slow this down or mess with this.

4. It has to be fast and apparently effortless for the end user.

WordPress GIO Redirection Plugins

We initially looked for the easy way out with the possibility of using a simple GIO Redirection plugin the WP site. This would work well for a single page like the home page, but we could not find a free module that would handle all our requirements. Only about 10 pages but not just 1.

SEO and PageSpeed Considerations

Because our site has been optimised for WordPress SEO with a combination of:

• Rank Math
• WP Rocket
• Cloudflare
• Cloudfront CDN
• Imagify

To name a few, we have a comprehensive setup that delivers extremely fast content worldwide. The configuration of Cloudfront is using the free tier service to optimise many things, but specifically DNS services for this site. One of the Cloudflare services that is free to use is Geo Redirection using Transform Rules.

How We Implemented Geo Redirection with Cloudflare

Login to Cloudflare and select your domain in question.

Select Rules / Transform Rules

Create a New Rewrite URL

Fill in the fields for either Country or Continent, equals, Europe in our example

AND

URI equals /.  (Representing the home page or domain.com)

The Rewrite a Path with a Dynamic rule: concat(http.request.uri.path, “/home/uk/”)

Note that in our example above, the home page of the site outside Europe loads on domain.com and the home page of the Europe pages is domain.com/home/uk/. This is why our rule adds “/home/uk/“  for the home page rule.

Save the rule

We then create other rules for other pages on your site. We specifically wanted an end user to be able to type the rule URL with / at the end or use the URL to a page without the /. So for example the domain.com/bookkeeping-services/ is an example of a page. We want a user to be able to type domain.com/bookkeeping-services, with the redirection delivering the user to /bookkeeping-services/uk/ if they are in Europe.

This is achieved by searing for bookkeeping-services without the UK, to take into account that if someone is already searching for this address typing /uk/ in the URL, then we do not want to add a second /uk/ to the url making it invalid domain.com/bookkeeping-services/uk/uk/

To achieve this we set the following rule.

Not how it is making sure there is not already a “uk” in the page name before adding it to the URL. This worked well and ensured that all our goals were met.

I noted that there is a real lack of information about dynamic rules and how to set them up. Some examples but very few with dynamic redirections. Some people discussing this and asking questions, but I also noted that the coders answering the questions often referred people to create worker processes in Cloudflare, which I don’t really see the point for something as simple as this.

Anyway good luck if you are replicating this process and feel free to post comments that may help others.

This post WordPress Geo Redirection using Cloudflare first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

Running Magento 2 Files Growing

You find that the file size keeps growing and that your web server is taking up GB of data.

Magento keeps creating reports that can take up a lot of data. This can be a problem as web host for backup management and file system management.

If you do not need the reports, it is safe to delete them from: /var/report

https://magento.stackexchange.com/questions/58166/cleaning-up-magento-installation-which-files-folders-can-be-deleted

This post Magento File Size Keeps Growing first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

CPanel AutoSSL Did Not Renew on a Domain with Cloudflare configured

You may receive some warning in an email from your cPanel with error that look something like this after you have enabled and and moved your DNS servers over to Cloudflare. This occurs after enabling the option in Cloudflare to always use HTTPS.

Errors in this case in cPanel reported: 

DNS DCV: No local authority: “domain.com.au”; HTTP DCV: “cPanel (powered by Sectigo)” forbids DCV HTTP redirections.

The Fix

It is likely that you have enabled the feature in Cloudflare to “Always Use HTTPS” (which you would think is safe) but in this case it will cause this error. It needs to be disabled for a simple fix.

In Cloudflare after logging in and selecting the domain in question, open up the SSL/TSL Menu and select Edge Certificates.

Then select “Always Use HTTPS” to Off.

Then return to your cPanel SSL/TLS Status and rerun the Auto SSL process. This time it should fix the issue.

That is about it. There are technically ways to enable them to play together if you need to enable this option but consider that you can still enable the “Force HTTPS Redirects” in cPanel Domain settings to ensure that you site is always being accessed via the HTTPS connection. This is seperate to the similar named Cloudflare setting and still should give your site the security that users need. It is really only and advanced option to handle this in the Cloudflare setting.

This post cPanel AutoSSL certificate expiry on Date – Cloudflare Enabled domain first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

Reduce Exchange 2016 Mailbox Database size using Eseutil.

In this post I will walk through the steps of reducing the Exchange Mailbox Database size, However the method of reducing the Mailbox Database size varies from different administrators. If you can afford to have downtime on a Mailbox Database then these steps would work for you. Some Exchange Administrators  and in most cases myself ,will simply just create another new Mailbox Database and Move Mailboxes from one Database to another and then delete the old one.

For the purpose of this post , I will be using a build in tool from Microsoft called Eseutil.

Eseutil is a command line utility that works with Extensible Storage Engine (ESE), database (.edb) files, streaming (.stm) files, and log (.log) files associated with an Information Store, in a given Storage Group. The tool can be run on one database at a time from the command line and can be used to perform a range of database tasks from repair, offline defragmentation, and integrity checks in Exchange Server .

The most common Eseutil switches are listed in the table below.

Eseutil Mode
Switch
Description
Defragmentation
/D
Eseutil defragments the database files. This mode reduces the gross size on disk of the database (.edb) and streaming files (.stm) by discarding most empty pages and ad hoc indexes.

For more information, see these topics:

Eseutil /D Defragmentation Mode
How to Run Eseutil /D (Defragmentation)
Repair
/P
Eseutil repairs corrupt database pages in an offline database but discards any that can’t be fixed. In repair mode, the Eseutil utility fixes individual tables but does not adjust the relationships between tables. ISInteg should be used to check logical relationships between tables.

For more information, see these topics:

Eseutil /P Repair Mode
How to Run Eseutil /P (Repair) in Different Scenarios
Restore
/C
Eseutil displays the Restore.env file and controls hard recovery after restoration from online backup.

For more information, see these topics:

Eseutil /C Restore Mode
How to Run Eseutil /C (Restore) in Different Scenarios
Recovery
/R
Eseutil replays transaction log files or rolls them forward to restore a database to internal consistency or to bring an older copy of a database up to date.

For more information, see these topics:

Eseutil /R Recovery Mode
How to Run Eseutil /R in Recovery Mode
Integrity
/G
Eseutil verifies the page level and Extensible Storage Engine (ESE) level logical integrity of the database but does not verify database integrity at the Information Store level.

For more information, see these topics:

Eseutil /G Integrity Mode
How to Run Eseutil /G in Integrity Mode
File Dump
/M
Eseutil displays headers of database files, transaction log files, and checkpoint files. The mode also displays database space allocation and metadata.

For more information, see these topics:

Eseutil /M File Dump Mode
How to Run Eseutil /M in File Dump Mode
Checksum
/K
Eseutil verifies checksums on all pages in the database and streaming files.

For more information, see these topics:

Eseutil /K Checksum Mode
How to Run Eseutil /K in Checksum Mode
Copy File
/Y
Eseutil performs a fast copy of very large files.

For more information, see these topics:

Eseutil /Y Copy File Mode
How to Run Eseutil /Y in Copy File Mode
 

To get started I will check the current available whitespace for the Mailbox Database DB1 and then Dismount the Database.

 
1
Get-MailboxDatabase DB1 -Status | Format-List Name, DatabaseSize, AvailableNewMailboxSpace

Next Dismount the Database

 
1
Dismount-Database DB1 -confirm:$false
After the Mailbox Database has been Dismounted navigate to the install directory where Exchange has  been installed.

 
1
C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Bin>eseutil.exe
Open eseutil to view the available switches.

Next I will run the Defrag on Dismounted Database called “DB1”

C:\Program Files\Microsoft\Exchange Server\V15\Bin>eseutil.exe /d D:\DB\DB1.edb

Lets go ahead and Mount the Defragmented Database

 
1
Mount-Database DB1
Next lets view the available whitespace after the Defragmentation of the Database.

 
1
Get-MailboxDatabase DB1 -Status | Format-List Name, DatabaseSize, AvailableNewMailboxSpace
The amount of time it takes to run the Defragmentation of a Mailbox Database depends on the size of the Database and the Hardware its running from.

This has been copied for my own reference as it is super handy and exactly what I need to reference in the future. Taken from https://www.thatlazyadmin.com/2017/07/25/reduce-exchange-2016-mailbox-database-size-using-eseutil/ 

(Thanks for the perfect details. Needed my own copy as I can’t afford to miss this in the future)

Other Useful References is this for the database specifics: https://www.datanumen.com/blogs/depth-understanding-system-mailboxes-exchange-server/

This post Reduce Exchange 2016 Mailbox Database White Space first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

Office 365 sign in prompt when setting up Exchange email account on iPad, iPhone or Mac Mail

The issue arrives when you are attempting to configure a new exchange account that is not hosted on office 365 but you keep getting a prompt to sign into office 365 mail account when you attempt to add a new account for a domain.

The can be very confusing as if you have host your own services, or have a host that knows what they are doing, you can have an exchange email account that is not part of office 356 but yet you will see the prompt for sign into office 365 when attempting to set up the account on apple devices. It could well be that it also prompts with non apple devices, we did not bother to test.

The issue likely arises from the situation where office 365 services were once associated with the email domain in question. Commonly services like Godaddy will allow it’s users to simply click a few buttons and sell office 365 email services. If a user has previously had an office 365 email service, then this needs to be removed from the service that originally set this up.

We have done extensive checking with DNS and Autodiscover settings and found that even when DNS correctly has the new discovery settings of the own premises Exchange server, or third party Exchange comparable email service (SmarterMail etc) that it will still fail to find the server for login, but will offer previously activated office 365 services for login.

Apple products appear to do a check on office 365 for the domain, and if they find a provisioned service, they will offer that login without a way to skip.

The solution

The only way we found to solve this is to unsubscribe and remove the provision of any and all email accounts on that domain name in question. In Godaddy it was a matter of removing the configured email accounts. This took about 15 minutes to complete and remove domain associated records from the office 365 service. Once complete a signing was accepted as expected.

This post iPhone Add Email Account Exchange asks to sign in to Office 365 first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

Solution to WHM Cpanel Other Usage‡ folder large in size

If you are an WHM / Cpanel Admin and receive a waring that looks something like this : 

The backup process on “your.server” failed.
 
The backup failed to complete for the following reason:

Available disk space (17 percent) is too low. Backups will not run.

Start Time:
Saturday, August 7, 2021 at 4:00:02 PM UTC
End Time:
Saturday, August 7, 2021 at 4:00:03 PM UTC
Run Time:
1 second
This notice is the result of a request from “cPanel Backup System”.The system generated this notice on Saturday, August 7, 2021 at 4:00:03 PM UTC.
“Backup Failed To Finish” notifications are currently configured to have an importance of “High”. You can change the importance or disable this type of notification in WHM’s Contact Manager at:

This is a warning that the disk space is too low, and you may be experiencing an open session problem with one of your Cpanel site.

If you know the likely site at cause, you can login to WHM / then open the Cpanel account in question and view the Disk Usage report. Pay Attention to the “Other Usage‡” report.

These other usage files include email services for the account and usually should never be bigger than a couple of GB at most. In our case it looked like this:

Significantly higher than it should be and the cause of the missing hard disk space that is used for backup process.

To Diagnose and Resolve

To diagnose this we use a small application called “Ncdu” that we installed following the instructions found here: https://computingforgeeks.com/ncdu-analyze-disk-usage-in-linux-with-ncdu/

This is through an SSH connection as a root user to the server in question. Then following the instructions in the above link, we use the

“ncdu -x /“

command to search the root folder for large sub folders. What we found what that the /var/cpanel/php/sessions/ea-php71 folder was over 20 GB in size.

This folder is used for the sessions in that version of php that in our case related to one account that needs to use the older php version for a Magento site. It appears that sessions are being left open and we need to delete the folder in question to erase the previous opened sessions taking up room.

The easy way to do this is using the “d” command in NCDS. Again following the directions.

Alternative method is through a WHM file browser plugin that can be installed Config server Explorer cse found here: https://www.configserver.com/cp/cse.html

This then allows you to use the file browser from WHM Plugins folder to erase the /var/cpanel/php/sessions folder without the need to mess around in SSH (Other than the setup).

This post WHM Cpanel Other Usage‡ folder large in size – Solution first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

With Nginx Manager Enabled in WHM Cpanel you receive a 413 Error when uploading to WordPress (or other sites)

Recently WHM / Cpanel enabled an option for Nginx Manager

With this option enabled in Cpanel you may receive a 413 Error when uploading large files like plugins to your WordPress Site.

Not it’s worth mentioning that there are potentially a couple of places that the size upload limit is set. This error relates specifically to the Nginx Manager options for caching in WHM and Cpanel that was added as an option in 2021. 

There are also options in the MultiPHP INI Editor to se the upload_max_filesize that we are presuming you have already set in your WHM configuration panel.

So assuming that you have previously set these limits and have had no trouble uploading things like large plugins for WordPress or images etc, then you will likely find that the error for 413 is related to the enabling of Nginx in the recent whm update.

The solution for 413 Request Entity Too Large

To fix the issue you will need to edit the Nginx.conf file on your web server. This file among other things controls the configuration settings for allowing larger uploads. It has defaulted to a small size to avoid denial of service attacks where people try to throw large files at your site and block it from general access.

Editing conf files can be done using various linux editors. We suggest Nano as it is easy for those who like me are simple. If nano is not installed you can follow these instructions here: https://phoenixnap.com/kb/use-nano-text-editor-commands-linux

Login to your WHM Management and search for Terminal and select it.  (Note that if you have the skills you can also connect to your server using your favourite Terminal software as a root user, we are using the web interface here as it is easier). 

Use nano text editor:
$ sudo nano /etc/nginx/nginx.conf

Add the following line to the end of the http or server or location context to increase the size of the Nginx.conf size limit

# set client body size to 20M #
client_max_body_size 20M;

(Note that the 20 M is for 20 meg. You can set it to any size you like and should probably match the size set in the MultiPHP INI for the PHP versions that you set in WHM.)

Once you have edited the file you can Exit using the Control X keys.

Then search for in WHM your Nginx Manager.

Click on the Restart Nginx button.

That is it and should get you running.

This post WHM Nginx Manager Enabled Gives 413 Request Entity Too Large Error and Solution first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

First Choice Pest & Termite Control Melbourne & Mornington Peninsula

Mornington Peninsula Pest Control website launched, and we are pleased to have been able to assist First Choice Pests with their new website.

First Choice Pests has recently established their new website hosting on our high performance WordPress hosting service. 

Included in this service is all the usual benefits of website hosting in Australia with InteractiveWebs.

• Email,
• Domain Hosting
• WordPress Website Hosting
• Backup
• and SEO services.

First Choices Pest has announced a range of Pest Control Services in Mornington Peninsula.

If you would like to know more, please visit the website and use the Contact Us Pest Services form to make an enquiry about the services on offer.

This post Mornington Peninsula Pest Control first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

Setting up an iPhone for SmarterMail InteractiveWebs Email
There are multiple ways you can connect to your InteractiveWebs email account. These methods include, POP3, IMAP, or EXCHANGE. This method covers the Exchange connection method.

What you will need:

Your Email address: example@email.com (not that the email address is also your user name)

Your Email Account Password

In this example we are using iOS 14, and roverx.com.au as the domain with “servcie” being the email address. Note too that we have “Dark Mode” enabled for a black background look. Yours may look a little different.

Open you iPhone and Select the Settings Icon

Navigate to Mail

Select Accounts

Select Add Account

We are going to set this up as an EXCHANGE account. To do this we need to select “Microsoft Exchange” from the Add Account List.

Enter Your Email Address and a Description of your choice. This Description will be listed on your iPhone Email Accounts List

When the POPup flashes up, select Sign In

Enter the account password we provided you

Enter the Email Address again in the User Name field (showing required). In other words, the email address is also your user name.

So it will look like this. – then NEXT

When you press NEXT, it will pop up and ask you to enter the Mail Server Address. Enter mail.domain as the format. So for oceanfoam.com.au it becomes mail.oceanfoam.com.au – Then Click NEXT

It will Verify your Settings

You can then click SAVE and you are done.

You then have an option to create NOTES, Contacts, Calendars, Reminders for this account. Feel free to either enable or disable this function as you require. If you enable these on your phone and when you setup your Email account as an exchange account on your desktop computer. You will be able to sync all data over your exchange email account.

That essentially completed the process for adding an account to your iPhone for SmarterMail with InteractiveWebs.

If you wish to setup IMAP as the connection type.

This post SmarterMail Email Setup on iPhone (Exchange) – Interactivewebs first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

Website Auditor Reports Empty Title Tag wp-content/uploads/fbrfg/site.webmanifest on a WordPress Site

Do you notice in the website order application that reports empty title tags on a page that ends in sight.manifest. 

When you browse to the page in question you’ll find the code looks something like this on the page that loads.

{
“name”: “”,
“short_name”: “”,
“icons”: [
{
“src”: “/wp-content/uploads/fbrfg/android-chrome-192×192.png”,
“sizes”: “192×192”,
“type”: “image/png”
},
{
“src”: “/wp-content/uploads/fbrfg/android-chrome-512×512.png”,
“sizes”: “512×512”,
“type”: “image/png”
}
],
“theme_color”: “#ffffff”,
“background_color”: “#ffffff”,
“display”: “standalone”
}

Usually you will find that there is an associated Plugin called Favicon by RealFaviconGenerator that is responsible for generating a page in question. This plug-in is used to provide a favicon for your website.

The good news is, that since early versions of WordPress 4 WordPress allows you usually within your thing to upload a favicon. There is some good information about installing a Favicon in WordPress here.

We are using the Neve theme on our site, and the process may differ depending on your theme an the support they have for favicon.

To Fix this

we go to: Appearance >> Customise >> Header >> Change Logo

Down the Bottom there is a Site Icon Setting where you can Change the image.

Know what the site specifically needs is a square that is ideally 512×512 pixels. We found the easiest way to generate this on the Mac is using an application that we got from the App Store called icon Set Creator, which is a simple icon generating application that is designed for developers if iOs and Mac Apps. It is perfect as it does all the sizing and squaring of the image automatically. When we select the output as macOS, some of the images that are auto generated include a 512×512 image that is perfectly optimised for use as a favicon image.

We just use the output from this to create the favicon in the settings above. 

Then if you are using the Favicon by RealFaviconGenerator plugin in WordPress, be rue to deactivate it and potentially uninstall it.

That should get the error removed from the SEO PowerSuite Website Auditor report.

This post Website Auditor Reports Empty Title Tag first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

Setting Up Exchange Connection with Windows 10 Mail App

InteractiveWebs SmarterMail supports Exchange Connections, here is some background.

Effectively there are 3 main methods.

POP3 – Where email is Downloaded off the Server to your device. This is least useful as having 2 or more devices like a mobile phone and a computer account can cause you confusion as email may arrive in one location but not on the other devices. If you answer an email on one device it is not apparent on the other devices. Generally this is a very confusing email service.

IMAP – Leaves email on the email server and will sync a copy to your deices. This is you read a message on your phone, that is marked as read on the server and this syncs with your email on your computer to reflect that your email has been read. Same with replying and deleting etc. All your devices are synced with the server and reflect the same information on each. It is powerful but will not offer Calendar, Contact and in some cases Notes syncing over all devices.

Exchange – This is the gold standard for email as it offers the advantages of IMAP, but includes the syncing of Calendars, Contacts, Notes as well as email. Letting you run your life from any device and syncing all items you manage in your life over all devices you own.

The Problem – Microsoft own technology and license are required to run Exchange Connections. There are two connection technologies that can be licensed and InteractiveWebs has both. We offer connections for desktop devices included, and offer a mobile device license as an option.

There are several connection technologies that will connect to Exchange. We provide MAPI / EWS connections in our service, but we can also offer a technology originally designed for Mobile connections called EAS (Exchange Active Sync).

Connecting to Exchange InteractiveWebs SmarterMail with some client programs like Mail App on Windows 10 or some earlier Outlook Versions on Windows 7 etc will not work unless you have EAS enabled. If you have troubles setting up an Exchange Connection to your email account, contact us an we will have happy to enable the service on your account. This will likely fix any troubles you are having. This includes the fact that some technologies like Microsoft Outlook on mobile will often be updated and can change the function. Enabling EAS will solve any problems that arise.

Mail App on Windows 10 Requires EAS to make Exchange Connection

Request EAS Services for your Email account here.

We will then enable this on your email account and advise you that it has been done.

After this, you can set up Exchange Connection.

Accounts

Add Account

Select Office 365, Exchange

Enter your Email address

Enter your password

That should complete the process.

If after setup you see an 

This indicates that the account is not working as expected and likely that EAS is not enabled on your account. Request the service above, or contact us to check that we have enabled EAS on the correct account.

This post Setting up Mail App Windows 10 – InteractiveWebs SmarterMail first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

Understanding Exchange Email Services – InteractiveWebs SmarterMail

Effectively there are 3 main methods.

POP3 – Where email is Downloaded off the Server to your device. This is least useful as having 2 or more devices like a mobile phone and a computer account can cause you confusion as email may arrive in one location but not on the other devices. If you answer an email on one device it is not apparent on the other devices. Generally this is a very confusing email service.

IMAP – Leaves email on the email server and will sync a copy to your deices. This is you read a message on your phone, that is marked as read on the server and this syncs with your email on your computer to reflect that your email has been read. Same with replying and deleting etc. All your devices are synced with the server and reflect the same information on each. It is powerful but will not offer Calendar, Contact and in some cases Notes syncing over all devices.

Exchange – This is the gold standard for email as it offers the advantages of IMAP, but includes the syncing of Calendars, Contacts, Notes as well as email. Letting you run your life from any device and syncing all items you manage in your life over all devices you own.

The Problem – Microsoft own technology and license are required to run Exchange Connections. There are two connection technologies that can be licensed and InteractiveWebs has both. We offer connections for desktop devices included, and offer a mobile device license as an option.

If you want to use Exchange Email

Depending on the device you use it will be available already.

Mac

• Outlook
• Mac Mail
• eM Cleint

All support Exchange Connections with InteractiveWebs SmarterMail included in your service.

Windows 10

• Outlook
• eM Client

Support Exchange Email included with InteractiveWebs SmarterMail Service.

iOS

• Mail
• Outlook

Support Exchange Connection Included

Anderoid

• Mail
• Outlook

Support Exchange Connection Included

When do you need to purchase an additional license

There are several connection technologies that will connect to Exchange. We provide MAPI / EWS connections in our service, but we can also offer a technology originally designed for Mobile connections called EAS (Exchange Active Sync).

Connecting to Exchange InteractiveWebs SmarterMail with some client programs like Mail App on Windows 10 or some earlier Outlook Versions on Windows 7 etc will not work unless you have EAS enabled. If you have troubles setting up an Exchange Connection to your email account, contact us an we will have happy to enable the service on your account. This will likely fix any troubles you are having. This includes the fact that some technologies like Microsoft Outlook on mobile will often be updated and can change the function. Enabling EAS will solve any problems that arise.

This post Understanding Exchange Email Services – InteractiveWebs SmarterMail first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

Setting Up Exchange Email on Windows 10 or Mac

There are several ways to connect to InteractiveWebs SmarterMail Email server. Depending on the method you user as to what email experience you will have.

POP3 – Very confusing and clunky.

IMAP – Better but does not offer Calendar, Contact and Note Syncing

Exchange – Allows you to sync all data over all devices.

For Windows 10 and Mac, the Mail App has some limitations with Connecting to Exchange Email Accounts. Namely that we need to enable a mobile device license on your account. We can do this, but there is an additional charge for your email account each month.

A Free alternative is to use eM Client. A powerful and Free Email application that will allow you to use Exchange Email with InteractiveWebs SmarterMail.

Setting up eM Client

Download the eM Client Program from: https://www.emclient.com

Install this on your Windows 10 computer.

Open the program and fill in…

Click Next

Enter your email address

Enter Your Password

Enter Your Name

We suggest that you continue without encryption.

A brief explanation. – This option is not encryption to our server. This is already in place and your connection is encrypted. This encryption is to effectively lock all email messages so that no one without encryption at their end can read your messages. This can be useful if you work for the CIA, but generally is not the way email messages are exchanged. If super security is your thing, then there are better methods of communication than email. Just ask Hillary!

Click Finish and you are done.

This post InteractiveWebs SmarterMail – Setting Up eM Client Exchange Email first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

Outlook Android or iOS cannot make an IMAP Connection to SmarterMail

Okay, so this problem is a little bit weird. And it probably applies into other email server technologies. In this particular case, smarter mail runs on a Windows server. And I suspect it’s more likely that this problem occurs with window service. Here is what we noticed and how we fixed it.

Using only the mobile versions of Microsoft outlook. We found we were unable to create an account that should be able to connect to an IMAP account. The email account using IMAP could be connected using other email clients. For example Mac mail, or the native mail app in iOS.

When attempting to use the mobile version of Outlook, it simply said after entering all of the correct details, but a connection could not be made to the server. After a hell of a lot of mucking around, we were able to determine that this is caused by the fact that TLS 1.1 was available on the server. And outlook is programmed, or at least the mobile version of Outlook is programmed to funk out with TLS 1.1 due to the fact that it is it technically no longer supported technology as it is less secure.

This is an example of a failure message:

The solution in this case is to disable TLS 1.1 on the server. Remembering that it is a Windows server we are dealing with, it is actually pretty easy to do.

The Fix

Firstly let’s confirm that it is the problem that you are experiencing on your server. Go to this URL and enter the host name for the server that you would like to test.

https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html

You will probably notice is that you receive a message saying that this server supports TLS 1.1 grade captain to B

Assuming that you receive a result it looks something like this. We next need to implement the solution.

Download and install NARTAC Software (yes it is safe) from here: https://www.nartac.com/Products/IISCrypto/Download

Will probably find it will look something like this when you run it, but with more of the Server protocol selected.

The easiest way to get the result we are after is to use the templates that are pre-selected. I have templates like best practice, server defaults, strict, and in our case the one we want to use his PCI 3.2 compliant.

Apply, and reboot the server.

Then repeat the test at: https://www.ssllabs.com/ssltest/analyze.html by using the “Clear Cache” on the page of results. It should run the test again and give a result that is “A” grade.

This should now allow outlook to connect to the smartermail server as the disabling of the TLS 1.1. will enabled the previous failure to be solved.

This post SmarterMail Outlook Mobile Cannot Connect to IMAP first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

Setting up an iPhone for SmarterMail InteractiveWebs Email (IMAP)

There are multiple ways you can connect to your InteractiveWebs email account. These methods include, POP3, IMAP, or EXCHANGE. This method covers the IMAP connection method.

What you will need:

Your Email address: example@email.com (not that the email address is also your user name)

Your Email Account Password

In this example we are using iOS 14, and roverx.com.au as the domain with “servcie” being the email address. Note too that we have “Dark Mode” enabled for a black background look. Yours may look a little different.

Open you iPhone and Select the Settings Icon

Navigate to Mail

Select Accounts

Select Add Account

We are going to set this up as an IMAP account. To do this we need to select “Other” from the Add Account List.

Select Add Mail Account

Enter Your Name

Enter the email address we provided you as your user name

Enter the account password we provided you

Enter a description that will help you remember what this account is for

Note on the next screen that some of the data has transported over. We need to finish filling the page in with the correct information. Also note that the account type at the top of the page is IMAP. If we wanted to use the less useful mail type of account POP3 we would select POP at this point.

For HOST NAME: mail.yourdomainname.com (As of October 2020 we suggest you use your own domain name as we have changed our system to support this)

Username: (The email address we advised your) your@email.com

Password: The Password we advised you.

Under Outgoing Server REPEAT the settings above.

HOST NAME: mail.yourdomainname.com (As of October 2020 we suggest you use your own domain name as we have changed our system to support this

Username: (The email address we advised your) your@email.com

Password: The Password we advised you.

This it should look something like this but with a password entered.

Se service will run and confirm connection.

You then have an option to create NOTES for this account. Feel free to either enable or disable this function as you require. If enabled it will allow you to created notes on this IMAP account and view this notes on other devices like iPads, Outlook Email, Notes app on a MAC etc.

With Notes Enabled

That essentially completed the process for adding an account to your iPhone for SmarterMail with InteractiveWebs.

If you wish to use EXCHANGE email connection, read here.

This post SmarterMail Email Setup on iPhone (IMAP) – InteractiveWebs first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

How to Fix Mac Microsoft Remote Desktop RDP Error Code 0x4

You have a Mac Computer and are running Microsoft Desktop (RDP) throws an Error code: 0x4 just randomly when you try to connect to a computer you have configured for connection.

For us, this problem just randomly started this year after Microsoft updated their RDP software. “Go Microsoft”

We have searched the web, and noticed that the suggestions to Reboot the computer, or restart the RDP software, or both. Do not appear to reliably work. Although we did have some luck with this.

Another suggestion was to copy or recreate the connection in RDP. Again, only limited success with this solution.

The Fix for 0x4 Errors on Mac RDP Remote Desktop Connection

For us the solution came when we went into the system preferences of the Remote Desktop Connection

And you will notice the default preferences look something like this.

We simply unticked the “Use hardware acceleration when possible” check box.

That’s it. After doing this you should notice that it can fixe in some cases the Mac RDP not connecting with 0x4 Errors.

Update

We have found that the errors can reoccur, which is super frustrating. So there are a few other tips that we have found can assist.

Reboot

It’s odd, but sometime rebooting the computer that is making the connection, and help in eliminating the 0x4 error.

Duplicate the Connection

If you right click / or Two finger click on the connection, and select Duplicate – Then use the duplicated connection, sometimes that can allow you to connect.

Try Again

When all else has failed, trying to connect from the connection multiple times can also sometimes work after multiple attempts.

Alternating the Attempts

Lastly, trying the original connection, or alternating between the original, then the newly duplicated connection (in the point above) can also help.

Basically we know these are not solutions, but we have found that they definitely can assist in helping to get the connecting going and avoiding the 0x4 error. Hope it helps, and if you find anything else that eliminates or reduces the error, please chime in.

This post How to Fix Mac Microsoft Remote Desktop RDP Error Code 0x4 first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

The Easy Way to Transfer your App from your Apple Developer Account to Another Account.

Is why would you want to do such a thing. And usually the reason is that you’ve ever sold the application to a new organisation and subsequently transfer it to their development account. Offer some reason you’re moving it to another account of your own perhaps hundred different name or tax system.

In our example was gonna be transferring it to a new account purely for tax reasons. There is nothing dodgy going on, just legitimate reorganisation of our tax portfolio.

Before you get started

In order to complete the transfer, you’re going to need to have your new account set up and most importantly the new banking and tax details set up for whichever region you live in.

To ensure that these are set up correctly, log into your App Store connect page.  And from the list of icons, select the agreements, tax, banking.

Here you can doublecheck that for both your free apps, and paid apps, that the status is showing active for your country and region.

Getting started on transferring applications from one account to another

Personally I find it easiest to use to web browser sessions. But that’s in Tiley up to you. I also prefer to do it one application at a time, assuming that you have multiple applications to transfer it can really help if you get bogged down with one to understand why it’s not transferring without getting muddled up with any emails or other notifications from other applications.

Log into the App Store connect with your old account, or the account that you are transferring from. 

Select the application from the list of apps, that you wish to transfer. In our example we are going to use the trip tracker app.

From the left-hand menu, select have information.

Then on the right hand pain, scroll to the very bottom.

Look for the transfer app link in the additional information at the very bottom.

You will need to ensure that all of the criteria for transfer are met. There are several common mistakes here that can prevent you from making the transfer. The most common one is that your application relies on the iCloud to store information. You cannot transfer an application while the iCloud feature is enabled within your application. The easy solution for a problem like this, is to release a version that doesn’t use the iCloud feature. Publish this version, transfer the application and then re-publish a new version that adds the iCloud feature back into the application.

Next you’re going to have to fill in the recipients Apple ID. This is the email address associated with the other development account. You will also need the team ID. If you’re unsure where to find this hover on the? To the right and it will explain that it can be found in the developer login under membership.

Next you’re going to have to agree to the terms for the transfer. Scrolling to the bottom and ticking the box before request transfer button.

You are now complete with the old account.

To complete the agreement for application transfer

Log into the new App Store connect page with your new account details.

If it has been few minutes since you requested the transfer. You will probably see and yellow message with application transfer request pending acceptance.

It is okay if you do not see this. As you can simply click on the agreements, tax, and painting link.

Clicking this link takes you to a page that will list among other things the applications that are waiting for transfer. It will also include the link to the review section that will need to be filled in to complete the application transfer for the new account. 

Click on the review link.

Next you will need to fill in the details that support the applications new home. This includes the support URL, the application review contact information and phone number and email. Then you will need to agree to the terms. Interestingly every time we transfer applications the terms are garbled rubbish that we can’t actually read. And I suspect it’s that way for everybody. However in all honesty who cares, as we would not have read it anyway.

Once you are greeted this transfer request terms. You are done and the application will appear within the new accounts App Store connect page.

This post How to Transfer an Apple App to another Account first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

Tiny Tiny RSS was unable to start properly Please set SELF_URL_PATH to the correct value detected for your server.

Basically this error is telling you that the path in the config.php file is invalid for some reason. The most likely reason being that the http:// is defined and it should be https://

If you open the file config.php in your favourite editor

And navigate to line 21,  depending on your version and edits to the file.

You can update your pat URL to include the “s” in https

Save and you should be able to access the site correctly.

This post How to Fix Tiny Tiny RSS was unable to start – Startup Failed first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

How Clear Cache in Mautic 3x in cPanel

So if you are working with Mautic 3.1 like we are as of today, and you are installing modules that connect to the Mautic API, you will find that after you make Custom Fields Editable

Or Enable the API for Mautic in CONFIGURATION / API SETTINGS

That you will then need to clear the Cache directory of Mautic before your other Applications will be able to connect to the API.

Now we are using cPanel and have access in there to the File manager. Easier than running an SSH command is to go into the director: var/cache in the Mautic directory. In our case here we have it in a directory or folder named marketing.

You will see a bunch of files here like this:

Just delete all of these files from the cache folder. 

That’s it. You should then be able to connect to the API.

Lets hope that one day Mautic add a clear cache button to the application.

This post How Clear Cache in Mautic 3x in cPanel first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

Why you need SSL security on your Website in 2020

Is the implementation of SSL important for your website? The answer to that is simply YES…

And we are about to list some of the common reasons that SSL encryption on your website is more important than ever.

But first, let’s explain exactly what SSL encryption is…

 

What is SSL/TSL Encryption

Putting is simply, is is when you access a website using HTTPS:// before the address in place of HTTP://.

Websites that use https:/// are using some cleaver encryption that ensures that information sent to the website browsers and from the website browser to the website is secured and cannot be intercepted by people spying on your connection.

Sites without this encryption send information back and forth as plain text. Making it super simple for anyone who is looking at this information to read all of it.

This includes passwords (and we all know we use the same passwords on different sites), to personal information such as when filling in a form. Email Address, Date of Birth, Address, Phone Numbers etc are just some of the information we want to ensure remains secure.

1. Customer Experience

Since 2018, when Google made SSL/TSL mandatory. Most web browsers such as Chrome, Firefox, Edge will throw warnings to customers who try and access your websites.

Some warnings are subtle, but others can be quite significant and you may not be aware of this if you are not using the same browser and computer system as your customers.

The above image is some of the examples of warnings that your customers can get from your website when it is not secure.

We actually see the removal of user warnings as the Number 1. Reason to implement SSL on your website.

2. SSL Gives you Better Search Engine Rankings

Way back in 2014, Google made changes that included SSL in the algorithm for search engine rankings.

So simply put… your site will rank better with SSL that without, and subsequently you can expect more people to browser your site.

There have been many studies that confirm that. One of these studies is by backlinko.com.

So SSL helps you get to the First Page of Google. Something everyone wants in their industry.

3. SSL/TSL Will Protect Data of your Users

The entire reason that Google gives better rankings for sites with SSL/TSL encryption, and the reason that they throw warnings to users who visit sites without this encryption is that they are encouraging all of us to be secure with Data.

SSL will help protect your site, and your users data from the huge army of users who try to attack it on a daily basis. Many of our customers and web users would not be aware of just how prolific hacking is and how real the threat is.

Our website Interactivewebs.com for example receives around 7000 hack attempts a week. If one of these hack attempts are cleaver enough, and your site is not using SSL, then it is not too difficult with freely available hacking tools to gain data such as passwords entered as a user logs into your site.

Adding SSL to your website makes the monitoring of passwords and other information almost impossible.

4. SSL ensures you are legal with PCI/DSS Requirements

Many Countries like Australia, Europe, UK, and the USA all require that people taking payment on the web comply with PCI / DSS standards.

One of the core functions of taking payments on a Website is to do it in a way that does not put the user of the site at risk of theft of their details.

Using SSL/TSL security is a cornerstone of encrypting data for your website users. In most first world countries, this is a legal requirement and the PCI DSS standards are used as a minimum standard for web security for sites that take payments.

5. Improves Customer Trust in your Brand

Building Trust in your Brand is important. Sometimes with customers this is something that you can build over time.

For Web users, the experience of trust starts with the first Impressions.

Security on a Website with SSL is the first point that customers make judgments about how seriously you take security and how they will trust you with their data.

If you throw a security warning to every Firefox user who hits your site, then you are starting the user experience saying you do not value their data.

Simply the trust in your brand start from a position of mistrust if you are not using SSL.

6. SSL Afirms your Identity

One of the most important processes of implementing SSL on your Website is the validation of Domain Ownership.

This step proves that the SSL certificate that has been implemented is part of the Brand, Company and Domain that is using the certificate.

This is the second primary task for the SSL implementation, and although we rank it in 6th place, it could be argued that it is super important as it proves to users that your site is “real” and not someone else pretending to represent your company.

We take care of this validation process on your behalf when we implement SSL on your site.

Implement your SSL today with InteractiveWebs

Adding SSL Security to your InteractiveWebs hosted website has never been easier.

Place the order with us, and we will implement everything for you.

• Validation of your Domain
• Validation of your Website
• Validation of your Business
• Ordering of the SSL
• Implementation of the SSL Certificate on your Website
• Forcing Traffic to use https:// when users enter your site
• Checking that your site reports correctly for users
• Repeating this Process with Renewals

Order SSLCertificate for your Website Today

NOTE: For existing customers. If you have not logged into our client system before, please use the “Forgot Password” function to retrieve your login details.

This post Why is SSL Necessary for your Website and the Benefits of using SSL Certificates first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

Hot To Enable TLS 1.2 in Windows Server 2008 or 2016

We previously had a post that handled this solutions called: How to Enable TLS 1.2 on Windows 2008 R2

This post is an update to how the enable and Mange TLS 1.2 on Windows Servers. The reason for the update is because we now use a free tool when we are managing our servers. But first some background. 

What you need to know about TLS 1.2

According to…
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/desktop/SecAuthN/protocols-in-tls-ssl–schannel-ssp-

TLS 1.2 client and server are enabled by default.

But…

https://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/cb1a695b-a15c-4fa7-94f0-1aaa20c1279d/enabling-tls-12-on-windows-server-2012-amp-2016?forum=winserversecurity

…says

Turns out it is, but not enabled for SCHANNEL service

Hence you MUST follow…

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/identity/ad-fs/operations/manage-ssl-protocols-in-ad-fs#enable-and-disable-tls-12

Please articulate this! Say…

You can enable and disable SSL 2.0 and 3.0 and TLS versions 1.0, 1.1, and 1.2 using Manage SSL Protocols in AD FS. On Windows Server 2016, to use TLS 1.2, you must explicity enable it by following instructions at [https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/identity/ad-fs/operations/manage-ssl-protocols-in-ad-fs#enable-and-disable-tls-12]

Source: GitHub

So the New Solution

We use the tool from Nartac Software called IIS crypto.

This tool allows for easy configuration of Windows Servers to support the TLS 1.2 standard.

There are simple instructions to follow, but basically the solution is to implement the template for the Best Practise for Windows Server 2012 R2 and Windows Server 2016 and Later.

Recommended Settings

Microsoft has renamed most of cipher suites for Windows Server 2016. We list both sets below.

Windows Server 2016 and higher:

TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA

 

Windows Server 2012 R2 and lower:

TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384_P521
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384_P384
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384_P256
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256_P521
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256_P384
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256_P256
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA_P521
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA_P384
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA_P256
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA_P521
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA_P384
TLS_ECDHE_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA_P256
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384_P521
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384_P384
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256_P521
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256_P384
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256_P256
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384_P521
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA384_P384
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256_P521
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256_P384
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256_P256
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA_P521
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA_P384
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA_P256
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA_P521
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA_P384
TLS_ECDHE_ECDSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA_P256
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_GCM_SHA384
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_GCM_SHA256
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA256
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA256
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_256_CBC_SHA
TLS_RSA_WITH_AES_128_CBC_SHA

This tool allows you to easily configure servers like Microsoft Exchange Server, and IIS Web Hosting Servers to support TLS as it should be configured.

Enjoy!

This post Hot To Enable TLS 1.2 in Windows Server 2008 or 2016 first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

How to Set Up Free SSL Certificates on IIS Using – Certify The Web

Using SSL to secure your website these days is very important. Many browsers throw messages to users who visit sites that are http:// and not https://. Although these warning can be ignored, they are concerning for users who do not understand the meaning of a browser when they say something like “This Site is Not Secure”.

It is kind of unprofessional too for hosts not to offer to install SSL certificates for their clients.

The solution and the How to Set Up Free SSL Certificates on IIS Using – Certify The Web is really rather easy.

On your Windows server running IIS and your website in question, browse to: Certify The Web Download

And access the download. 

Run the download as an Administrator user either logged in as one or “Run as Administrator”

Accept the Agreement and NEXT

Accept the Default Location and NEXT.

Accept the Default Folder and NEXT

Click Install on the Summary Screen

Click Finish which will Run the Application.

Click on New Certificate

Click OK

Accept the Let’s Encrypt Certificate Authority and Enter Your Email Address

Tick the Accept and Register Contact

Then Click New Certificate Again, since we have now registered. 

From the Dropdown List select the Site in IIS that you wish to secure. Note that in this example our site name is the domain name of the site. But your name could be anything. Just select the correct one.

It will come up with the domains that are Matching the Bindings of the Web instance. You can see in the list from the certificate tool matches the bindings we have in IIS for that site.

You can select the domains / bindings you want to use. One or in our case in this example we will create certificates for all the site.

As you do this, the tool will put the primary domain into the name place for the certificate you are creating.

Then Click on the Text Button, to test that each of the domains you have selected will allow authentication and access to the domain URL to approve ownership of the certificates authentication. You will see a Test Progress that shows that the selected domains we have are accessible.

Then Close that out the way with the arrow.

Then Click on Request Certificate

Then wait for a while while it does its thing.

If you get any errors, you will need to resolve them. In our example we intentionally left a sub domain that was used to setup the site initially. There is currently no DNS record for this sub domain, and subsequently the IP address could not be resolved. The solution is one of two option.

1. Configure a DNS A record to point this sub domain to the correct IP address of the IIS server.

2. Remove this from the list of selected bindings and subsequently NOT generate a certificate. 

We are taking option 2 in this example.

We go back to the Manage Certificates, and untick the sub domain that failed above. This is where things got a bit sketchy. You would think that the tool is smart enough to work out that we are no longer requesting the certificate for this unticked sub domain. However we found that it would still fail on the sub domain when we re-ran the issue certificates. 

What we had to do was to delete the certificate generation attempt here.

Close out the Certify SSL/TLS and then REMOVE the binding from the IIS site instance that is no longer in use.

Restart IIS – IISRESET from a command prompt

Then open the tool again and try to generate a new certificate.

We found that the certificates generated successfully at that point.

This post Free SSL Certificates on IIS Using – Certify The Web first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

The Solution to the 10 DNS Query Limit with SPF records.

How To Fix – SPF Too many included lookups Failure. The problem you may have is something like this. You use a tool like our two favourite tools here:

1.

MXToolbox SPF Checker

2. DMARCLY SPF Tool

And they return the error that you have:

Too many included lookups (16)

Or

The SPF record exceeds the 10 DNS query limit, which results in deteriorated email deliverability. Use DMARCLY’s Safe SPF feature to fix this issue.

This error is generated by your SPF record referring more than 10 times to look up a DNS record while resolving your SPF record. You can look around the web a bit more for why this limit is in place, but you need to know that if you SPF record fails with these types of messages when testing, that the entire SPF record is technically invalid and will be ignored.

What Causes Troubles

There are many misconfigured service providers that themselves use multiple SPF records that all require reference and subsequently DNS lookups. I have encountered a recently that I am sure in their own minds have a need to have shitty configurations for SPF, but in reality show just how amateur they are at providing services for there users.

1. Xero.com

2. mailchannels.net

3. Bluehost.com

Let’s take Bluehost.com as the prime example. If you go to: check their domain with the dmarcly tool. You get something like this:

Warning!
We have found some issues.
v=spf1 include:spf2.bluehost.com include:_spf.qualtrics.com include:_spf.google.com include:_spf.salesforce.com include:sparkpostmail.com include:spf.mailjet.com -all 11 DNS queries

Tip
The SPF record exceeds the 10 DNS query limit, which results in deteriorated email deliverability. Use DMARCLY’s Safe SPF feature to fix this issue.

And you can see down the page that the resolution of their SPF record lists the 11 DNS resolutions that it needs to complete the list.

That is just crap. Their own DNS record is invalid, and they tell users to add “include:bluehost.com” to their own SPF record. This means that anyone who does this will instantly invalidate their own SPF record.

Xero.com is a similar lookup. Although it does not fail on it’s own, it does require 9 DNS lookups of your 10 allowable on its own. So if you add it to the end of your own SPF record as they suggest, it will almost certainly cause the failure of your SPF record.

This is really terrible practise for these companies and shows just how average they are at understanding how others use their services.

How it should be done.

Companies like Amazon with their AWS services and in particular their SES service requires that you add a SFP include: amazonses.com to your record. If you look at the result of the lookup in our domain name: interactivewebs.com.au you will see this:

And you can see that the set of IP addresses they have only uses 1 DNS lookup. It has a bunch of IP addresses but only one DNS lookup to resolve them.

This is how other service providers like xero.com should configure their own SPF records. Is is just slack that they have not.

How to Solve DNS Lookup Limit of 10 for SPF records.

You can actually do this easily yourself with your own DNS server, but you may need to update the record from time to time.

Let’s take xero.com as a typical example. The general suggestion is to add “include:xero.com” to your own SPF record.

So in our example for a client we are playing with currently, we end up wanting their SPF record to look like this:

v=spf1 mx a ip4:199.91.68.129/24 include:relay.mailchannels.net include:xero.com -all

Only that fails the 10 lookup DNS limit because both xero with it’s 9 DNS lookup and relay.mailchannelt.net with their 3 DNS lookup will equal 11 before the few lookups we need for other reasons. The total becomes 16 DNS lookups.

What we do to resolve it is to take the 9 DNS lookups from xero.com and flatten them into IP addresses. To do this we go to our tool here.

Enter “xero.com”

And scroll to the bottom where it lists the “flattened SPF Record”

And we want to copy that into our own DNS Domain Text Record.

v=spf1 ip4:35.190.247.0/24 ip4:64.233.160.0/19 ip4:66.102.0.0/20 ip4:66.249.80.0/20 ip4:72.14.192.0/18 ip4:74.125.0.0/16 ip4:108.177.8.0/21 ip4:173.194.0.0/16 ip4:209.85.128.0/17 ip4:216.58.192.0/19 ip4:216.239.32.0/19 ip6:2001:4860:4000::/36 ip6:2404:6800:4000::/36 ip6:2607:f8b0:4000::/36 ip6:2800:3f0:4000::/36 ip6:2a00:1450:4000::/36 ip6:2c0f:fb50:4000::/36 ip4:172.217.0.0/19 ip4:172.217.32.0/20 ip4:172.217.128.0/19 ip4:172.217.160.0/20 ip4:172.217.192.0/19 ip4:172.253.56.0/21 ip4:172.253.112.0/20 ip4:108.177.96.0/19 ip4:35.191.0.0/16 ip4:130.211.0.0/22 ip4:23.253.182.103 ip4:23.253.183.145 ip4:23.253.183.146 ip4:23.253.183.147 ip4:23.253.183.148 ip4:23.253.183.150 ip4:166.78.68.221 ip4:166.78.69.146 ip4:167.89.46.159 ip4:167.89.64.9 ip4:167.89.65.0 ip4:167.89.65.53 ip4:167.89.65.100 ip4:167.89.74.233 ip4:167.89.75.33 ip4:167.89.75.126 ip4:167.89.75.136 ip4:167.89.75.164 ip4:192.237.159.42 ip4:192.237.159.43 ip4:52.63.88.73 ip4:52.64.75.98 ip4:69.72.45.252 ip4:69.72.39.26 ip4:198.61.255.26 ip4:64.73.120.224/27 ip4:213.41.42.80/28 ip4:3.93.157.0/24 ip4:3.210.190.232 ip4:18.208.124.128/25 ip4:54.174.52.0/24 ip4:54.174.53.128/30 ip4:54.174.57.0/24 ip4:54.174.59.0/24 ip4:54.174.60.0/23 ip4:54.174.63.0/24 ip4:139.180.17.0/24 ip4:167.89.105.58 ip4:50.31.44.110/31 ip4:167.89.31.152/29 ip4:192.254.127.96/27 ip4:198.37.146.104/31 ip4:198.37.146.106 ip4:23.23.239.161 ip4:166.78.71.49 ip4:54.243.244.199 ip4:52.48.54.246 ip4:52.64.111.139 ~all

Basically create a text record like you were creating your own domain name SPF. But call it “xero”. The example below is in the cPanel Zone Manager for the domain projectcentre.com.au – and we added a text record called: xero.projectcentre.com.au as below.

Then we pasted all that junk above into the Text Value, and saved it to look something like this:

So now, if we change the “include:xero.com”  to the new record of “include:xero.projectcentre.com.au” we will be looking at the exact same IP address lookup information that the look for xero.com will give us.

It should be noted that if xero.com decide to update their server list to some entirely new IP addresses that this may well stop working, and we would have to do the process again. But in all likelihood they will not change it that often that we should care.

Again I must say that it is really disappointing that these companies have not done the exact process we are using here, as they could be publishing things the way amazonses does. Correctly.

Anyway. Solution found for DNS Lookup Issues

This post How To Fix – SPF Too many included lookups Failure first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

How to Stop Adobe Acrobat DC Displays Please wait while the document is being prepared for reading every time you open any PDF on your Mac

So I am on a Mac, and recently I noticed that an update to the Adobe DC makes the application display this little annoying message every time you open a PDF document of any size.

It is particularly annoying and does not appear to be associated with any actual action. Even on a single page of text, the progress bar does nothing.

Most of the instruction around the place are for a Windows PC and read something like this:

All you have to is change a quick setting:

Open Acrobat Reader and hit Ctrl+K (or Select “Edit” then “Preferences” from the drop-down menu)
Click on the “Reading” tab under the “Categories” column on the left.
Select the “Screen Reader Options” section, select the “Only read the currently visible pages” option from the dropdown menu.
Click “OK”.

So naturally I though I would make it simple for MAC users. (We like things simple, that is why we purchased a computer that works).

On a Mac version of Adobe Acrobat DC

With the program open, click the menu “Adobe Pro DC” in the top left corner.

Select Preferences

From the menu on the left side, select “Reading”

Then under the Screen Reader Option, select “only read the currently visible pages”

The hit OK

Note: You may have to dismiss and close the last warning message if you have not already done this.

This is it. I still have no idea why this is happening, but glad to see it gone.

This post How to Stop Adobe Acrobat DC Displays Please wait while the document is being prepared for reading first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

Mautic Email with Button that Links Contact Email to Pre-populates Email Form

The goal here is actually a little more complex. Essentially what we’re trying to do is to take some pre-populated contact details that we have entered into Mautic as a method of making initial contact. For example this might be simply entering an email to generate a contact inside of the application. What we would like to do however is to drive the recipient of the email through a web form to fill out additional data that will then be collected back into the initial contact record inside the program.

This is actually quite easy to do, it does however require that you use the email field as a way of linking. the following instructions explain it quite clearly.

First you need to create a form and make sure that you add the email field. If you don’t want this field to show when you drive the contact back to your landing page requesting subsequent data, it is possible to have this field turned off from visibility. However for now we will leave it on so that we can test properly.

This form is going to be used inside a landing page. So later when we refer to it as the form, this is what we’re talking about.

Set the email behaviour to Auto Phil and show if it exists.

Finish setting up your form as you require.

We need to go into the settings for Mautic by clicking on the little gear on the top right and open custom fields.

Search for email, so that we can edit the email custom field item.

Change to yes the field for publicly editable.

Next you need to create a landing page. Within this landing page insure that you the form that we have created earlier. You need to take note of the identification number of the landing page that you have created.

This number is found on the far right column of the landing pages listing.

We need to use this number when we are referencing the particular page and subsequent URL in the button that we add to the email that we hope to drive leads back to the landing page.

{pagelink=1}?email={contactfield=email|true}

Note the Mautic Manual here

NOTE: in the manual they show a “&” {pagelink=1}&email={contactfield=email|true} – I found for version 3 and I presume versions greater than 2.2 the & needs to be a ? As above. I expect this is why many users struggle with following TFM.

In this format you need to replace the =1 with = and the ID number of your landing page.

We need to test. People refer to Incognito mode for testing. You might not even understand what that means, essentially it means you cannot have a browser session that recognises who you are. You need to test as though you are a completely unknown user. I personally find the best way to do this is to use a browser with all casing turned off and completely close the browser session and dump all cookies etc before returning to the new test.

It’s probably relevant to say at this point in time, that we wasted a little bit of time working all of this out because there is a lot of information on the web the references old installations and systems. In particular the systems tend to reference leads rather than Contacts. All of the latest information at the current time inside of Mautic is using contacts rather than Leeds.

This post Mautic Email with Button that Links Contact Email to Pre-populates Email Form first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

How to Change Mautic Settings to SES API from SES SMTP

Assuming that you have setup Mautic to send email messages using Amazon SES, you may have noticed that Mautic 3.1 now includes the ability to send using the AWS SES API rather than the SES SMTP for sending. The advantage this offers is simply the speed that you can blast out. The SES API is reportedly 14 X faster for sending emails than the SMTP service.

We originally followed this video: Send Marketing Emails For Basically Zero Dollars – Mautic + AWS SES

Which frankly is terrific for setting ups SES in Mautic

After Upgrading to Mautic 3.1

After you run the update to Mautic 3.1 it is time to setup access in your AWS SES for API access.

If you are using Amazon SES in us-west-2 as we are, then you simply go to this address. https://console.aws.amazon.com/iam/home?region=us-west-2#/users$new?step=details

Enter a User Name

Tick Programmatic access

Click Next

Select Attach Existing Policy

Type SES in the search and select the Full Access policy

Click Next

Skip this Tag step

Click the create user button

Now you need to note down the Amazon User Details that you just created. This is the only time you will have access to these.

Now login to the Mautic Configuration > Email Settings

Change the Service to send email through from AmazonSES – SMTP to Amazon SES – API

Important: SET the Region. This was not so important with the previous settings, but is now.

Put in your recorded data for the user name, being the Access Key ID and the pass that we recorded above.

Apply

Test configuration and you should see the little test “Success!” above.

That is about it. You are ready to go!

This post Mautic 3.1 SES API Setup for Sending first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

How to Setup Email Piping in WHMCS via cPanel Email

Setting up WHMCS email piping for Support Ticket generation from inbound emails.

Email Piping in WHMCS allows you to receive email messages directly into your WHMCS support department. This allows customers to email you at an email address and rather than need to be connected to that email account, you will receive the messages as a new ticket into your WHMCS ticketing system.

Sounds easy, and it is. But as the title suggests, you do need to pipe using the functions of your cPanel email system.

WHMCS Setup for Email Piping to Support Ticket

Login to your WHMCS system and navigate to:

Setup > Support > Support Departments

If you have not setup a support department yet, then this is the time to set up a department. Within these settings you configure the details of your department name, who can access as an admin user etc.

Note the URL where it say: Ticket Importing using Email Forwarders. This is the URL we are seeking, but not the full URL!

From This: | /opt/cpanel/ea-php73/root/usr/bin/php -q /home/interactivewebs/public_html/invoicing/crons/pipe.php

We take: /public_html/invoicing/crons/pipe.php (copy this section from your URL)

The “invoicing” being the directory we have put the WHMCS install in, and the /crons/pip.php being the file we are seeking to hit with the piping call.

Login to cPanel

From the cPanel dashboard, do a search for “forwarders”

Click Add Forwarder

Type in your email address and select the correct domain or sub domain. This can literally be any email address you wish to use. The email address will be the address that people can send to, that will be picked up as a ticket for the support department in question.  Our example below is: supportticket@domain.com

Click Advanced options:

Paste into the Pipe to a Program box the public_html and everything that follows which we captured from the department link above.

Add Forwarder and you are almost done.

Testing WHMCS Email Piping

To test the forwarder, we need to send an email, but the from address needs to be an email address that is NOT a user in the WHMCS system and part of the department we configured earlier.

Personally I have a gmail account I use for outbound to inbound email testing and I just generate an email from that to the email address of the forwarder that we created above in cPanel.

What should happen….

The email goes from gmail, to the email address and is forwarded to the pipe in WHMCS. This then generates a ticket, and if you have it set up, the WHMCS system will auto reply to the ticket with the auto response you crated and the gmail account should get a response in a few minute or so.

You can check the progress of the pipe by looking at the WHMCS pipe log.

WHMCS Utilities > Logs > Ticket Mail Import Log

And it should show you something like this:

Note the second item here where it says: Ticket ID not Found. This is an example of sending failure. The cause is that the email address I sent the test from is a user in WHMCS. This match of WHMCS email address fails to generate a support ticket as the system cannot match the incident to a customer or existing ticket. Just a WHMCS “thing”. But the correct test on line one was sent from the gmail test.

Troubleshooting

If you do not get a message in the log, then the email has either not been received by your cPanel email system, or the pipe was wrong.

To troubleshoot, you need to first work out if email is being received to the cPanel system. The easy way to test this is to:

1.  Remove the forward in cPanel
2.  Create an email account / box for the same email address.
3.  Send the test again.
4.  Login to the email account via cPanel and look in the webmail to check the email arrives.

If you do not get the email there, then it is a fair bet that the MX record on your domain is not configured correctly.  Test it via https://mxtoolbox.com to be sure.

If you get the email to the email account in cPanel, then you may need to double check the forward you set up. Set it up again being careful of the address. If you fail again, then have a look at the permissions on the file. There is some help here: WHMCS Help

Contact us if you need support setting up your WHMCS system.

This post WHMCS email piping for Support Ticket first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%

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Fitting a Winch to a MY19 Discovery 5

Components Used

Hidden Winch Tray

Lucky 8 Proud Rhino Hidden Winch – I specifically asked for the model that had been slightly modified to fit the MY19 model. I know someone who had a tray from 2018 that struggled to fit the MY19 vehicle. Email communications with Lucky8 ensured the correct tray was sent.

This is what arrived exactly. No bolts etc. As it turns out… you don’t need any. You will see later.

Winch

Domin8r x 12,000lb Winch with synthetic rope. – Note that as of 2020 there are two two Domin8r winches available. The one pictures and the Extreme. The extreme has an improved brake system and on inspection was a little larger in height. Because of this and the fact that I had seen images of the “standard” or orange rope version installed on this exact fit, I went for the standard version.

Pictured is exactly what arrived in the box. 

I did consider a Warn which, however the price is literally 10 times the cost of this kings winch. And the fact that my Discovery while used hard will never be an extreme 4×4. The winch I am fitting servers two purposes for me.

1. It lets me explore tracks and go “down” places without the anxiety of getting stuck.

2. It lets me recover myself and others more easily that perhaps I would without the winch option.

In all honestly, on my previous LR’s fitted with a winch, I only ever used it twice and both times could have used other options. But I did find the comfort of knowing it was there completely changed how willing I was to explore hard tracks alone.

So the cheaper winch, it it only works a handful of times will suite me fine!

Which Options

I added the wireless which controller option to allow me to use the controller at the wheel without wires.

You can see that there is a dongle that plugs into the control box, and the remote that confusingly comes with wires, but the can be removed.

Fairlead

Factor 55 1.0 Grey Fairlead

Fairlead Screws

1.5” 5/8 screws with Hex Heads and a couple of washers.

3M Automotive double sided tape.

This tape is used to refit the side strips around the wheel arches.

The Job

Remove the Discovery 5 Bumper Bar and front trimmings.

This for my was by fat the hardest part of the job. Knowing where to screw and pull to unclip and remove the bumper was not something I could do alone. So I enlisted a Landrover Mechanic (Tom) to assist me on the removal and refitting of the bumper. Super handy having him there to do it professionally. Total time to remove was about 40 minutes.

Not really going to try and describe the steps to remove the bumper. After seeing it done, I don’t think I would attempt it again without help. There is a bit to it. But some interesting steps included….

Removing the side strips around the wheel arches required carefully prying the double sided tape off, and disconnecting the sensor plugs. We used the 3M double sided tape to fix them back on.

The front radar sensor fitted the the cross bar. This is the bar that will be hacked into to make room for the winch. 

Note the plastic dieting trim at the top and bottom of this image. They effectively directed air through the radiator. We managed to keep the top, but the bottom had do go.

This front scoops here are to direct air onto the brakes. We managed to refit these after the tray was added.

Removing the bottom plastic air direction housing.

With it removed.

You will notes that there is still a plastic scoop at the bottom. We cut this off wish industrial scissors that made easy work of the plastic. 

This is the cut away bottom plastic air duct. Both sides shown here to assist you with how much to cut.

We decided to unplug the cooling pipes to give us more room. We saved and used again the cooling fluid.

This hose in the middle frame was one that was tricky to fit back. You can see in this image that the tray is in place, although not tight. The hose comes around the tray and would rub on the tray. We decided to fit a foam block between the hose and the lucky8 tray. Something like a pool noodle cut to size would work well here. Something that fit around the host, but between it and there tray to ensure that vibration stays away.

Now this is not a picture of my bar. And I cannot believe it that I did not take a picture of the cuts we made before fitting the winch tray and winch. But we effectively made the same cuts as were made here, but did not remove the bar from the car to do it. Simply cut with the bar fixed to the car. The cuts were not hard, and worked well with a standard angle grinder. A couple of things to note in this.

1. The bar is much more sturdy than it looks here.

2. The middle remaining square bracket is to allow fitting of the radar back in place.

3. The cut on the back o the bar on the right side, needs to be a little angled to the right. i.e making some more room on the back right bottom.

The end result with our bar. Note again the cuts in the bar. The winch in place.

You will also note that we fitted the control box with the plug sitting forward. This worked very well and allowed some of the cables to come forward of the bar, and some to go behind the bar. To fix the control box we simply straightened the mounting bracket in a vice, then drilled a couple of holes through the bracket and bar then fixed it with some metal tapper screws.

Note the alignment of the box plug just to the right in the image of the screw holes below. This allows the box to be accessed from the front through the grill once the bumper is reattached.

Winch orientation is important. Note that the direction we have the winch allows the winch rope to run in on the bottom of the winch. I have seen the winch fitted the other way around, but this means that “in” on the controller will wind the rope on the top of the drum. Note idea for winches as it puts more moment on the attaching bolts. We found that fitting the winch this orientation worked fine.

The cables were easy. Two leads gong back through the front assembly to the right are fixed to the jump points in the car. The red cable that loops back from the control box and under the cross bar, that you see on the bottom of this image is actually visible from the front of the car. So fitting a black or shrink wrap here would discuss that better. 

You can see here too the radar fitted back in place and the winch cables zip tied to the top of the cross bar to keep excess cables from rubbing around the place. It is also interesting that the zip ties are visible from the front, so we used black to make it cleaner from the front view.

The mounting brackets took a bit of playing around with to get them orientated correctly. When we did, it all fit well and was obvious. This pic shows the orientation dangling down. We swing them into place 180 deg and use the winch bolts to fit them up through the tray and into the winch.

You can see here that the bolts going up through the tray are the Domin8tor winch bolts that came with the winch. They go up through the winch brackets and tray and into the winch mounting lugs.

The direction of the brackets works well in this orientation. We tried to have the brackets the other way around to put the bracket angel mount outwards for better strength. However we found they would not fit in that orientation. But we are happy with the result here.

The cables that come up behind the light assembly.

Then run up over the air box

And fitted beneath the jumper mounts.

We did consider fitting them to the winch mount (that comes on the discovery) that is behind the front right wheel guard, and it would have worked. But the problem is that the Domin8tor winch has the in lead fuse that you can see in this image. There would be no way of easy access to that fuse if fitted to the winch mount. So we elected to fit it here. With zip ties it is very sturdy and works well.

This picture shows the winch cables zip tied in place, but also the car cabling tied back over the top of our work.

The end result before the bumper was attached again.

With the bumper fitted and the winch rope just temporarily zip tied out the way.

To get the factor 55 1.0 fair lead to fit, we need to make two cuts to the bumper just either side of the fairlead. The cuts are to the vertical plastic moulding. We made the cuts at the bottom and just screwed the factor 55 fairlead inlace while holding the plastic open using a bit of bruit strength.

The result is that the bumper splits a little wider around the fairlead and is a little deformed from its original shape. But the end result is that the fairlead sticks out a little giving good clearance for the rope to stay away from the bumper, and the whole thing looks good from the front. We made the cuts with a multi tool in about 5 seconds. Easy work.

Not the control box is still accessible from the front, but mostly hidden. The wireless dongle sits really nicely in place and could be left there for a day out with a bit of winch work anticipated.

Like to thank 

Paul Muscat for running the LR D5 Group. 

Rob Morley for sharing his similar fit and answering my many questions.

Tom – The Landrover guru who helped with the bumper and whole job

Darub Abrahams  – Who shared his experience with the older tray and some of the notes that helped with my decision making.

This is a Landrover Manual extract that talks about their winch fitting option that they never released. I referenced this a bit, but this blog post would be more help to anyone doing the same thing.

pdf 2.pdf

If you live in Sydney and want a Landrover mechanic to assist you with this winch combination, then please contact me. Tom would be only too happy to help.

This post All New Landrover Discovery 5 Winch Fitting D5 first appeared on InteractiveWebs and is written by %AUTHOR%