Secure email (SSL)

[WordCooper]

In these insecure times, it would be nice offer (require) a secure mail connection.

That would be easier than trying to set up SSL tunnels for WIFI situations.

Any possibility?

[esl]

After you login to cPanel webmail there is a link towards the bottom of the page that says:

Click for Secure Site

That should make a secure connection if you have SSL on your account.

Hope this helps.

[graba_66]

..does it work with shered SSL or just private?...

[InvisiBill]

I agree that email over SSL support would be nice. I've used several other hosts that used cPanel, and they all supported it. I'm not sure how much goes into setting up a hosting service using cPanel - if it's something they did during the install, or if it's just a standard thing. Trying to use the secure ports (465 for SMTP, 995 for POP, 993 for IMAP) results in a timeout. It may simply be that these ports need to be opened on the firewall.

With my other hosts (where I didn't have my own SSL cert), it used the shared cert. Mozilla Thunderbird would give a warning every time you connected (regardless of the "always accept this" option) if you used your own hostname, because it didn't match the cert which had the shared name on it. I believe MS products completely ignore the fact that the server name doesn't match the cert name. You can get around the issue in Thunderbird by using server.hostgator.com instead of mail.yourdomain.com as the mail server name. Then you're connecting to the server named on the cert, and there's nothing to warn you about.

For those of you who don't know, email is completely insecure. All details of the connection are in plaintext, including your account name and password. Anyone sniffing the connection would have full access to your email account.

I really really don't like using email without SSL. I would very much like to see this feature added/enabled/fixed/whatever.

[bagel50]

it's already there. You can login to webmail over SSL on https://yourdomain.com:2096, secure cpanel connection on https://yourdomain.com:2083 and secure whm (for resellers) on https://yourdomain.com:2087. Also there are secure connections with email clients, through POP, IMAP and SMTP over SSL. Ask chat support for the port numbers, a few of them are non-standard. It's all using the root certificate on the server which is self-signed and therefore will give warnings, but it is secure.

Olly.

[InvisiBill]

Originally Posted by bagel50

it's already there. You can login to webmail over SSL on https://yourdomain.com:2096, secure cpanel connection on https://yourdomain.com:2083 and secure whm (for resellers) on https://yourdomain.com:2087.

The secure cPanel and webmail links didn't connect for me. I'm wondering if it's specific to my server (gator17). A previous host was changing some things (upgrades?) and had to re-open the ports to use email over SSL. My issue could be something as simple as the ports being closed.

Originally Posted by bagel50

Also there are secure connections with email clients, through POP, IMAP and SMTP over SSL. Ask chat support for the port numbers, a few of them are non-standard. It's all using the root certificate on the server which is self-signed and therefore will give warnings, but it is secure.

Live support was unable to do anything but tell me to email support. I'll let you know how that goes. It would be nice if this information were in the Knowledge Base. Everyone who can should be doing email over SSL...

[InvisiBill]

I just got a reply, and they let me know that they use the standard ports for SSL. Well, sort of...

SMTP = 25 / 465
IMAP = 143
POP = 995

Standard ports for SMTP, IMAP, and POP are 25, 143, and 110. Standard ports for the secure versions are 465, 993, and 995. It looks to me like they use the standard ports.

However, my connections to those ports on gator17 still don't work. I replied to their email, so we'll see if they can get this fixed.

[bagel50]

ah ic. strange that, but almost certainly fixable. forgive me if I'm being obtuse, but you're sure that you used https... I'm sure you were already careful to sort that anyway. Otherwise, I'd be interested to know why it doesn't work on that particular server!

Olly

[InvisiBill]

I went back and forth with a few techs via email, with them apparently trying different things. Secure SMTP is working fine. I am able to connect to POP and IMAP now, but both return a "bad login" error. Both work fine as soon as I disable SSL, so I know it's not a mistyped password or anything. It's as if the secure mail daemon(s) isn't looking at the same stuff as the standard versions.

I'm able to visit https://gator16.hostgator.com/, https://gator16.hostgator.com:2083/, and https://secure16.hostgator.com/ with no problems. https://gator17.hostgator.com/ and https://secure17.hostgator.com/ do work, but all connections on port 2083 are rejected.

I don't really know anything about the installation and setup of cPanel (and the underlying OS?), but it does seem that gator17 has some configuration issues with SSL stuff.

I've thought about paying extra for the IP so I can use my own certs, but I want to make sure that SSL-enabled stuff is actually going to work right first. I'm not sure how much of this would be changed by going to my own IP, but I tend to think that if shared SSL won't work, then private won't either.

[InvisiBill]

I've gotten a few emails from different support people, saying "Does it work now?", "Is it still broken?", etc. Nothing has changed though. Secure SMTP works, but not POP or IMAP.

[bagel50]

have you written a support ticket on the issue today? seems odd - have you got acknowledgement of the issue on your server from HG?

Olly

[Thomas]

Waking this one up 'cause I really need an answer....

New client wants all users mail to dump into the main account where he can fish it out (Pop3) and distribute with his mail server. All he cares about is encrypting that password when his server logs in.

Surley this isn't such a big deal, but we can't get a secure Pop3 connection on any port.

Any new ideas?

[slapshotw]

I'm running secure IMAP on port 993, with password authentication. It works fine for me.