email certificate expired

[SylvanOgre]

Suddenly getting certificate warning when retrieving email from x10host account(s). When I view the certificate, I see it expired today (ok, that explains it...).
What/how/can I renew the certificate? Im a little confused since free accounts arent allowed SSL certificates, so how did a certificate get created in the first place?

What are the email server settings and authentication settings we are supposed to use now?
(Please note, this has been working with cPanel for years).

 

[Anna]

I know that one or possibly two servers with cPanel had ssl turned on during an update or something like that which made cPanel hand out free certificates for those servers, it could be that your server was one of them.

What are you currently using for settings? Using the server address as host should allow you to connect with a certificate, in your case that would be: x12.x10hosting.com

 

[SylvanOgre]

Anna:
I still think they should pay you. But thats from another post.

A month ago, I got my email working again (after it broke because of the migration) by changing the servers from (I forgot what it was; xo1 or 2 or...) to "x12.x10hosting.com", which got my email working for about 36 hours. Then it broke again.
After hacking through the forums, reading many posts about this same email issue, I stumbled across this thread:
https://x10hosting.com/community/threads/email-quit-working-in-the-last-24-hours.206947/#post-973988, and my email has been working since applying the fix in that post...
until the SSL issue a few days before I started this thread.
Thank you for allowing the backstory.

To answer your question, I am currently using "mail.[myx10hostdomain]" on port 995 (POP), with SSL/TLS and normal password for authentication.
I do not remember creating any SSL certificates for my accounts.

If SSL is not available for free x10 accounts, what security (if any) should I be using?

Is any of this information documented somewhere that I should be looking at?

Thanking you for your time.
(Its been a busy week for me, too).

 

[SylvanOgre]

any comments?
Or did I ask too many questions in a single post?

 

[garrettroyce]

From the olden days, I remember that the SSL certificate is not valid for individual users subdomains and added domains. Also, individual users cannot add SSL certificates. But, your server has a valid SSL certificate.

Be extremely aware, your server will change periodically!



Your server currently is x12.

If you are ok with non-SSL, then the settings can be obtained via DirectAdmin for Outlook. If you don't have Outlook or prefer to have the settings, they are


Change the host to mail.[your domain name] instead of mine.

 

[SylvanOgre]

garretroyce:

Thank you for your prompt reply.

The first pic was the settings that worked for about a week (see "backstory" above).
The settings in the second pic work for sending, but not receiving. When retrieving email, the error message is:

An error occurred with the POP3 mail server. Mail server mail.[my domain name] responded: [either blank or a string of spaces]"​

Also, how can the SSL certificate be valid if it expired Feb 23, 2020?

I am not an expert at this stuff, and welcome reviewing the obvious in case I am missing something.

 

[garrettroyce]

The second pic was IMAP and not POP3. I can get you the POP3 settings since ThunderBird will sniff them out for me. I see the cert is good until 5/19/2020; I'm not sure if you're seeing something cached or the way I checked it isn't right.

POP3 is port 110

 

[SylvanOgre]

What was I saying about the obvious ? the pic even shows IMAP! I have looked at this so many times that I no longer see what is there...

I quickly looked at (my) Thunderbird's certificate settings, and did not find where the current certs are being stored. I will study it more carefully and create a new thread.

Question: where is the cert you are looking at stored? on [mydomain], or on X12?

 

[garrettroyce]

The cert for x12 can be viewed at https://x12.x10hosting.com by viewing the cert in your browser. I believe this is the cert Thunderbird sees and it's what I'm talking about.

The cert for your site is invalid because it was generated by cPanel and since we're not using cPanel, it did not get renewed. I checked this in my browser as well.

Thunderbird does not have a way to view certs directly, as far as my research shows. It would require a plugin. But, I am not prompted for an invalid certificate, so I would assume it is valid, but Thunderbird doesn't seem to have a nice way of presenting any of that information, like web browsers do.

 

[garrettroyce]

@SylvanOgre I'm marking this issue as resolved. Please create a new thread if the need arises. Thank you.