Hi I recently had a lot of email/imap issues with authentication errors which forced me to upgrade from Ubuntu 14.04 to 16.04. Now email works great and authenticates properly, but the upgrade saw me upgrade both MySQL (to 5.7) and PHP (to 7.0) from much older versions - which is fine for most of my sites but has left others with bugs and problems. Some just won’t work and use old templates/themes no longer supported giving me no real change of patching or updating them to get them to work.
I’d hate really to downgrade PHP and MySQL as I’ll eventually need to move with the times anyway and most sites do work better and faster due to the upgraded versions…
So I’m wondering if there is a simple way in Virtualmin to run those older versions for the few sites that won’t work and how best to set this up?
OR…
Am I best using a Raspberry PI or some other small or cheaper server to run older MySQL and PHP for the sites that need it and then just add MX records to those sites so they use my main server for email. If this would work how would I then configure the Raspberry PI to use my other server for mail for those older few sites?
The software versions you’re using are those provided by your distribution.
Unfortunately, Ubuntu 16.04 doesn’t provide older software versions… there wouldn’t be a simple way to run older software versions on there.
I don’t know about a Raspberry Pi, but I do know that there are various VPS services around that cost $10 or $20 a month… you could always look into one of those. For running a Linux distribution with older software versions.
I’ll also offer that the authentication issues you were seeing on Ubuntu 14.04 were very unusual. If moving to 16.04 is causing a problem but you also don’t want to have to maintain multiple servers, you could always setup a new 14.04 server, move one domain over to it, test it out – and once you’ve verified everything is working you could migrate all your domains over to that. Then you on;y have one server to manage.
In terms of if I do just run another older server for those few sites - how do I go on just adding mx records for mail on my main ubuntu 16.04 server so that the older server can use the newer one for mail? Or is this tricky? Thanks again.
Thanks Freddy, yes I think the separate server for those older version sites is the best bet as you and Eric advise. But I’d still prefer to route all mail through my main server if this can be setup easily?
Whatever server is setup as the nameserver for your domain – you can just go into Server Configuration -> DNS Records, and there, change the MX record to your preferred IP address.
Thanks Eric, so back on the main server once I’ve done this how to I then create the mailbox, do I just add a Virtual Server for the domain there also and create a mailbox that way but not put any site files etc on it? Or do I add an Alias Server with mail or some other way?