Plesk SMTP ridiculously slow

If you use a Plesk server as your outgoing SMTP to send email from your client (I like Thunderbird!) you may notice that it takes FOR-EVER to connect and send. After a quick Google search, I found out that you need to disable reverse DNS lookup to speed things along. This page is where I found the fix and it has great info. I’ll dupe it here for the hell of it.

Edit your /etc/xinet.d/smtp_psa (and smtps_psa for secure connetions I assume). Under “server_args” insert “-Rt0” after the equals sign.

Before:

server_args = /var/qmail/bin/relaylock /var/qmail/bin/qmail-smtpd /var/qmail/bin/smtp_auth /var/qmail/bin/true /var/qmail/bin/cmd5checkpw /var/qmail/bin/true

After:

server_args = -Rt0 /var/qmail/bin/relaylock /var/qmail/bin/qmail-smtpd /var/qmail/bin/smtp_auth /var/qmail/bin/true /var/qmail/bin/cmd5checkpw /var/qmail/bin/true

Restart xinetd via /etc/init.d/xinetd restart and you’re done! Test it out, your SMTP should be much faster.

Author: Joel Mama

I own a Web development company in Portland, OR called Prise Design Group (PDG for short). http://prisedesign.com/

3 thoughts on “Plesk SMTP ridiculously slow”

  1. Thank you very much for posting this information. A coworker and I are in the middle of configuring a new Plesk server. This was the last of the potential deal breakers that we are now able to cross off the list.

    Thanks again for making it simple and straightforward.

    One quick note: On our system, an 8.1.1 box running on CentOS 4.5, the path for the files is /etc/xinetd.d/smtp_psa and /etc/xinetd.d/smtps_psa. But that’s no worry… easy enough to find once we knew what to look for. 😀

  2. Finally an answer… Thank you so much…

    I’m looking after this since two days. Must have been 10 hours of search 🙁

    Ok, I must say I did not make the correct google search …. I was looking for slow smtp, and slow port 25 connection 🙁 Didn’t really thought it was related to plesk specifically, until tonight.

    Cheers

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