Spring is in the air! Volo 5.0.6 changelog

Hard work always pays off. Here are some of the features we added, big and small. Bugfixes, tweaks under the hood and stuff it would take a semester to lay out – multiply this list by 10, easy. Here we go:

  • The ability to log the connections in a file, with each connection having a unique identifier. That UCID lets you grep the raw.log so you see the whole smtp exchange, warts and all. Ask me if you need it.
  • We added default clickers and openers actions.
  • The AdStation api is still there, so that’s one more way of populating your emails with unique from/subject/body data, already used by one entrepreneurial client.
  • Track link keywords are now being rotated by default (as opposed to using only the selected one). You can also add and remove keywords from the pool. Looking to obsolete them in the future.
  • We added some super-restrictive throttling, by default, to let you start your voyage safely.
  • By popular demand: next to Google, MSN, OATH, cable and GI now we have the “Entire Internet” throttling target, which is a superset of them all.
  • Now you can punch in your private/gmail/commercial SMTP relay logins on the admin UI / system / Inbox page, and use it to reply to your recipients (from the Inbox, via that relay) as opposed to opening your Gmail in another tab and responding from there. Still not a reply from the address they wrote to, let me know if this is high on your list of priorities.
  • Loading templates on the New Message page now needs a click (to prevent a huge templates lists making that page load for half a minute).
  • Whatever columns you select to see on the mailer account Delivery Queue page will be in the excel exports as well. Don’t forget, each time you adjust the selection and width of the columns on the Delivery Queue page those settings remain (works for both admin and mailer accounts).
  • Regular annual fiddling with the DST settings. Looks like they are going to stop doing that, EU for instance will trash DST in 2021.
  • XML feed – enrich and vary your emails by including data from the online public feeds. Or use this technique to pump unique emails based on your database (https://www.volomp.com/email-platform/xml-feeds/).
  • case/switch personalization control structure added (https://www.volomp.com/email-platform/new-macros-tags/)
  • AB testing – multi from and subjects, a heat map for each track link and opens. Found in the message details of a drop containing multiple froms and/or multiple subjects.
  • We have seen clients using Amazon EC2 instances as proxies, with EIPs (“elastic ips”) inboxing from the get go! Of course, it can go sour quick, but with good enough data/offers…
  • TLS is now off by default, except for Google. Ask me to turn it on for a specific thr target.
  • Message IDs (and job ids in general) now go 1, 2, 3, … and  not 1837, 2837, 3837 like before, much more readable this way.
  • From field now much harder to screw up. Remember, keep the domain as %%$_sdomain%% if you want DKIM to work. Change it only if you don’t care about dkim.
  • Improved readability on the Executive Dashboard connection log.
  • You want to disable exports on the admin UI as well, along the fine-grain access permissions on the mailer account level? Sure, why not, ask me to switch it on.
  • Always wanted to define max number of emails transmitted over a connection? Done, look for it on the throttling page.
  • We made sure all ips taking part in a drop get used evenly. That was always the goal and it worked, but the endless refactoring keeps things interesting..
  • The preferred Centos distribution for new Volo servers is now Centos 7.
  • Executive Dashboard page now has a Holds section, which shows which sender-receiver ip combos are on hold and why (if because of throttles – which ones? If because of holds – which ones?)
  • You can now add from fields in bulk, simply paste them one per line, where the last word on the line will be used as email username, here’s a line: Joey C. Patone jpat66

IPv6

Finally, here’s a special offer to our clients. We are done (or nearly done) ironing out kinks related to mailing Google using IPv6 ips! If you would like to add an IPv6 range to your Volo and do some gmail delivery this is what you need:

  • a small ipv6 range (small because we make configs 1-2k large, it’s hard to exhaust an ipv6 range). Make sure the prefix is divisible by 4 (examples: /120, /116, /96, /64) so that the rdns delegation works without a hitch.
  • one or more IPv4 ips and a domain to be used for dns
  • domains

If interested please let me know at joe@volomp.com