I finally got to installing cPanel 11 today. I did run in to the same problems I described before. No mails were accepted from external servers. In the exim_mainlog I was getting “unrouteable mail domain” rejections, and mails were bouncing.

I searched the cPanel forums for answers, asked for help, but all the advise I was getting was to no help. Then finally I found the problem.

My exim.conf and exim.conf.buildtest are both protected with chattr to prevent scripts from updating them, thus reducing the possibility of Exim mail server not restarting due to a faulty configuration file. I did remove the protection for exim.conf before running the upgrade, but I forgot that the buildtest was also protected. The upgrade couldn’t install the new configuration due to this. When I removed this protection, my mail was being processed as normal.

I could bang my head on the wall for missing such a small detail. I could have cPanel 11 running months ago. Anyhow, the customers were happy back then, because they could receive mail again, I was careful, because I assumed the problem was with the upgrade.

Now I’m waiting for the STABLE build of stage 2 of this upgrade, so my customers can enjoy all the benefits of “the most extensive [cPanel] update ever”.