So, go, get your daily dose of apachecon fun, over at http://us.apachecon.com

So after installing cyrus-sasl, postfix and dovecot all I needed to do was:

Edit /etc/postfix/main.cf  – At the end of your configuration add:

smtpd_sasl_auth_enable = yes
smtpd_recipient_restrictions = permit_mynetworks,permit_sasl_authenticated,reject_unauth_destination
smtpd_sasl_security_options = noanonymous
smtpd_sasl_type = dovecot
smtpd_sasl_path = private/auth

Don’t forget that postfix by default runs in it’s own chroot jail, so the smptd_sasl_path above is relative to the postfix root. So in my case on CentOS 5 that equates to “/var/spool/postfix/private/auth”

Now go on and edit your /etc/dovecot.conf file.  Find the lines

userdb passwd {
}

Then add this immediately below it

socket listen {
client {
path = /var/spool/postfix/private/auth
mode = 0660
user = postfix
group = postfix
}
}

Now all you need to do is restart postfix, dovecot and (re)start saslauthd

/etc/init.d/postfix restart
/etc/init.d/dovecot restart
/etc/init.d/saslauthd restart

If you now telnet to your mail server on port 25, and use EHLO you should be able to see the following

ehlo me
250-your.server.domain.com
250-PIPELINING
250-SIZE 10240000
250-VRFY
250-ETRN
250-AUTH PLAIN LOGIN
250-ENHANCEDSTATUSCODES
250-8BITMIME
250 DSN

My next posting will include details on how to extend this to include the use of TLS

The product is far superior to that of all it’s competitors. 24×7 support, true TLS support, BC capabilities, mail archiving and LDAP support.  The presentation literally blew me away with the features, quality of the product and more simply the speed of the portal.

I am hopeful this will be the end to a few of my bugbears with the current supplier.

Sadly some flaming idiot in Poland, has been sending out emails claiming to be me.
I have looked at the message headers for a few of them, they all came from different servers, different providers.

Now, I wonder if there is an MTA addon that checks the message headers as they come in, especially if the message looks like an NDR, and if the message didn’t originate from one of my known IPs (SPF records perhaps) then reject the message, or pass it to SpamAssassin, or the likes. Any ideas?
[1] NDR – Non-Delivery Report

I decided to migrate all my websites, hosted email, and other miscellaneous hosted services to a dedicated service,  rather than hosting it elsewhere.  I had struggled to keep the box located in my employers datacentre racks, due to space and the somewhat agreessive use of the corpororate bandwidth.

So I opted to use a CentOS slicehost service.  The host has been up for nearing 20 days now, not long in the scheme of things I know, but, I don’t care.  I now have all my services off-site, and backed up two fold (by myself and by slicehost snapshots. Daily, weekly, and monthly.) I dont need to worry about a thing.

The only downside for me, personally, is that the hardware is co-located in the US.  Which means my round-trip times have increased from ~25ms to in excess of 75ms.  Not huge, I know. But noticeable.

I am considering upgrading from my 256 slice, to a 512.  As I have a few php sites (this one included) and a few MySQL databases.  My assigned phisyical RAM is almost gone. Oh well, let’s see how she gets on.

Right, for the past few weeks I have been trying to get my hands on a 17″ MBP. Not the standard retail model, I want the smaller but faster disk, more RAM, and a few other tweaks.

In the UK (apple.com/uk) retail price for this unit is about £2,200. However in the US the same spec will typically retail for about $2,150. That is near as damn it half the price of the UK model. Now I know that the UK (and EU) has steep import taxes for goods, but this does not justify the 100% difference in price.

So, Apple. Why oh why, are you so expensive over here? I mean your pricing is so exhorbantly high that drive people to look for alternate methods of getting their grubby little mits on the toy that they want.

The price for me is so vast, I could probably take a week long trip to the US, buy it locally there, and bring it back with me. With enough change for a cup of tea at LHR.

Does anyone have any ideas? The wife is struggling to see how a £2k+ laptop is value for money, unless it can clean the house, and cook.

This is by no means the only tale of Apple hiking up prices as soon as their products hit the shelves ok UK resellers. In fact Apple are not the only US brand to do this. Levi jeans are another good example. But these are not just 100% more expensive, during my last visit stateside they were near enough 350% more expensive.

It’s things like these that make you wonder if your future lies in the Country in which you were born. Don’t even get me started on the state of the UK political climate, it is worse than feeding time at the Zoo of late.

So far so good…

Using on the desktop PC at home, and the $work laptop.
I have to say I have seen a massive decrease in time it takes most of my frequently visited sites to load.

No crashes or other issues I may expect from an RC, but heck. I aint one to argue.

As of this morning I have just resigned my position as a freenode staffer.

I just couldn’t offer the sort of time that is needed to operate as a staff member for this busy IRC network. I deeply regret not having 32 hour days so I could fit all my daily activities into one day.

So I have had to decide which projects I do have time for, and of those which am I more involved with and/or passionate about.

I am currently helping out with the SVN server issues at Apache, and I have spend a considerable amount of time using the Dell DRAC cards to monitor the console of the said server. I live in the UK, and this server is in Oregon. A fair old distance away.

To me this is no magical mystery, but to my wife on the other hand, well. I was running the remote media option, to boot a Dell diagnostic CD. She simply could not fathom how a single ISO image file on my laptop could make a server 9 hours flying time away boot up and run a new set of programs. She was baffled to say the least.

Oh how some days I wish I could go back to being that naive. But this is not likely to happen any time soon, alas.

I have finally found time to upload the new design for www.pc-tony.com

Not sure many of you will use it, but it does have some links to all my other online presence.