Qmail Project On Hiatus

After spending most of my time this weekend finally getting Qmail (along with all of it's Toaster friends) running on Mac OS X Server 10.2.6, I am putting the project on hiatus until Mac OS X Tiger Server comes out.

I have extensive notes on how to get the install done (get'er done!), but won't be posting those since it is fine tuned for my setup, not anyone else's. I burned down my server umpteen times trying to get this thing to finally work. Thank goodness for Carbon Copy Cloner. I restored my system back to "new" about 8 or 9 times. Most of it was due to the fact that the qmail toaster components require newer software than what ships with the default OS X Server 10.2 package. Perl was the biggest offender. I compiled it manually, and used the Aaron Faby version. Neither one turned out right.

Then there is also the question of security and stability. I will need to do further testing in regards to both aspects. Almost anything you read on the net says to NOT run Qmail SMTP and POP3 services through Xinetd. Mac OS X doesn't really have the /etc/rc.d and /etc/init.d directory structure that these programs are looking for. I had better luck running them through Xinetd than adding scripts to /System/Library/StartupItems (which can add the scripts to the end of the /etc/rc.common file). All materials found online suggest running these services through tcpserver and let those services be monitored by daemontools. I used neither.

I will see if these things work more in harmony under Tiger Server. But for now, Qmail here at the ranch will continue running on Yellow Dog Linux

The install under Linux is almost a breeze now, since everything works as it's supposed to. Too funny!

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Web Site Project and pMachine

Last week pMachine.com announced that they are retiring pMachine Pro and focusing entirely on their new flagship application, ExpressionEngine. For anyone who might be interested, the latest version of pMachine Pro (v2.4) is now available as a free download.

While deciding the setup and design of the next version of this web site, I evaluated Geeklog, ExpressionEngine, and pMachine.

Geeklog is a very powerful web site management tool. Almost too powerful. It has more features than you could shake a burrito at. The Geeklog developers hold the writers of plugins for their system up to a certain standard. Plugin's are a breeze to install (as long as they follow the developer API), and there are a ton of 'em out there. Geeklog's Plugin Manager also comes with a handy dandy uninstaller, making for easy removal of plugins you no longer want or need. Geeklog uses a user/group permission system, and you can limit any portion of the content right down to the user level. To me, Geeklog seems much more at home in an Enterprise environment, rather than a personal web site environment. Might be a little over-kill for the occasional blogger who posts only a few times per month. That said though, Geeklog works great, and best of all, it's free!

ExpressionEngine is an entirely different beast compared to pMachine. ExpressionEngine is built for the power-blogger and the once-in-a-blue-moon blogger alike. The nicest thing about it is that once you have it properly uploaded to your web server and all permission set correctly, you'll never have to FTP again (except for updates and new plugins, of course). All data is stored in the MySQL database. This includes all templates, layouts, and any new pages you create. Templates now allow PHP (that's not allowed in pMachine.) You can manage all aspects of your web site, even database backups, all from within the Control Panel. It has some of the best spam deterrent programming built right in as well. It is definitely the next generation blogging system. ExpressionEngine is a commercial product and costs $149 per license. This may sound a little steep, but if you look at all the features it offers, it isn't such a bad deal after all. Documentation is superb and new plugins are coming out everyday. Support is awesome, too. A lot of Mac users use ExpressionEngine, and we know quality when we see it (hence, our platform of choice!). I highly recommend checking this one out if you are shopping for a new Content Management System for your web site needs.

Ultimately though, after all testing was done, I decided to stick with pMachine Pro for Version 7. I made that decision long before it was announced that pMachine was at the end of it's life cycle. I still plan to go forth with it even now. pMachine is very well programmed, and allows for a lot of your own hacking. I've been getting jiggy with PHP as of late, so I like to program a lot of my own stuff anyways. pMachine allows me this freedom. It also integrates very well into the non-pMachine portions of the web site. I just need the stable core of the program. For my needs, pMachine Pro will do just fine.

I guess that this is sort of a project update for the web site. I have settled upon pMachine Pro and am moving forward with the recently released 2.4 version upgrade. I've toyed around with some new template designs, but nothing concrete as of yet. Will all of this be a moot point once Tiger Server is released, with it's built in blog server? Who knows.

Long live pMachine!

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Project Status Update

Thought I'd chime in today to give a status update on what's happening with the projects I mentioned in my last post (oh so long, long, long ago.)

Project #1 - Qmail on Mac OS X

This is a tedious install. I almost had everything working, and then it blew apart, so I'm currently starting over.... again (for the eleventieth time!)

Everything was working splendidly, until I went to install the latest version of SpamAssassin. It required that I upgrade my version of Perl first. The Perl upgrade seemed to go fine, that is, until I started checking to see if everything that was previously installed was still working. For some reason, the box would no longer send or receive mail and some startup items refused to start. I futzded with it for a while and finally decided to restore the box back to original and start over with a fresh copy of Mac OS X Server. This time around, the first thing on my to-do list was to upgrade Perl. Things seem to be going OK so far, and I am once again a little past half way through the install.

As long as the Starbucks holds out, I'll continue pursuing this project.

Project #2 - Call of Duty Server

The Call of Duty server I had set up at the house rapidly exceeded my bandwidth limitations. To keep [Housewares] alive, I had to move the entire operation to a rented server from GibGames. The server now runs out of a Dallas facility with huge fat pipes. This allows me to have a 12 player server running 24-7 without sucking down all available bandwidth at the homestead. Once I am out of my Comcast contract, I plan on upgrading the pipes here at home and will bring the server back in-house. GibGames has been great, though. They run a superb system and I would highly recommend them to anyone else out there in need of a Call of Duty server rental.

No updates on the other two projects. I really haven't had the time to look into them.

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Project Lineup

Okay, time to get back into the swing of things. The purpose of this here blog is to keep track of things that I do and the projects I work on. Stuff I know real well one day is gone the next, as I am busy absorbing the specifics of whatever project I'm currently working on. I work on a wide variety of things, so knowledge comes and goes, at a rather quick pace.

With that said, I am currently working on 3 projects I'll be documenting as I go along.

Project #1: OS X Mail Server

The mail system that delivers and receives mail for marcuslingl.net is powered by Qmail and runs on an iMac running Yellow Dog Linux 3. When shopping for mail servers, I was most impressed by Qmail and the management tools written for it, such as qmailadmin. Unfortunately, there were no quick and dirty installers for Mac OS X. Qmail Toasters, however, are plentiful for Linux. Hence, the Qmail/Linux decision was easy to make. Well, now that I am more familiar with it, I would like to move it all to Mac OS X.

The mail project will include getting Qmail, vpopmail, courier IMAP, qmailadmin, vqadmin, squirrelmail, mrtg, and spamassassin working together in harmony on Mac OS X.

Project #2: Call of Duty Server

My weekly Call of Duty habit has caused me to start running my own COD server. Unfortunately, I do not yet have dedicated hardware (Xserve) for it. Right now I am working on PHP scripts to pull data from the temporary server I have running, and display information such as server status and player stats.


Project #3: Website Update

I have finished reviewing all the latest weblog tools such as ExpressionEngine and Geeklog, and am beginning work on the next version of Marcuslingl.Net. I am in no hurry to push something out, so don't expect anything new soon.


Project #4: Spyware Removal Manual

This one's a long stretch, mainly because there is so much to write, and spyware is constantly changing, where yesterdays removal methods no longer work today. This one may not see the light of day for quite some time.

The projects are listed in order of importance, so as soon as I have something to write-up about Qmail on Mac OS X, I'll post it.

It's Been A While

Yup, it's been a while since I posted in this here section. I assure you, it's not dead. I'm just A Busy Guy®.

I've started thinking about the next version of this web site. Currently, it's powered by pMachine. I really like it and find that it's easy to maintain. Basically, it meets my needs. Plus, it's real easy to inject my little PHP hacks into it. But being the person I am, I like to tinker with things and learn new stuff, so lately I've been looking into other things.

First thing I've looked at is another pMachine product called ExpressionEngine. I find myself somewhat loyal to pMachine, since it's what got me started doing things the "dynamic" way. ExpressionEngine (EE from now on) is **not** open source and costs money. However, there is a lot of support that comes with it. And the documentation is top-notch. I refer to it all the time! EE is quite a different animal from pMachine and will take some time to learn. Especially if I want it to do some of the new stuff I wanna do...

And then there's Geeklog. My friend Don mentioned it in my comments from a few posts back. I checked into it and really liked what I saw. It's open-source so it has the best price of all -FREE- and it seems that it has some pretty active development at this time (It's what MacOSXHints runs on.) I've been playing with it for a few days now and find that it's coded really well. It's theme driven, so some aspects of the site are tightly integrated and controlled. I haven't tried to customize it yet, so I don't know exactly how much trouble it's gonna give me.

Currently, I have both EE and Geeklog installed in a testing environment. I'll post more when I find out more.

Till next time...

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