| May. 26, 2007 |
New document; DNS & DHCP Setup Doc in Spanish - Henry Izurieta has been kind enough to translate my DNS & DHCP document into Spanish. Find the doc here.
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| Nov. 12, 2006 |
SpamAssassin Setup Doc updated - I’ve started using SpamAssassin’s Razor2 plugin and so I’ve added the steps I used to configure Vipul’s Razor on my server. You will find the updated doc here.
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| Oct. 21, 2006 |
Major Mail Server Setup Doc update - I’ve done a major rewrite of my Mail Server Setup Doc. In particular, I’ve changed how I deal with unwanted email, how I configure netqmail for use as a null client, and how mail gets delivered into local mailboxes. It also includes a new diagram showing how email routes through the Arda Network. Follow this link to find it.
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| Oct. 9, 2006 |
SpamAssassin Setup Doc updated - I’ve upgraded to version 3.1.5 and added a couple of SARE channels to sa-update. Find the updated doc in the usual place.
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| Aug. 19, 2006 |
SpamAssassin Setup Doc updated - I’ve upgraded to version 3.1.4 and I’ve started using the ImageInfo plugin to deal with all the gif stock spam I’ve been receiving lately. Find the updated doc here.
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| Jul. 24, 2006 |
Release 1.1.2 of courierpassd, courierpasswd, and courieruserinfo now available - The biggest behind-the-scenes change in this release is new getopt source files which remove the gettext dependency the old files had. No more linking to libintl at build time. No need to panic, the interfaces of all three utilities remain unchanged. The biggest change affecting the use of these utilities is that courierpasswd and courieruserinfo are no longer installed setuid. The INSTALL files include a lot more information on how to properly set up these utilities and I describe methods that will allow most people to run them non-root and non-setuid. You will find the latest release tarballs in the Store.
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| Jul. 6, 2006 |
DNS & DHCP Setup Doc updated - No major changes to this document. I’ve upgraded to BIND 9.3.2 and DHCP 3.0.4. I needed to make some changes to my network when my server died last month and now those changes are reflected in the document. Follow this link to find it.
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| Jul. 6, 2006 |
SpamAssassin Setup Doc updated - Just a couple of changes in response to feedback I’ve received. One of the changes talks about a potential problem with sa-update so you might want to have another look at it if you’ve already read through the document. Find it here.
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| Jul. 3, 2006 |
New document; SpamAssassin Setup Doc - Like everyone else who runs a mail server on the Internet, I receive more than my fair share of spam. One of the tools I use to stem the tide of unwanted email is SpamAssassin. I’ve prepared a document that describes how I use spamd, spamc, sa-learn, and sa-update as well as other features of SpamAssassin. You can find it here.
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| Jun. 13, 2006 |
Release 1.1.1 of courierpasswd, courierpassd, and courieruserinfo now available - Don’t get too excited, this is just a bugfix release. Charles Fry pointed out a problem with the Makefile that causes it to ignore a user defined path when installing the binary. This problem affects all three of my Courier utility programs. Release 1.1.1 fixes this problem. Thanks Charles! You can find the tarballs in the Store.
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| Jun. 12, 2006 |
The Arda Network is back online! - In case anyone has been wondering where The Arda Network has been for the last week and a half, I have two words for you: power blackout. It managed to kill one of my servers and wouldn’t you know it, it was Thebe, my internet gateway. Anyway, 1 server and 1 UPS later, I’m back in business.
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| May 14, 2006 |
DNS Cache Setup Doc updated - The changes are coming thick and fast right now. I’ve modified my dnscache log setup to provide more history on the status of the cache. Look for the updated doc here.
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| May 14, 2006 |
Stunnel Setup Doc updated - I’ve upgraded to the latest version of Stunnel, 4.15, and changed some of the services that make use of Stunnel. The version upgrade also allowed me to make some changes to how I configure Stunnel on my machines. You can find the updated doc here.
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| May 13, 2006 |
New document; DNS Cache Setup Doc - After a long dry spell, a new document comes to the Arda Network. I’ve prepared a document that describes how I set up a DNS cache using djbdns. You can find it here.
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| May 10, 2006 |
New version of qregex patch available - The latest version of qregex (20060423) adds the LOGREGEX environment variable. Set it, and the matching regex will be included in the logs generated by qregex; good for testing regex patterns or if you want to collect stats on how your regexes are performing. Get qregex here.
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| May 10, 2006 |
courierpasswd finds its way into FreeBSD - It’s been a long time coming but I’ve finally written a FreeBSD port for courierpasswd. You can find it in the security category.
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| Mar. 12, 2006 |
Bug found in version 20050523 of my starttls-2way-auth and qregex-starttls-2way-auth patches - Remote authentication was not working in the 20050523 version of these patches. This problem has now been resolved. Thanks to Jochen Schlick for bringing this issue to my attention. You can find updated patches here. Since I needed to create new versions of these patches anyway, I’ve also updated them with the latest version of Frederik Vermeulen’s netqmail-1.05-tls patch, 20060104.
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| Oct. 16, 2005 |
courierpassd, courierpasswd, and courieruserinfo no longer Release Candidates - It’s been 9 months since the release of the latest versions of my Courier utilities. I’ve decided that it’s time to remove the release candidate status from their version numbers. That’s the only change, no code has been touched in any of the utilities.
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| May 28, 2005 |
New versions of starttls-2way-auth and qregex-starttls-2way-auth patches available - These patches now include version 20050329 of Frederik Vermeulen’s netqmail-1.05-tls patch. Get them here.
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| Mar. 15, 2005 |
New versions of starttls-2way-auth and qregex-starttls-2way-auth patches available - It’s been over a week and it looks like I’ve killed the bug dead. The patches now handle temporary and permanent errors the way they should. If you’re using older versions of either of these patches, I very strongly encourage you to update your systems with the latest version. Get them here.
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| Mar. 7, 2005 |
Serious bug found in starttls-2way-auth-20050127.patch and qregex-starttls-2way-auth-20050127.patch - It has been brought to my attention that there is a serious bug in these two combination patches. The bug can result in mail being lost in the event of a temporary (400 series) error occuring during mail delivery to a remote server. The bug can also prevent non-delivery notifications from being sent to the sender when a permanent (500 series) error occurs. These problems occur only when smtp authentication is not used when sending email. Receiving email is not impacted. Older versions of these patches may also be affected but I haven’t tested them to be sure. I’m currently testing new versions of my patches that correct this bug. If you are using any version of the qregex patch, then you’re safe. The bug only impacts my combination patches. If you want to help me test the fix, drop me a line.
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| Feb. 5, 2005 |
DNS & DHCP Setup Doc updated - I’ve upgraded to BIND 9.3.0 and I’ve fixed a few minor discrepancies between my document and my actual setup.
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| Jan. 30, 2005 |
Stunnel Setup Doc updated - I’m now using version 4.07 of Stunnel. I’ve also made some small changes to my configuration.
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| Jan. 29, 2005 |
More changes to the starttls-2way-auth and qregex-starttls-2way-auth patches - These patches have been updated with version 0.5.7 of Erwin Hoffmann’s qmail-smtpd-auth patch. ESMTPA is now reported in Received headers when smtp authentication is used.
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| Jan. 20, 2005 |
New Release Candidate versions of courierpassd, courierpasswd, and courieruserinfo now available for testing! - I’ve rewritten my utilities to work with the new Courier authentication library. As such, these versions won’t work with Courier software that doesn’t use the library; that means nothing below Courier 0.48, Courier-IMAP 4.0, or SqWebMail 5.0. Try them out and let me know how it goes. Just follow the Software link to find them.
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| Jan. 16, 2005 |
New versions of courierpasswd and courierpassd are on the way - If you use either of these utilities, you’ll be happy to know that I’m working on versions that will work with the new Courier authentication library that Sam Varshavchik has recently released. If you’re interested in helping me test them, drop me a line. You’ll find my email address on the Feedback page.
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| Jan. 3, 2005 |
starttls-2way-auth and qregex-starttls-2way-auth patches updated, again - These patches now include James Raftery’s canonicalised-recipient-logging patch. I also noticed that the qmail-remote_authenticated_smtp patch prevents qmail-remote from logging the results of an smtp conversation when authentication isn’t used. I’ve modified the patch to allow qmail-remote to do it’s normal logging. See the patch for more details.
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| Nov. 29, 2004 |
starttls-2way-auth and qregex-starttls-2way-auth patches updated - These patches now include version 0.5.6 of Erwin Hoffmann’s qmail-smtpd-auth patch. I tried creating a combination patch using qmail-smtpd-auth version 0.6.2 but I just couldn’t get it to work with the starttls patch I use. Perhaps someone else has had better luck.
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| Aug. 2, 2004 |
qregex and qregex-starttls-2way-auth patches updated - qregex includes two new control files; badmailfromnorelay and badmailtonorelay. These control files include patterns that are matched only when the RELAYCLIENT environment variable is not set. The included README.qregex file has more details. My qregex-starttls-2way-auth patch includes this new version of qregex. Follow the Software link and go to the qmail directory to get them.
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| Aug. 2, 2004 |
DNS & DHCP Setup Doc updated, again - I’ve modified ownership and permissions of BIND’s and DHCP’s config files to make my setup more secure. Thanks go to Peter Poeml for his comments.
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| Jul. 22, 2004 |
DNS & DHCP Setup Doc updated - DHCP now runs in a chroot jail. I’ve also upgraded to the latest versions of BIND and DHCP.
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| Jun. 18, 2004 |
Mail Server Setup Doc updated - Many minor tweaks to the document, mostly to reflect incremental software upgrades. I’ve also started using netqmail on all my servers and the document has been modified where appropriate to reflect this.
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| Jun. 6, 2004 |
Starttls-2way-auth and Qregex-starttls-2way-auth patches updated - I’ve updated these combination patches to include the latest versions of the qregex, starttls, and smtpd authentication patches. Follow the Software link and go to the qmail directory to get them.
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| Jun. 2, 2004 |
Qregex patch updated - I’ve updated the documentation included with the patch. There is no new functionality or bug fixes in this release.
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| May 30, 2004 |
New versions of Courierpassd, Courierpasswd, and Courieruserinfo released - Previous versions of these tools would not compile with Courier IMAP 3.0.4. They probably won’t compile with the latest full Courier package either but I haven’t tested this myself. Follow the Software link to get the new versions.
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| May 22, 2004 |
Mail Server Setup Doc updated - I’ve made some changes to my Spfilter setup. I’ve done some more work with the local xml configuration file in order to have rblsmptd return permanent errors (553) when a match is made to a blocklist prepared using Spfilter.
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| May 22, 2004 |
New document; Arda Network Overview Doc - This document provides an overview of the layout of the Arda Network. It’s useful if you want to get a quick understanding of all the machines on my network are doing. Follow the Documents link to find it. This document is also linked off of most of the other pages that describe the software running on the Arda Network.
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| Mar. 28, 2004 |
qregex patch updated - Qregex now sports a badhelo control file that allows you to do pattern matching against the HELO host name sent by the smtp client. This update also plugs a memory leak that could be exploited by a malicious smtp client. I haven’t heard of this leak causing a problem for anyone but I recommend all users of qregex upgrade to this version anyway just in case. The Changelog at the head of the patch provides details about this memory leak.
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| Feb. 21, 2004 |
Updated qmail patches available - My combination starttls-2way-smtp-auth patch was getting a little long in the tooth. I’ve replaced it using the starttls patch written by Frederik Vermeulen and the SMTP auth patch written by Erwin Hoffman. Follow the Software link to get it.
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| Feb. 13, 2004 |
Mail Server Setup Doc updated - I’ve made a number of small modifications to this document. I’ve updated it to better reflect the current architecture of my home network and the different versions of the software I use, and the TMDA configuration has changed to better integrate with users who make use of my webmail interface.
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| Feb. 13, 2004 |
qregex patch updated - Qregex now ignores empty envelope senders. With previous versions, it was possible to write regular expressions that would match the empty envelope sender and thus inadvertently block bounce messages. This is no longer the case. It was also pointed out to me that some of the example REs in the qregex documentation don’t actually work. I’ve replaced these with new REs that do work. Thanks to Thanos and Alex for bringing this to my attention. My qregex-starttls-2way-auth.patch includes this new version of qregex as well.
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| Jan. 27, 2004 |
The Arda Network takes a holiday - Perhaps you noticed that the Arda Network website has been off the air for the last week. My internet gateway box started acting funky about January 15 and finally coughed and died on January 19. It’s taken me until January 26 to get it back in service. During this time, I’ve received no email as well. If you sent me something, send it again to be sure I get it.
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| Dec. 29, 2003 |
qregex patch updated - My version of qregex now includes updated man pages, installs its readme file into qmail/doc, and modifies qmail-showctl to reflect the capabilities of the badmailfrom and badmailto control files; all thanks to the efforts of Jeremy Kitchen. My qregex-starttls-2way-auth.patch includes this new version of qregex as well.
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| Dec. 15, 2003 |
DNS & DHCP Setup Doc updated - BIND now logs to specific files rather than relying on syslog. I’ve added a parameter to DHCP to ensure that DHCP clients can’t update my DNS server directly.
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| Dec. 15, 2003 |
NTP Setup Doc updated - I’ve made some changes to my NTP setup and I’ve also added more explanations as to why I’ve set things up the way I have.
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| Nov. 30, 2003 |
DNS & DHCP Setup Doc updated - I’ve set up BIND to work with views and also made some minor changes to improve the security of my name servers. Go to the Documents page to read all about it.
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| Nov. 7, 2003 |
New document; NTP Setup Doc - Some of the servers I run work very closely together and things just seem to work more smoothly if all of them are using the same time. I use ntpd to synchronize the time on my local machines to public time servers in my area. This document describes my NTP configuration. Find it on my Documents page.
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| Nov. 1, 2003 |
New version of Courierpasswd released - Courierpasswd, the program that authenticates users through Courier authentication modules, is now up to version 0.30. This version adds authentication via CRAM-MD5. Follow the Software link to download it today.
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| Aug. 30, 2003 |
Mail Server Setup Doc updated, again - I’ve created a custom block list to stop incoming mail from a few particularly troublesome domains. The Mail Server Setup Doc describes how I’ve integrated it with spfilter.
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| Aug. 4, 2003 |
Mail Server Setup Doc updated - I’ve made a minor change to my TMDA setup. Because of the way I have my qmail users database set up, I needed to change the way I deal with bounces to TMDA generated messages.
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| July 27, 2003 |
Email is back online - It took long enough but I’ve finally managed to get my email working again. I now have a server at a friend’s who is letting me use one of his statis IPs. The upshot of this odyssey is that I know a lot more about how Ipsec and ssh port forwarding works.
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| July 20, 2003 |
Qmail patches now in The Arda Network Store - I use two patches with qmail that are either modifications of patches available elsewhere or are stock patches combined in a new way. You can find them by following the Software link. The Mail Server Setup Doc has also been updated to reflect my use of these two patches.
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| July 13, 2003 |
Internet Connection Woes - In case anybody’s wondering, I’m having some issues with my internet connection. Although my web site is back on the air, my email server is still offline. I’m working hard to correct that and I am confident that I will have everything back in service soon.
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| May 19, 2003 |
OS upgrade weekend at The Arda Network - I’m now running shiny new installs of Mandrake Linux 9.1 and FreeBSD 4.8. All upgrades were completed without incident; which is saying a lot given all the third party software I’ve installed on these boxes.
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| May 11, 2003 |
New program Courieruserinfo released - Courieruserinfo retrieves information on user accounts that are accessible from Courier authentication modules. Grab it from the Software link.
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| May 11, 2003 |
Multiple virtual domains come to The Arda Network - The Arda Network has always used a virtual domain for routing mail. As it stood, my setup would only work with a single virtual domain. No longer! Now my mail server will work with an arbitrary number of virtual domains. I’ve updated my Mail Server and DNS & DHCP Setup Docs to reflect the changes.
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| Apr. 18, 2003 |
New version of Courierpassd released - Courierpassd, the program that lets users change their password from a remote location, is now up to version 0.30. Follow the Software link to download it today.
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| Apr. 18, 2003 |
TMDA & Mailing Lists HOWTO updated - I’ve added a section for people who want to subscribe to a mailing list with a TMDA protected address but don’t want the list to see tagged email addresses.
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| Apr. 8, 2003 |
Mail Server Setup Doc updated - Minor changes to the document. I’ve upgraded to Courier IMAP 1.7.1 and I’ve made a small change to my spfilter setup.
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| Mar. 27, 2003 |
Mail Server Setup Doc updated - I’ve added Fetchmail to the list of software I’m using on my mail server. Before setting up my own mail server, I used an email address supplied to me by my ISP. I still use this address for a few things and with Fetchmail, I’m able to download mail from my ISP’s mail server into my own mail server.
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| Mar. 2, 2003 |
Stunnel Setup Doc updated - Stunnel is now running in a chroot jail on the Arda Network. Go to the Documents page to find out how it’s done.
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| Mar. 2, 2003 |
New document; IP Addressing for CIDR Networks - Well, this isn’t really a new document. I’ve had a link to it from my DNS & DHCP Setup document for some time but now I have it listed directly on my Documents page.
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| Mar. 1, 2003 |
OS upgrade - I’ve upgraded my DNS and DHCP server from Mandrake Linux 8.2 to 9.0. I’ve made some minor changes along the way and updated my Mail Setup and DNS & DHCP Setup documents accordingly.
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| Feb. 16, 2003 |
Mail Server Setup Doc updated, again - I’ve made some changes to my TMDA setup. I’ve moved some config variables around and I’ve updated the explanations of how TMDA is working on my system.
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| Feb. 15, 2003 |
Mail Server Setup Doc updated - New version of Courier IMAP, more extensive description of daemontools configuration, changes to qmail’s users database and disposition of .qmail files.
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| Feb. 1, 2003 |
New document; Stunnel Setup Doc - I’ve installed Stunnel on two of my servers in my war against plain text network traffic. I use it to secure network communications with my mail server. Find it on my Documents page.
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| Jan. 19, 2003 |
Another BIND chroot example in DNS & DHCP Setup Doc - I’ve finally gotten around to putting BIND in a chroot jail on my primary name server. Now my document has examples for chrooting BIND on both FreeBSD and Mandrake Linux. Hurray!
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| Jan. 18, 2003 |
DNS & DHCP Setup Doc corrected - I had some erroneous information in this document concerning generic zones intended to deal with queries to the network and broadcast addresses. I’ve corrected this with help from the good folks at ISC. Thanks Mark!
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| Jan. 17, 2003 |
DNS & DHCP Setup Doc updated - I’ve added a few explanations of my DNS configuration to help explain why I have things set up the way I do. Find it on the Documents page.
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| Jan. 5, 2003 |
New document; DNS & DHCP Setup Doc - I’ve prepared a new document that describes how DNS and DHCP work on the Arda Network. You can find a link to it on the Documents page.
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| Jan. 2, 2003 |
ezmlm added to TMDA & Mailing Lists HOWTO - As promised, the TMDA & Mailing Lists HOWTO now includes information on how to use TMDA with ezmlm mailing lists.
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| Dec. 29, 2002 |
Still more updates to Mail Server Setup Doc - I moved my mail server to a machine running FreeBSD 4.7 and I've updated the mail server document to reflect this. I've also added a description of how I've set up qmail on a second machine that acts as a client to my mail server.
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| Dec. 26, 2002 |
Version 0.20 of courierpasswd is released - A new configure option, --minuid, has been added. This option specifies a minimum uid below which courierpasswd will not change a password. The --stout switch has also been renamed to --stderr to reflect where output is actually going.
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| Dec. 25, 2002 |
More updates to Mail Server Setup Doc - I've managed to get tmda-ofmipd working with supervise from the daemontools package. I've added a description to my mail server document.
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| Dec. 14, 2002 |
Added daemontools description to Mail Server Setup Doc - I use programs from the daemontools package to automatically start processes on my mail server and to make sure they stay running. Now I've documented how I do it.
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| Dec. 8, 2002 |
Version 0.20 of courierpassd is released - This version adds a new switch, --stderr, which directs logging output to stderr instead of syslog. I've also updated the documentation to include examples of using courierpassd with tcpserver and daemontools. Grab it from the store.
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