| The Ultimate Business Machine Technology, business And, not least, about by: Bernard Teo
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Thu 11 Mar 2010 DNS Enabler Snow 4.0.4 wth Dynamic DNS UpdatesCategory : Technology I've released DNS Enabler Snow version 4.0.4. This is the one with the ability to listen to DNS update notifications from clients on dynamic IP addresses and keep their host names always in sync with their current IP addresses. This is how it looks like :
The new control is the "Allow Dynamic DNS Updates" check-box. Once this is set and the name server restarted, the DNS Server will be able to listen to dynamic DNS updates from clients on dynamic IP addresses, or clients that are constantly on the move, like MacBooks. This is so that everybody can refer to them simply by their domain names and not worry about which place or even which country they happen to be currently on. The clients need to run the companion application to DNS Enabler Snow, called DNS Agent. The only thing the DNS administrator needs to do is to transfer an authorisation key generated by the server to each of these clients so they can be given the credentials to update the server without any user intervention. Clicking the question-mark icon next to the "Allow Dynamic DNS Updates" opens up a dialog box where you can find the Authorisation Key. The administrator can drag the authorisation key onto the server's desktop and copy it to each of the clients whose IP addresses need to be tracked, either via file transfer or email. Once on the client, if it has the DNS Agent application on it, the user can simply double-click on the key file to open the DNS Agent application to install the key. Then its a simple matter of entering the address of the DNS Server and the host name of the client machine. Then he can start the IP address-monitoring daemon and close the application. The daemon continuously monitors the state of the IP address and updates the DNS Server whenever the IP address changes. It continues to run, even across shutdowns and reboots, until the user stops it from the DNS Agent interface. If you leave the DNS Enabler Snow application on in the server, you can see the updates appearing automatically, but a few minutes later (say, 10 minutes). Why so late? This is because updates are cached by the server but not written straightaway to disk because the updates have to be fast in case they come in in volume (the way dyndns.com's server's load would probably be). They're registered immediately by the server and you can check that it's true if you do a dig on the server in Terminal. But the zone files are batch-updated later. When they do get updated, you'll see that reflected on the DNS Enabler interface immediately. Both DNS Enabler Snow 4.0.4 and DNS Agent 1.0 are available now. And so, I can continue now with my iPhone/iPad exploration. Wed 10 Mar 2010 Introducing DNS AgentCategory : Technology For a long time, I've been wanting to replace DNSUpdate with my own app (DNSUpdate had been keeping my server's IP address record on dyndns.com updated in sync with my domain name whenever that IP address changes). Ever since the Work Around Bonjour troubles we've had on OS X 10.4.7, DNSUpdate hadn't been working quite right, always stalling when you try to install its IP-monitoring daemon, and even now on Snow Leopard. So building something to replace it had been on my radar for some time. And the time came when I received a request to add dynamic DNS client support to DNS Enabler Snow. I worked on this over the last couple of months and I have now a new version of DNS Enabler Snow to release, which I'll do next, but first I'll introduce its companion app, DNS Agent :
DNS Agent can update a DNS Enabler Snow-enabled DNS Server with a client's ever-changing IP address (i.e., those machines on dynamically assigned IP addresses or those machines always on the move), as shown above. Or, DNS Agent can update dyndns.com, if the user has a member's account with dyndns.com (see below).
Setting it up to use with dyndns.com is dead easy - just enter your members.dyndns.com userID and password by clicking on "Set Up Update Keys" button, enter the host name(s) of the machine for which you want DNS Agent to update dyndns.com, start the IP-address monitoring daemon, and you're good to go (as shown above). You can then close the app because the daemon continues to run, even across reboots, until you stop it. Setting DNS Agent to work with a DNS Enabler Snow DNS Server is just as easy. I'll come to it next when I've finished updating DNS Enabler Snow's web page. But DNS Agent is available now. Only for Snow Leopard. Sat 06 Mar 2010 MailServe Snow 4.1.4Category : Technology I've updated MailServe Snow to 4.1.4, so that it can also handle 2048 bit length SSL keys. On top of that, I've also added a new custom Procmail settings button to the Spam panel.
MailServe Snow uses Procmail to integrate Postfix, Dovecot and SpamBayes to implement spam filtering. With version 4.1.4, the user can now set up custom Procmail directives to be processed before or after the default procmail directives for handling spam filering.
The default procmailrc can also be edited and there's a button to revert the directives back to their default state if, for some reason, the user's custom edits fail to work. Download the latest MailServe 4.1.4 now. I have a new version of DNS Enabler Snow to be released next. Plus a new companion app, DNS Agent. They will work in concert to allow client machines on dynamic IP addresses to update the DNS server whenever their IP addresses change. With this, users can now set up their own dynamic DNS service, much like dyndns.com. Actually, I've made DNS Agent able to also update dyndns.com so that I can now use my own app instead of DNSUpdate. It seems to be working well on my live site but I'll need to test it for a few days more. Plus, I'm also working (with my friend, Hai Hwee) on the iPhone and the iPad simulator to port Maven (which will soon be renamed) and Luca to these platforms. So lots of work. More work, less talk, more reading, and more time with the family - that comes pretty close to paradise on earth, at least for me. WebMon Snow 4.0.5 ReleasedCategory : Technology I've updated WebMon Snow to 4.0.5. From this version, on WebMon Snow will create SSL test certs and cert requests at a default 2048 bits instead of the previous 1024 bit standard. There is a movement towards supporting only 2048 bit length keys by Certificate Issuers and browser makers by December 31st 2010 and this is to prepare for it. According to the GoDaddy link that I quoted, above, "It is estimated that the computer power required to break 1024-bit length secure certificate private keys will exist by 2011." But it seems like it's already been broken yesterday. (See "RSA 1024-bit private key encryption cracked"). So, right on time. And I'll be updating MailServe Snow, too. Fri 29 Jan 2010 MailServe Snow 4.1.3 ReleasedCategory : Technology I've released MailServe Snow 4.1.3.
It includes a few new features. I've added the ability to create and delete mail users from within MailServe, and decide if the user should be hidden from the Login Window and whether he has the full complement of the standard OS X home folder or a minimal home folder to store only the IMAP folders. The administrator can also decide for this user if his spam mail will be deleted right away or continue to collected in the spam folder. Dovecot has been updated to the latest version 1.2.10. Fetchmail was updated by Apple to 6.3.11 via the latest software updates, and this version has a much less chatty log and so the Fetchmail log has been merged with the Postfix and Dovecot log in the MailServe Log Panel. Finally, there used to be a 16K limit to the size of the Aliases field (and all other similar fields). This limit has been removed and they can now contain as much information as the mail admin wants. This is a release that includes a substantial amount of code changes, plus a lot of tweaks that the user don't see underneath - unless I left some bugs and, of course, hell may then break loose. But I've tested as much as I can and I've been using it on my live server for a week now. Hope that I've done enough. This is really the time to put in the new features - when Snow Leopard has already settled in for a while. It would have been unwise to attempt all these when Snow Leopard just came out. So it's a bit of an inversion (in terms of business practice) from what the users would have expected. But this is dictated by the realities of living at the cutting edge of technology. I think this works. (And I'm now going to work on a major new feature addition to DNS Enabler Snow, though there's a new toy - the iPad simulator - that's calling out its siren song.) Wed 27 Jan 2010 Dovecot 1.2.10Category : Technology Dovecot 1.2.10 is out, so I've updated the latest test version of MailServe Snow 4.1.3 to include it. I might also be able to include a feature that'll allow the user to set up his own custom procmail recipes, in addition to the one that's set up for the SpamBayes junk-mail filtering to work. This is going to be a pretty significant update. Mon 25 Jan 2010 Dovecot 1.2.9Category : Technology I forgot to mention that the latest (testing-stage) MailServe Snow 4.1.3 also includes the latest Dovecot 1.2.9 release. But you'll need to save your MailServe config and then do a de-install of MailServe so that MailServe can then replace it with the new version of Dovecot when you start up all the services again. I'm starting on a new version of DNS Enabler for Snow Leopard that will hopefully make it able to support dynamic DNS updates from client machines that are on dynamic IP addresses. Sat 23 Jan 2010 MailServe Snow 4.1.3Category : Technology There is now a new 4.1.3 version of MailServe Snow (as yet unreleased). I've added the ability to create new OS X users from within MailServe. The administrator has the option to create standard OS X users (with the full complement of folders inside their home folder) or ones with only a minimal home folder (to contain only the IMAP folders) and these latter type of users are hidden in the OS X login window.
It needs more testing before I'll release it. I'm using it now on my live server. There's one more new feature - the ability to indicate that spam for a specific user should be sent straight to the black hole, via /dev/null, with just one click. I've used this to make sure that my son Brendan never ever gets to see the spam/junk/filth that was heading his way (or at least the ones that were filtered off by SpamBayes - a few still get through unfortunately). Because the users thus created who have a minimal home folder do not appear in the login users list, they will also not show up in Systems Preferences' Accounts pane. So, how do we delete them when necessary? I've given the mail administrator the ability to delete users but, to be safe, MailServe will not delete admin-level users. Current MailServe Snow users who would like to try it can just contact me and I'll send the copy over. Read more ... |
Mac@Work
Services running on this server (an iMac 2.66 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo, 4 GB RAM, 320 GB hard disk, Ethernet, Airport Extreme, Mac OS X 10.6.2 Snow Leopard 10B504) :
(mostly) set up with the help of MailServe, WebMon, and DNS Enabler, all for Snow Leopard. |
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