Apple put up a page in the knowledge base explaining how to find out if your Mac is 32 or 64 bits enabled. It will explain how to find out which CPU you have and in that lies the answer.

The short answer is:

Intel Core Solo is 32 bit
Intel Core Duo is 32 bit
Intel Core 2 Duo is 64 bit
Intel Quad-Core Xeon is 64 bit

Read more about it here.

There is a new version of the Dovecot IMAP and POP3 server released. It’s mainly meant as a bug fix release that where discoverd by a multitude of users which upgraded to 1.2.1. I’ve updated all my test servers without any significant issues. Here is a list of issues fixed:

• GSSAPI: More changes to authentication. Hopefully good now.
• lazy_expunge plugin: Drop \Deleted flag when moving message.
• dovecot -n/-a now outputs also lda settings.
• dovecot.conf !include now supports globs (e.g. !include /etc/dovecot/*.conf). Based on patch by Thomas Guthmann.
• acl: Support spaces in user/group identifiers.
• shared mailboxes: If only %%n is specified in prefix, default to current user’s domain.
• Dovecot master process could hang if it received signals too rapidly.
• Fixed “corrupted index cache file” errors (and perhaps others) caused by e.g. IMAP’s FETCH BODY[] command.
• IMAP: When QRESYNC is enabled, don’t crash when a new mail is received while IDLEing.
• IMAP: FETCH X-* parameters weren’t working.
• Maildir++ quota: Quota was sometimes updated wrong when it was being recalculated.
• Searching quoted-printable message body internally converted “_” characters to spaces and didn’t match search keys with “_”.
• Messages in year’s first/last day may have had broken timezones with OSes not having struct tm->tm_gmtoff (e.g. Solaris).
• virtual plugin: If another session adds a new mailbox to index, don’t crash.

For everyone who has not updated to a 5.1.x version. This is a bug fix release and it is up to you if you want to upgrade. If you don’t have any current issues you don’t need to upgrade.

Check all the fixes that are listed on the release notes to see what issues are resolved and if you are affected.

I’ve compiled this version and did some simple tests on Leopard and Tiger and both can be compiled and installed using the instructions in the documentation set without problems.

Read the documentation on how to ugrade MySQL.

Timo Sirainen released a new version of the Dovecot IMAP and POP3 server. It’s mainly meant as a bug fix release that where discoverd by a multitude of users which upgraded to 1.2.0. I’ve updated all my test servers without any significant issues. Here is a list of issues fixed:

• GSSAPI: Changed logging levels and improved the messages. Changed the way cross-realm authentication handling is done, hopefully it’s working now for everyone.
• imap/pop3 logins now fail if home directory path is relative. v1.2.0 deliver was already failing with these and they could have caused problems even with v1.1.
• IMAP: Custom authentication failure messages are now prefixed with [ALERT] to get more clients to actually show them.

Included are also some improved error messages:

• pop3: AUTH PLAIN was broken when SASL initial response wasn’t given.
• mbox: New mailboxes were created with UIDVALIDITY 1.
• quota-fs was defaulting to group quota instead of user quota.
• Fixed ACLs to work with mbox.
• Fixed fchmod(-1, -1) errors with BSDs
• convert plugin / convert-tool: Fixed changing hierarchy separators in mailbox names when alt_hierarchy_char isn’t set.

While installing my G4 mini with the new mailserver setup I found some minor mistakes in the documentation. Some of the settings where changed on the test server to get it working and they didn’t make it into my notes. That is corrected now.

Also I’ve incorporated the SSL and TLS settings into the default setup instead of making them a separate set of instructions. I think you should not have a mailserver without it.

As a last addition before I start documenting the setup on Tiger I’ve included a page with instructions on how to be able to test your setup. I hope you find them usefull.

As you might have remembered my oldest mini had died a few weeks ago by a malfunctioning hard-disk. Getting a new disk took this long as my new MBP was enjoying all the attention it got from me. Installing everything a new and playing with a copy of Snow Leopard.

I got the mini a brand spanking new WD Scorpio Blue 320 Gb for 79 euro, it had the most bang for the money. I had to look for the putty knife because it has been a while since I opened up my Intel mini for a faster HD. Installing it was as simple as always and I was finished within 30 minutes. I’m now installing everything fresh, starting with Tiger to be able to test the new Dovecot instructions on Tiger for the people with the older G4 machines who can’t support Leopard yet. Please remember that after Snow Leopard Tiger support will be officially dropped. (which does not mean you won’t get any help but I won’t be testing everything in advanced and I will only assist in trouble shooting). when that is done I will install Leopard on a different partition (plenty of room on the new HD!) to be able to support all the people still using G4 and G5 based Macs.

If you consider that I bought this Mac mini in 2005 and it has been on constantly since a few weeks ago it means that the hard disk has lasted for almost 4 years of continuous use. Not bad for a cosnumer device!

By the way thanks for all the donations in the last few months as you can see your money is being put to good use.

As promised earlier, now Dovecot 1.2.0 is released, I’m officialy launching the new mailserver setup with Postfix and Dovecot (Currently Leopard only).

This means no more Courier based products like the authentication, IMAP, POP3 and maildrop apps. Dovecto can do all that with a single installation. I’ve found out that the setup is a lot simpler with a lot fewer procedures and configuration files to maintain.

An last but not in the least, it looks like Dovecot is proving to be an even better IMAP server than Courier was. As I told you in the earlier post it’s a lot faster. While testing it myself I often saw new email appear in Mail or Thunderbird immidiate after thy were received by Dovecot.

Currently the setup only describes the basic setup of a server, I still need to add the DSpam spam-filter in the setup and integrate server based filtering of incoming emails (where we used to use maildrop for). It is all possible but I still need to find out how and document it for you. When that is done I will write the neccesary migration documents how existing users can migrate safely from Courier to Dovecot.

I will keep supporting the Courier product stack for at least a year after I finished documenting the migration instructions. So don’t worry if you don’t switch immediatly. My production servers still run Courier, I only use Dovecot on my test servers. Although there is one user who has already switched to Dovecot (We helped each other in getting this done) because of the performance problems he experienced with Courier IMAP. These problems are now gone and this is one of the reasons I want to move to Dovecot a.s.a.p.

The advise currently is if you want to setup a new server: Use the Dovecot based setup. If you already use Courier please wait untill the migration instructions are finished. If you can’t wait I will try to assist you via email as much as I can but you will be mostly on your own. It’s not that difficult but ou need to know what you are doing.

I hope you like the switch and will be happy with the improved setup. You can read all about it at the new mailserver instruction pages

For everyone who has upgraded to a 5.1.x version. This is a bug fix release and it is up to you if you want to upgrade. There are no apparent security issues solved in this release.

Check all the fixes and changes that are listed on the release notes to see what issues are resolved and if you are affected.

I’ve compiled this version and did some simple tests on Leopard (not on Tiger yet) and both can be compiled and installed using the instructions in the documentation set without problems.

Read the documentation on how to ugrade MySQL.