Here is another update, later then I hoped but still before Lion is released. I wanted to finish the basics on the new installation structure before Lion is released so that I could use them on Lion.

It’s still not complete as there is much ground to cover to get it all done and a personal life that has a tendency to interfere with my ambitions

As told earlier the new structure means installing everything in “/usr/local/” so that security and regular updates won’t interfere and we can upgrade without worrying if everything will still work afterwards.

Under the skin I’ve also started re-arranging the pages so that there is a more logical structure. You will notice that in the URL’s. You can find the updated documentation here:

http://diymacserver.com/snow-leopard/

I’ve read the recommendations on Lion and it looks like it will be 64 bits from Lion onwards. This means that I can skip the 32 bit instructions which is very welcome as it means less testing.

Last week I also renewed my contract with Macminicolo and added another 2 years hosting with them. Their service during the last 3 years is excellent and I’ve asked them to find me a newer second hand Mac mini to be able to upgrade to Lion on my production server. I’m currently running a CoreDuo mini at their datacenter which in not capable of running Lion. That is the only reason to get a newer mini. In my experience they are almost bullet proof. I still have one of the first G4 mini’s (from 2005) here at home running 24/7 as a test server for Leopard. The only problem I had with it is the hard disk which I had to replace in 2009.

For those of you who decided to install the ClamAV virus scanner and SpamAssassin system on their mail servers, there is an update to the amavsd-new daemon that glues the whole setup together.

The instructions for the update are available here Updating amavisd-new.

There is no reconfiguring necessary, as this is a bugfix update.

As a follow up to an earlier blog post on backup and recovery strategies I read the article on MacWorld today from Lex Friedman detailing his backup strategy. I thought it was nice enough to share the article here.

In short his strategy comes down to Time Machine, plus a bootable clone via SuperDuper (or CarbonCopyCloner), plus offsite backup with CrashPlan, plus Dropbox, plus Google Docs. Please add a pinch of hysteria…

Allright, a bit later than I had anticipated and planned. But that’s what you get if Apple starts releasing stuff earlier then expected. It screws with your planning. But the instructions for installing the basic mailserver in 64 bits are finished and tested on my MacBook Pro. This new machine is a god send and worth every penny up to now.

Please note that these are my initial instructions using an upgraded machine. Next up I need to test the instructions on a clean install of Snow Leopard. When that’s done I will upgrade my Core Duo mini to Snow Leopard and see how the 32 bits version will work out.

Happy reading: The mailserver on Snow Leopard

Good luck and can you please let me know if it worked for you?

Sometimes it’s difficult to send email as some providers block port 25. They will force you to use their mailserver for outgoing mail. I recently encountered this phenomenon when I spend some time in a hotel for work. Their setup blocked port 25 and there was no way around it sending email directly. I was forced to use my webmail solution (Roundcube) for sending mail. Which is a bit awkward as I was able to read and receive mail using Mail.app.

I started digging around for a solution that might work and I found the most simple and elegant solution that was already available in Postfix. It was called submission (port 587) which only allowes access by authenticated users.

To enable this ready made configuration in Postfix you will need to edit the ‘master.cf‘ file in ‘/etc/postfix/‘. You need to uncomment the following lines and save the changes.

submission inet n – n – – smtpd
  -o smtpd_enforce_tls=yes
  -o smtpd_sasl_auth_enable=yes
  -o smtpd_client_restrictions=permit_sasl_authenticated,reject

Then reload the changed configuration files into postfix with the command:

sudo postfix reload

Most mail clients like Mail.app and Thunderbird are able to use this port without any extra configuration. The only thing you will notice that you are able to send email which would otherwise be blocked.

Hope this will work as well for you as it did for me. I’ve also updated the regular documentation set to include this setting. Also don’t forget to open up this port in your firewall/router configuration.