Warning, be careful when updating your server. I noticed a few hick-ups on my machine. I will update this post with my findings through the day when I find out more.

Leopard Issues:

• Resolved: My remote desktop isn’t working anymore, still looking into this one. Solution: It somehow works again after some time waiting, probably I was trying to fast

Working: Everything else does not look to be affected, even Postfix is as is (in contrast to Snow Leopard)

Snow Leopard issues:

• Postfix binary get’s replaced, you’ll have to do a ’sudo make install’ from the last install direcory to get it working again.

For the rest on Snow Leopard everything seems to be working as intended. Will do some more test during the day.

Read more about the update to 10.6.2 here and the security update 2009-006 here.

If you find anything please let us know in the comments and I will try to verify.

Update: No more problems found, I guess it was just a postfix problem and as Joe has commented I need to change the location to prevent future issues.

A new verison of Dovecot has been released a few days ago but I’ve only been able to test it today, sorry busy week.

The bugfixes include:

• Authentication: DIGEST-MD5 and RPA mechanisms no longer require user’s login realm to be listed in auth_realms. It only made configuration more difficult without really providing extra security.
• zlib plugin: Don’t allow clients to save compressed data directly. This prevents users from exploiting (most of the) potential security holes in zlib/bzlib.
• Added pop3_save_uidl setting.
• dict quota: When updating quota and user isn’t already in dict, recalculate and save the quota.
• file_set_size() was broken with OSes that didn’t support posix_fallocate() (almost everyone except Linux), causing all kinds of index file errors.
• v1.2.4 index file handling could have caused an assert-crash
• IMAP: Fixes to QRESYNC extension.
• virtual plugin: Crashfix
• deliver: Don’t send rejects to any messages that have Auto-Submitted
  header. This avoids emails loops.
• Maildir: Performance fixes, especially with maildir_very_dirty_syncs.
• Maildir++ quota: Limits weren’t read early enough from maildirsize file (when quota limits not enforced by Dovecot)
• Message decoding fixes (mainly for IMAP SEARCH, Sieve).

This update is only for Leopard and Tiger users (Snow Leopard is not affected). I have not tested this on Tiger as I have no longer a machine with Tiger installed but I’ve tested the Leopard based update and that went without a problem. My production server and two of my test servers received the update and installed it without any problem.

Read more about the security update here.

n case of doubt, please make a full bootable disk image backup with Carbon Copy Cloner before you start. There are some people having reported problems with previous update so better be safe then sorry!

I know a lot of you are awaiting news on Snow Leopard! The early release has put me into a tight spot as I’m on holiday now (I’m typing this in an internet cafe paying a ridiculus rate per hour). Snow Leopard is lying in my mailbox at home and I didn’t bring any Mac with me. So bear with me untill the next weekend when I’ll be back home and will post updates.

Postfix has released a new version 2.6.5 as well. Usually they are installable without problems so feel free to update and I will test is soon!

Sorry about this!

Recently I got some remarks from a user who asked why he was not able to compile 64 bits on the PowerPC platform. My notes and instructions did not mention this and I must confess that I had forgotten this as I could not see a PowerMac or iMac G5 as your basic mailserver.

But I’m wrong, as my basic goal was to provide you with a complete mailserver solution, I have to acknowledge that the most polular pages are on installing Apache, PHP and third MySQL. The popularity of the mailserver instructions comes way lower then these three subjects.

So therefore I’ve updated all the 64 bit instructions with how to compile on a 64 bit PowerPC platform. You have to forgive me for not being able to test this (no G5 at my place!) I’m using the input of someone else who told me this. It was a very simple change as you only need to change the ‘x86_64‘ bit into ‘ppc64‘ and that’s it.

If someone else could verify that this works it would be grand!

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

Just to inform you all as I missed it myself. Apple have released a new version of XCode. It’s not mandatory to upgrade but I will do it myself and all instructions etc. will be based on this version although I don’t expect any issues if you keep using the previous version.

You can download it from developer.apple.com. If you don’t have an account yet, just register. It’s free if you just want to download XCode and the related information.

What’s new in XCode 3.1.3:

• SDK support for targeting non-Mac OS X platforms, including iPhone OS SDK.
• GCC 4.2 & LLVM GCC 4.2 optional compilers for use with Mac OS X 10.5 SDK
• Updated assistants to create new projects, targets, and source ?les
• Toolbar uses a single popup to choose platform, target, and debug/release
• Integrated SCM support now works with Subversion 1.5

Finally, I’ve set myself to it after avery busy week at work. I’ve created a new set of pages to instruct you how to compile Postfix, Courier-Auth and Courier IMAP/POP3 in 64 bits mode. It’s basically setting some extra compiler flags but it takes some trial and error to find out which are the correct ones. Don’t forget you need a 64 bits MySQL installation to get this working otherwise you will get compiler errors.

• Building the Postfix mailserver in 64 bits on Leopard
• Building the Courier Auth library in 64 bits on Leopard
• Building the Courier IMAP/POP3 server in 64 bits on Leopard

The configuration of all the components is not affected by this new compilation method so they stay the same. Next up: DSPAM and Maildrop.

I’ve received many requests to add several modules to my documentation set of installing PHP. I’ve untill now avoided it because it is a lot of work to do this for all seperate versions. Not even mentioning solving issues and supporting all your questions.

I’ve now documented how to add GD (which was one of the most requested modules) and mcrypt (required for a safe use of phpmyadmin).

I’ve documented each module as a seperate installation and it will tell you which parameters to add to the normal PHP installation to make it work. In this manner everyone can select the modules he or she wants without the modules that aren’t needed.

Read more about it on their respective pages:

• Adding the mcrypt module to PHP on Leopard
• Adding the GD module to PHP on Leopard

I hope you like this method of documention this.

I’ve just finished updating my test server with Mac OSX 10.5.6. Both updates went without any problem and my setup was not affected in a negative way. Only had to get a new version of GPGmail. Every item had started after the reboot and worked according to expectations.

If you want to read more on what is affected in the updates I would suggest reading the Apple support site for the 10.5.6 update and the 2008-008 security update.

In case of doubt, please make a full bootable disk image backup with Cabon Copy Cloner before you start.

I will update my production machines this weekend when I’ve got some more spare time. If you want to be sure everything is allright please wait untill then.

Update: There was an issue with postfix, please read the update