DIYMacServer » News

DIYMacServer is up and running for 5 years

Richard — Tue, 01 May 2012 05:59:05 +0000

We’ll I couldn’t let this pass by without posting a little tid-bit but today this site is up and running for 5 years. It has been running much longer then anticipated. While I still enjoy running the site I’m finding less time available to spend on maintaining the documentation. Mostly because other stuff is creeping up on my. Having a child growing up, currently 5 years, that requires attention and getting other non-computer related hobby’s do that to you. Since last year I’ve joined a Barbershop Choir with fills me with tremendous energy, I never knew singing could be this much fun.

I will try my utmost to keep everything up to date as much as possible as I know many of you use the information provided and there are still new people joining in. Currently I’m current with all the software but my WordPress installation is way behind and I desperately need to upgrade and I need to do something about the forums which have bee disabled because the spam was getting beyond managing manually.

Everybody: Thanks for all the support, that was and is the main thing I keep running this site.

Tips on running a good email server

Richard — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 08:28:56 +0000

We all know 37signals for their products like Basecamp, Highrise and others but also their advise on building web apps and running a company like ReWork.

They are very public on how they do things and they have published a blogpost on how they run their mail servers. It’s a very good read with lots of tips and links to services and solutions that if you run your own mail server are very useful. Things like having reverse DNS entries (a must), domain keys and more are explained. Follow their advice if you want your mail server to actually deliver most of it’s email.

Mac mini turned 7

Richard — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 15:46:41 +0000

This week the Mac mini turned 7 years. Steve introduced this at MacWorld in San Fransisco.

The quote he started with was “Why doesn’t Apple offer a stripped down Mac that is more affordable” and he said “I wish I had a nickel for every time somebody asked me that.”

The mini has evolved greatly since that day. I think it was intended as a cheap desktop replacement to help switchers but has now evolved to be used as a capable server for small and medium sized companies. There are even many companies that use it as there internet presence (I know as I helped a few of them setting it up). Read this blog post at the Macminiolo blog for the increase in performance in these 7 years.

The mini is used for many things, as embedded computer, media player, in-car entertainment system and many more. Just try some google queries. This one is awesome, only not for home use: a 48U rack enclosure to hold 140 mini’s.

The predecessor of this site switch.richard5.net was started a little later as my first Mac mini was bought a few months after the introduction with a 23″ Cinema Display. I started using it as my main machine at home after long exposure to Linux and Windows, it was my first Mac after admiring them from a distance.

I’ve since bought five mini’s and still have 3. A G4 for testing PowerPC Leopard installs, an intel one for testing Snow Leapard and Lion and the last one is located at Macminicolo.net and serving amongst others this site. My current main desktop is an 27″iMac and for sentimental reasons I recently even bought a PowerMac G5. I loved the case and this one was without a scratch, additional this was the first model that was sold using water-cooled CPU’s.

Site moved to new mini at Macminicolo

Richard — Sat, 13 Aug 2011 15:47:58 +0000

This weekend I’m moving all my sites and email to a newer mini again at macminicolo, as they rock (for real). My older production mini was a core duo Intel one which was still running Leopard (could not find the courage to upgrade with no backup machine available). Getting a newer machine (a 2 year old Core 2 Duo) also meant I could upgrade to Lion. I’ve installed the new machine from scratch and I’m currently moving site for site and email per domain to make sure that everything goes seamless for the end users.

If you are reading this you are looking at the new mini running Lion!

Why not buy the latest hardware you might ask, because it cost a lot more then a second hand and I really don’t need the power of it. All the sites and mail running on my mini are not giving it a real hard time. If I got slasdotted/fireballed I’ve got WordPress tuned with caching and could handle some load. The highest I got was 10.000 page views in a day, no sweat…

New structure and new old Mac

Richard — Mon, 25 Apr 2011 20:03:35 +0000

Another update after the redesign, as I needed to rewrite some of the instructions due to the effect of the changes in MySQL 5.5.x and the relocation of the installed software to /usr/local/ I’ve decided to restructure the content of the site a bit. Don’t worry all existing stuff will stay where it is with comments and all. So I’ve started rewriting the installation instructions for all the software on Snow Leopard first. It isn’t finished yet but you can have a look already, not much has changed but i’ve read it again, tweaked the text a bit and changed the compiling options of course to facilitate the relocation of the installed components. When everything is finished I will put notices on all pages to redirect everybody to the latest instructions.

You can have a preview of the MAMP setup and the mail server instructions.

When this all is finished I will start rewriting the Leopard instructions and will keep including the PowerPC instructions. To help me test the 64 bits instruction, which wasn’t possible on my old G4 mini, I’ve become the proud owner of a PowerMac G5 2,5 GHz dual processor unit. It’s a beauty in almost mint condition. I always wanted one of these aluminum “cheese graters” and got the opportunity to buy this one for a nice price. I really like this model as this is the first consumer computer that came with water-cooled processors. It’s nice to own a bit of computing history that looks this nice.

Design update

Richard — Sun, 17 Apr 2011 18:43:29 +0000

The former design was already from 2008 and it was time for a refresh. I was trying for a more cleaner look with a more minimal design. Less is more… I also worked on the readability of the site. As people are getting more pixels on their screen it was time to make more use of it and I’ve made the design a bit wider to accommodate the use of bigger fonts. I also included a new plugin which should help in the readability of the code and scripts. It should also help in prevent in some of the errors that happened to some when copying and pasting the scripts directly to an editor or the Terminal. To preview the effect of the new plugin look at Compiling Apache in 32 bits mode on Snow Leopard. Drawback is that I need to make changes to all the rest of existing pages to make use of the plugin so bear with me. if you have any remarks please let me know, improvements are always welcome!

I’m working as well on a new rewrite of the instructions to accommodate the changes that were introduced by MySQL 5.5 but it takes some time. I’m also working on relocating the postfix stuff to have the compiled version in a different location than the original version to make sure we don’t get interference from Apple’s updates. I’m still having doubts on creating a specific direcotry for averything called /usr/local/diymacserver/ or just use /usr/local/. Let me hear your thoughts!

Some additional history and perspective: It’s almost 4 years ago I’ve started this particular blog and 6 years since switch.richard5.net (which still generates a lot of traffic). The current site has 250 posts and 150 pages with documentation which will be expanded greatly during the summer when Lion will be released.

Apple discontinues XServe

Richard — Sat, 06 Nov 2010 12:24:44 +0000

I’ve always looked at the XServe in awe. They where the most beautiful designed rack servers I had ever seen, and not only on the outside. I dreamed of once owning my own, but alas hat i not going to happen anymore. Apple just announced that they are discontinuing the model. Everybody wanting to run a server will have to choose a Mac Pro or Mini for running OS X server.

I think it’s a pity that this is happening, I hope this does not mean that in a few years we won’t have a OS X server version. As that is still the best solution for running an OS X server. I’m only showing the cheap alternative here.

How to tell if your Intel based Mac is 64 or 32 bits

Richard — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 19:47:31 +0000

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:

G4 mini now equipped with new HD

Richard — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 18:48:20 +0000

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.

Hawk Wings is back!

Richard — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 13:13:32 +0000

Yes, Hawk Wings the blog for everything related to Email, Todos and more is back. Tim Gaden has started to blog again after being more than a year off-line. His blog has been (and will be) a valuable source of information for people wanting to get the most out of their email (and related) programs on their Mac.