I’ve moved and internet is alive again. Another IP address, so I updated my DNS records. The server should be reachable soon as the DNS-update propagates.
Oct 262012
Jul 212012
My mail is now running on the server again, not the Synology. The Synology does a good job, but the spamfilters are not what I like them to be. It marks mail as spam by adding “**SPAM**” to the subject line and listing how much spampoints the message got. Not what I want. I want an unaltered mailmessage in my spambox, or no message at all. I used to have that with Postfix/Postgrey/Amavis/Spamassassin.
I installed iRedMail, basically an installer layer over the standard Linux mailcomponents. Installing is done in about 2 minutes, switching of greylisting took me more time to figure out how…. Thanks people, for such a great product.
Jul 192012
To have some directories on my server protected by more than a simple username and password, I wanted to use SSL and client certificates. I could easily restrict the directories to my local network IP-addresses, but when I’m “outside” that would present a problem. Hence the solution with client certificates.
As I blogged earlier, I requested a real server certificate from the people at Xolphin. Nice people, low prices, fast service. But…..you cannot create/sign client certificates with such a certificate. You need the real certificate installed on the server, and you need to create a certificate that has been created/signed by you as a fake Certificate Authority. The Fake CA has to be known to Apache and to your browser. Next the client certificate (created/signed by the Fake CA) must be imported into your browser, and of course the directories you want to protect need to be in the SSL-configuration of Apache.
Now that I know how it works, it is simple, but most guides on the internet either follow the Fake CA principle (so you don’t need to buy a real certificate) or they only use a real certificate. Spending money to have your SSL-certificate-supplier do the job for you is another thing. But this works. And for € 10 (excluding VAT) per year I now have a real server certificate, and I can further protect my server with my own certificates.
Jul 192012
The SSL certificate is installed, and seems to work properly, seeing the green lock in front of the URL. Yeah!
Jul 182012
Just received my SSL certificate in the mail. Fast service from Xolphin, thanks! I will install them later.
Jul 152012
The domain switchbl8.nl now runs on a PC/server again. I replaced the motherboard, processor and memory, and ditched the old 9GB SCSI disk in favor of a 60GB SSD from Adata. Also, the system now runs Ubuntu 12.04 LTS x64, no longer the unmaintained 7.04 (in 32-bits).
The gallery is not back yet, gotta find out how to reimport/recreate the original structure, but as you can see, the weblog is up and running.
Jul 092012
My registrar reminded me of the expiration of rare-it.com. I prolonged the decision last year, but this year I will no longer renew the domain. All the important things I could think of have been transferred to my new domain, or has been modified to use a new email address. As per August, 3rd, the domain will cease to exist.
Jul 072012
Dear Sayontan Sinha, I just donated because I think your theme for WordPress is awesome.
Jul 062012
The Synology has a WordPress module, which works great and it is a recent version (not the latest). But you are bound to having your weblog in the folder “/wordpress”, and my weblog resides in “/blog” for ages now. I couldn’t find how to change it by modifying PHP files, wp_options entries and just renaming the folder. So….
# mkdir blog
# cd blog
# unzip /tmp/wordpress-3.4.1.zip
# mv wordpress/* ./
# rmdir wordpress
And point your browser to the URL “synology-ip-adres/blog” and do the install.
I used the database credentials created by the Synology WordPress module, and vanilla-WordPress then says: Hey, already installed. Via the Admin panel you upgrade your database, and you’re good to go. Now disable the Synology WordPress module. I haven’t uninstalled it, since I don’t know whether it will actually delete the database too.
Jul 062012
I bought a Synology DS212j to be the replacement of the server. Great machine for very little money, but the transition is not as smooth as I hoped. My mail (domain switchbl8.nl) now runs via the Synology, not via this server anymore. Next is this blog, then the gallery. And the rest is just for fun, so to hell with it 😉