Switching…

I completely forgot to mention this but last week MySQL has been updated to version 5.0.20a. I was going to upgrade my test server to 5.0.20 when I got an email from the announcement mailing list that version 5.0.20a. There where some critical bugs left in 5.0.20 which needed fixing quickly that why the 20a version has been released so quickly. This proves the point I made earlier when I decided switching from the server logistics packages and base this install on the original or compile my own. You can see which bugs and issues which where solved in the announcement email that was sent out.

I’ve updated the installation procedure to reflect the version change. Updating is simple, just use the install package. It will backup your original MySQL installation and install the new one. Quite painless…

Besides spending a lot of time on preparation for the baby (decorating a new room and doing a lot of shopping) I found some spare time to assist people in getting their setup running and started rewriting the configuration of the mailserver. I’ve finished 3 pages but haven’t found the time to thoroughly check them. I’ve just been rewriting from the original pages and creating the scripts that go along with them. I hope you like it, it is meant to be somewhat easier for the novice user.

Last post I told that donations where a bit slow and the next day one big donation came in which brought us right back on schedule for ordering the Mac mini core duo in July which would be great as the baby is expected to arrive late July.

I’m thinking on setting up a forum so you can help each other in answering questions as I will be spending more time with diapers and bottles in my hands than a keyboard when the baby arrives.

Besides some of the time I have to spend on other things this weekend I found some time to improve and continue on the documentation for the ISP in a box v2.

I’ve checked the installation procedure again after some reports of errors of using the installation with phpMyAdmin. I seemed there was an important option missing from the configuration command.

Next stop was building the mail server, I ‘ve got the build process documented and checked properly. Next up is documenting the configuration of the mailserver.

You can have a look at the new pages for building the server, hope you like the new look. I’ve made some changes to the style sheet to make the commands and the configuration stick out a bit more and make them more readable.

I hope there are no issues with relocation of the MySQL, Apache, and PHP documentation, they where still located in the hierarchy of version 1 and I had to put them in the correct place. Sorry….

Donations where a bit slow these last 2 weeks, didn’t receive any, and the Adsense income these weeks has also been slow. A well, it’s not that important, I will need to be a bit patient. That will give me more time to document everything proper before launching myself at a new toy

Allright, I’ve checked everything and re-installed on a clean installation to iron out all the bugs. There where some issues, specially on the PHP5 installation but it’s all checked now and you can build it yourself with the current instructions. Still need to provide the necessary configuration files and installation scripts as indicated previously but the instructions are functioning as they are. The added files would just make life easier.

So a complete MAMP installation which you can compile on your own. Hope you like it. Next up is adjusting the mail server configuration and installation to make it work with this new layout.

Sorry for the outage of the site this morning. Somehow my ADSL modem had to be reset and I wasn’t at home at the time I noticed it. When I found out I had someone else come by and do a hard reset. But it took quite some time before I noticed it and it could be resolved. That’s one of the issues when you host your sites at home. Although I don’t think that someone would be available today if I had my machine at a co-location site. If someone knows of a way to remotely reset a device or turn the power off and on I would love to know about it. It can’t be through the internet because that would be unavailable. I guess I’d have to think about a dialup connection or something that can be remotely controlled via a GSM.

I’ve got a lot of feedback on the instructions I posted on compiling PHP5 on Mac OS X. First reactions where about the PEAR installation problem which I missed completely (as I haven’t used PEAR yet, forgot to test this). Secondly I got a lot of feedback on the use of the options, extensions and libraries I had chosen. Some where obsolete, not in use anymore or replaced by newer ones. I’ll try to explain why this happened:

I had started compiling PHP on the Mac starting with PHP4, I had found some outdated instructions on how to compile it on Mac which with a little tweaking got it to work. Changing that to instructions on how to compile PHP5 looked pretty straightforward. But I haven’t actively developed in PHP for a year or two and completely missed the changes that happened between PHP4 and PHP5. Which meant that I missed some of the details that where needed to get a proper PHP5 working environment.

Thanks to all the feedback and the email conversations I had I think I’ve got a proper basic setup as it is now. After I’m done with rewriting the mail-server documentation so it reflects the changes I made to, for instance, the MySQL install paths. I’m going to try to document installing more options and libraries that people might like to use with their PHP installation.

If you have any ideas or comments on this PHP installation let me know, I’m always open to suggestions.

I got a notice from the postfix announce mailing list that Wietse Venema has released an update on Postfix. Its to fix some minor issues which might not have been a problem to personally, well I didn’t have any issues on my installation, but it’s good to keep up to date. To quote from the email:

- “sendmail -t” did not remove the CR from lines ending in CRLF.

- Workaround for fatal errors in PCRE maps when an expression in
() matches empty text (the PCRE library returns an inappropriate
error code).

- Fixes for non-security bugs that Coverity found in code that
handles impossible error conditions.

Updating is as easy as documented in the previous patch. Just download the source from you nearest mirror (check if you get the latest, not all mirrors update frequently), extract it and run the compile and install commands as documented in the build page. (more…)

As promised earlier I wanted to have the documentation ready for installing PHP from source from scratch. Just starting with source code for PHP and the libraries required.

I think I covered most of the essential libraries nad options needed for running most of the PHP based applications. If you like more libraries or options included in the build process let me know and I’ll see what I can do for you. Please motivate your choice…

Donations are still going strong, got 2 big donations this week. The Intel Mac mini is getting closer every day…

It’s time again for an update from Apple, we are getting a lot lately and this is a big one. You can read all about it on this knowledge base article. There are some security issues being covered plus some iSync issues. Please note that if you do the update and press the restart button PowerPC-based Macs will restart twice, instead of once, after the initial installation.

I’ve just updated my internet server after I tested it on my other test mini on the internal network. There were no noticeable issues and everything kept working as expected. Just wanted to let you know you can upgrade safely as we have experienced with all the updates till now. Hope we can keep this up.

I’m rewriting, as discussed earlier, the ISP in a box documentation. Most effort is currently being put into removing the dependancies from the Server Logistics installation packages. They are very slow in updating their releases and I didn’t like to depend on them in case there is another security issue. The other item I wanted to address was the remarks I got on improving the installation process itself. People suggested if I could provide the configuration files and compilation scripts to prevent some errors and make the whole process a lot easier.

So here is the first public preview of the first pages of the new documentation. it’s not yet ready to be used properly as I only got MySQL and Apache2 covered. PHP is coming before the end of the week. But I wanted to see how you like the new way of documenting. Hope you like it…

Two more remarks:

• I’ve created a page to keep you informed on the funding of the new Intel based Mac mini. Donations and AdSense income are going strong and I think I can order an Intel based Mac mini before the end of the summer. I you want to contribute to this effort as well, use the PayPal button on the right side of the page.
• I don’t like the phrase “ISP in a box” too much but I still can’t think of another one that covers what I’m documenting here. So I wanted to ask you, can you think of a better phrase or slogan ? Or do you think “ISP in a box” is good enough ? Please let me know what you think.