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by: Bernard Teo








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Sun 20 Mar 2005

On the cusp of ...

Category : Commentary/cusp.txt

Cusp - NOUN. 1. A point or pointed end. 2. Anatomy a. A pointed or rounded projection on the chewing surface of a tooth. b. A triangular fold or flap of a heart valve. 3. Mathematics A point at which a curve crosses itself and at which the two tangents to the curve coincide. 4. Architecture The point of intersection of two ornamental arcs or curves, such as the inner points of a trefoil. 5. Astronomy Either point of a crescent moon. 6. A transitional point or time, as between two astrological signs.

Already, there have been a few downloads of WebServer Monitor. I hope they're all doing fine.

Actually, it's a really simple (and, maybe, limited) application but it represents a few opportunities.

For a long time, I was hoping to be able to configure my server remotely, through the Remote Login/SSH secure shell mechanism (and a Mac-like interface), but in such way that the same code will work whether I'm doing something remotely or working locally on localhost.

So, WebServer Monitor is actually a technology demonstration - that the idea can work - you use the same application to configure a server locally, as well as remotely (where the application runs on a remote roving machine).

Actually that's how it works with the Admin application on OS X Server but I'm not sure how they did it - the important thing to me is that I know how to do it myself, too.

Now, this opens up a few opportunities. One, WebServer Monitor can be improved no end - provide log analysis, graphs, real-time monitoring of the activity, etc. I'm sure I will get suggestions soon.

Also, now that we can do something to the Apache config file remotely via the user fiddling with a graphical interface, why not do more? Turn on PHP, virtual hosting, WebDav, etc...

Why stop with Apache? Do DNS, Mail, the whole ISP-in-a-box idea. I'm thinking about the Mac Mini. Once you've turned on Remote Login in the Sharing Preferences, you may never need to touch that machine anymore. You can do everything from a Mac-like interface remotely. Make it dead easy for a normal human being.

I come back to the Ultimate Business Machine idea - the Mac Mini as the Ultimate Business Machine - one that a small business can base their complete operations on.

So, we may be on the cusp of great things ...

Posted at 4:35PM UTC | permalink

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VPN Enabler for Mavericks

MailServe for Mavericks

DNS Enabler for Mavericks

DNS Agent for Mavericks

WebMon for Mavericks

Luca for Mavericks

Liya for Mountain Lion & Mavericks

Postfix Enabler for Tiger and Panther

Sendmail Enabler for Jaguar

Services running on this server, a Mac Mini running Mac OS X 10.9.2 Mavericks:

  • Apache 2 Web Server
  • Postfix Mail Server
  • Dovecot IMAP Server
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  • Procmail
  • BIND DNS Server
  • DNS Agent
  • WebDAV Server
  • VPN Server
  • PHP-based weblog
  • MySQL database
  • PostgreSQL database

all set up using MailServe, WebMon, DNS Enabler, DNS Agent, VPN Enabler, Liya and our SQL installers, all on Mavericks.