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Weblog • Archive • Cutedge

by: Bernard Teo

Tue 08 Sep 2009

A Word about 10.6.1 - FTP

Category : Technology/10dot6dot1.txt

I've updated both my MacBook Pro and my live server, a new iMac, to the developer's release of 10.6.1. While the mail, web and dns functions continue to work, FTP didn't and I wasn't able to update my site from my MBP.

So that was a pain (literally) as I'm down with chickenpox (at my age!) and I need to hide in my room so as not infect my wife (who isn't sure whether she's got it before) and my kid (who so looked forward to this one-week holiday that it'll pain me to have to spoil it all for him if he comes down with it, too).

So after having tried everything, I downgraded my MBP back to 10.6. Guess what? FTP works again. I can make it FTP to itself. So, this lunch time, while my wife and kid were away, I went into our shared work-room and down-graded the live server back to 10.6.

How I missed our bright, sun-lit work-room, where we each have our own corner and a Mac, or two? It's one of life's simple pleasures.

Now I can FTP to the server from my private jail (room), and think about how I can make revisions to this site (One of the things I really want to do is to update the pictures - my kid's a lot bigger now than he was in the picture on the right).

Posted at 12:33PM UTC | permalink

The Snow Apps get their first revision

Category : Technology/SnowAppsRevision1.txt

I've made a few tweaks to the Snow Leopard apps and bumped up their versions by one point release. MailServe Snow becomes 4.1.1, DNS Enabler Snow 4.0.1 and WebMon Snow 4.0.1.

I had also built them using the new Clang compiler on Xcode, which is supposed to produce faster, more optmized code. There's also a new Static Analyzer in Xcode and running it, I caught one non-obvious memory leak in the apps that in all honesty I would never have spotted on my own.

So the platform is in a healthy state and there's much to look forward to, coding for the Mac. And iPhone.

But for now, I'm still watching these three apps and trying to finish the BIND Views feature for DNS Enabler.

Then I need to get Maven and Luca really updated for Snow Leopard. Right now, they're not truly Snow Leopard applications. The ones I've released were compiled on a Leopard machine with the version check removed. But once you set them up to use the Snow Leopard API, you get a huge number of errors for everything. So I can't even get them built. It'll take me some time to pick my way through these.

So, it's not easy to build a Snow Leopard application. Lots of work still to come.

Posted at 12:11PM UTC | permalink

Sun 30 Aug 2009

Snow Leopard Apps

Category : Technology/LetItSnow.txt

OK, this is where my Snow Leopard apps are :

MailServe Snow - http://www.cutedgesystems.com/software/MailServeSnow/

DNS Enabler Snow - http://www.cutedgesystems.com/software/DNSEnablerSnow/

WebMon Snow - http://www.cutedgesystems.com/software/WebMonSnow/

I'm still updating all the documentation. But those who can't wait can get them now.

Posted at 7:46AM UTC | permalink

Sat 29 Aug 2009

I've got Snow

Category : Technology/Snow.txt

I'm going to do a clean install of my store-bought copy of Snow Leopard on my MacBook Pro. Doing a backup of all my work now.

I've solved the problem with MailServe's new anti-spam feature not working on the last development copy of Snow Leopard that I had, i.e., 10A432. It works OK now.

I was trying to squeeze in one new feature for DNS Enabler - the ability to do BIND views - but I have to concede that this going to be a bit more than I can chew. So I'm going to release my last good version of DNS Enabler for Snow Leopard and continue working on it.

Quite a lot of mail coming in for the new versions that will work with Snow Leopard. While I will answer every mail, it may be better that I spend the time getting the work done. Give me one more day and I'll have them ready.

I'm going to call them all MailServe Snow, DNS Enabler Snow, and WebMon Snow (dropping the MailServe Pro designation to simplify all the naming). There are subtle improvements and changes in all of them (e.g., new binaries, config files, new techniques, and new oft-requested-for features). I'm just disappointed I couldn't get the BIND views feature done on time for DNS Enabler but I'll get there.

I love a lot of things about Snow Leopard. Little things, like I can now control my HP all-in-one (including scan) using Apple's much more simplified interface in System Preferences (rather than HP's cluttered attempt at writing Mac applications). And the speed. And not having to build PPC fat binaries.

It's a platform to build on.

My backup's done. Snow Leopard is on its way.

Posted at 1:52AM UTC | permalink

Mon 17 Aug 2009

Spam

Category : Technology/SnowSpam.txt

I think it's a good thing that I'm trying to run our live server on Snow Leopard (or at least the 10A432 release of Snow Leopard) because I've just discovered that the new spam filtering mechanism that I've built into MailServe is not working. It was working on Leopard.

So I'm now getting all the junk mail coming in again.

Something subtle had changed, but I don't yet know what, because there are half a dozen suspects.

It's one of those things that make going from one major OS release to the next such a pain for developers - especially if you're working, like me, on the innards of Unix in OS X.

It's always the smallest things that are the hardest to trace. Just one example - on Leopard, if you copy a file, the user and group access rights for the copy is set to that of the person doing the copying and the set-uid bits, if there are any, are cleared. But on Snow Leopard, the set-uid bits are left as they were. It's one small unobservable difference - but it'll smash up all your code (if they do things like making admin-level changes to config files) to bits.

That one took me a long time to spot and then to debug.

But for this new problem, I'll have to live with all the junk mail - until I can find a solution.

But, of course, it's way better to get hit now, then when I have many people using MailServe for Snow Leopard live.

Posted at 3:44PM UTC | permalink

Sun 16 Aug 2009

The brick in the wall

Category : Commentary/BrickInTheWall.txt

Now that wasn't hard, right. That first post after a long long time.

It's like what I read in Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, when Robert Pirsig was speaking as the protagonist, Phaedrus, who was teaching a student how to overcome a writer's block.

So he says, instead of writing about the whole street, you concentrate on just one house, say the church, and you think aboout the church and then its wall, and you pick a single brick in that whole wall to think about, and you start writing about that brick. And you notice the words will come, just now maybe a trickle, but now it's pouring forth, and you go with the flow, and that's how you get past that block.

Do it one step at a time.

It all started when I thought it would be nice to be able to update this weblog directly from my iPhone. That brought me from one thing to another - building our SQL frameworks so they'll be able to work on the iPhone, diversions into WebKit, building our Maven (which is a Cocoa MySQL-type tool) as a SQL front-end for the iPhone, etc. Then I got lost. And exhausted. And all the while Snow Leopard was looming. And then it all stopped. Log-jammed. Nothing was moving.

But it was a pretty nice place to be in - inactivity, serenity, bliss. While it lasted.

But I've got going again. Had been for quite a while. But it took this move to a new server to run Snow Leopard to get me writing again.

I still hadn't be able to update the weblog from the iPhone. But I'll come back to work on it after I've got everything - MailServe, DNS Enabler, WebMon, Luca and Maven - working properly on Snow Leopard.

P.S. : Wonder who's still reading all this.

Posted at 3:30PM UTC | permalink

Snow Leopard

Category : Technology/SnowLeopard10A432.txt

I've just moved my server to a new iMac server running the 10A432 release of Snow Leopard, with the mail, web and DNS services set up with the help of the new versions of MailServe Pro, DNS Enabler and WebMon that I'm working on for Snow Leopard.

It's just so I know how these services will hold up when Snow Leopard is released. It's been a lot of work just to get everything working again. There are still some kinks to work out. Nothing's ever easy with these OS X upgrades. Don't be fooled when they all just work, as they should in two weeks' time. Hope I'll have more time, though.

Posted at 2:42PM UTC | permalink

Sat 10 Jan 2009

Luca 2.6.10

Category : Technology/Luca2dot6dot10.txt

I've updated Luca to 2.6.10.

This fixed a bug with the Cocoa Number Formatter that appeared with Leopard 10.5.6. This caused the voucher reference numbers to be displayed with the format "P0710.00/19.00" instead of "P0710/0019". So we've needed to add a call to NSNumberFormatter to "setFormatterBehavior" to "NSNumberFormatterBehavior10_4" to make the formatting work as it did before.

I've also updated all my systems, including my live server, to the very latest Apple Software and Security Updates for Leopard 10.5.6. All the services, like SMTP, POP, IMAP, Dovecot, Fetchmail, DNS, and LDAP continue to work as they did before, without any new problems (though I'm always tempting fate when I make such declarations).

Posted at 1:38PM UTC | permalink

Mon 27 Oct 2008

MailServe Pro 4.0.1

Category : Technology/MailServePro4dot0dot1.txt

I've released a new version of MailServe Pro. This solves a problem with the Fetchmail Log growing too big with time.

In version MailServe Pro 4.0.1, Fetchmail logs its activity in the System Log, which, of course, does get archived and rotated automatically. You can still view the Fetchmail-related activity in the System Log using MailServe Pro's Log Panel. But from this point on, /var/log/fetchmail.log is not used by MailServe Pro and can be deleted to reclaim disk space.

If I continue to use /var/log/fetchmail.log, I have to write my own script to rotate and archive the log file periodically. But Fetchmail needs a restart when the log is rotated. So it's all very complicated. Then I realised I could achieve the same result by telling Fetchmail to funnel all its log activity to the syslog daemon and letting syslog deal with all the log rotation stuff. It worked.

I'd rather spend my energy improving the other aspects of configuring and setting up a mail server. But having the Fetchmail log grow uncontrollably to infinite size was rather troubling. So I'm glad I at least got that out of the way. I'll have to update plain old MailServe for Leopard too, next, if there proves to be no trouble or nasty side-effect due to this change.

Posted at 2:56PM UTC | permalink

Tue 16 Sep 2008

Mac OS X Leopard 10.5.5 Update

Category : Commentary/Leopard10dot5dot5.txt

I've updated all my Macs to the new 10.5.5 Software Update. I've done the usual tests - Postfix, Fetchmail, UW/IMAP, Dovecot, and the web and DNS server - they all continue to work as before.

I had a jolt early this morning when I had an email about Dovecot refusing to start up for one MailServe Pro user after he had applied the 10.5.5 update. But a restart seemed to have fixed that, and all now seems well in MacLand.

Hope I hadn't spoken too soon.

It's the responsibility. Imagine a Software Update, and Dovecot or UW/IMAP or Fetchmail, all or singly, refusing to start up. And I can't find the answer. Can't make it work again. With 12,000 users (or at least those that paid) bearing down on the thin edge. What jolly good fun. I must have a death wish.

Posted at 8:32AM UTC | permalink

Tue 12 Aug 2008

R & D

Category : Commentary/RandD.txt

This is a little application I made to test my understanding of Cocoa's System Configuration Framework, to see if I can mimic the behaviour of the Mac's Network Preferences panel.

To build more intelligence into MailServe and DNS Enabler I need to tell, for example, what network range the Mac is on, and whether there is a DNS Server already assigned to it and, if not, to be able to assign it for the user.

And I need to know what location the Mac is on because, if I know that, I can assign the right smart host that will work in that location.

This is something I've been wanting to work on for some time and I think I've finally cracked it.

All these will find their way into future versions of MailServe and DNS Enabler.

Mac OS X plus Cocoa is a fantastically powerful development platform. The System Configuration framework is at the heart of why the Mac often appears to be so smart, especially when it knows how to reconfigure itself so smoothly when you move around networks. And the fun thing is that your own application can get access to all these intelligences and plug itself onto all these notifications, too. Oh, the things you can do with it ...

Posted at 5:11PM UTC | permalink

Maven 0.7 Beta

Category : Technology/MavenContentsDraAndDrop.txt

I've been using my own CocoaMySQL work-alike, which I'm calling Maven, quite a lot lately.

So I've done some bug fixes and added the ability to move selected data rows and columns from one database to another, just by dragging and dropping - even across database types, like from MySQL to PostgreSQL.

I've also added a keyboard short-cut (Command-D) for deleting tables, columns, and selected data rows.

This latest version (0.7 Beta) can be downloaded from the Maven page.

I've been told there's already an Apache project called Maven. But I'm stubborn about calling this Maven because I think it fits the name more. When I'm through with this, you'll see why.

Posted at 4:30PM UTC | permalink