Rather than using the qmail-queue patch and qmail-scanner to get Spam Assassin working with qmail this (Broken link http://bluesine.com/view?p=debian_qmail) page suggests replacing qmail-queue with a simple sh script.

Seems to work on our internal work server, but of course you would need to put qmail-scanner in to check for viri.

This is quite a nice web config generator for Spam Assassin.

Ben Trott from MoveableType has written a usefull how-to on installing the assassin on osX.

If you need to increase shmmax or a similar parameter in the Darwin (Os X) kernel edit the file:

/System/Library/StartupItems/SystemTuning/SystemTuning

You are looking for lines like:

sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmax=4194304
    sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmin=1
    sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmmni=32
    sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmseg=8
    sysctl -w kern.sysv.shmall=1024

Found a really usefull site with a huge database of internet ports.

Also has a cool dns interface:

robin@trillian robin $ nslookup -q=txt 80.tcp.portsdb.org
Server:  junction.internal.image-data.com
Address:  192.168.1.102

Non-authoritative answer:
80.tcp.portsdb.org      text = "http"
80.tcp.portsdb.org      text = "Nimda"
80.tcp.portsdb.org      text = "www-http"
80.tcp.portsdb.org      text = "www"
robin@trillian robin $

Thanks to toby for the dig alternative:

robin@trillian robin $ dig -t txt 80.tcp.portsdb.org

; <> DiG 8.3 <> -t 80.tcp.portsdb.org
;; res options: init recurs defnam dnsrch
;; got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 2
;; flags: qr rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 4, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; QUERY SECTION:
;;      80.tcp.portsdb.org, type = TXT, class = IN

;; ANSWER SECTION:
80.tcp.portsdb.org.     3h54m53s IN TXT  "http"
80.tcp.portsdb.org.     3h54m53s IN TXT  "Nimda"
80.tcp.portsdb.org.     3h54m53s IN TXT  "www-http"
80.tcp.portsdb.org.     3h54m53s IN TXT  "www"

;; Total query time: 117 msec
;; FROM: trillian to SERVER: default -- 192.168.1.102
;; WHEN: Mon Jul  7 11:43:43 2003
;; MSG SIZE  sent: 36  rcvd: 108

robin@trillian robin $

How do I export my KEY file from Apache for use with Microsofts IIS?

The following command will convert your Apache Key file to one that Microsoft IIS can recognise:

openssl rsa -in ApacheKeyFileName.key -out IISKeyFileName.key -outform NET

This is so cool, a collection of old browsers, including this little gem.

I have been having awful troubles with connections to our ftp servers hanging. Something I suspect is caused by the netfilter firewall box. I’ve managed to side step the problem with this.

I had a problem with my iMac today, everytime I tried to login it would get as far as showing me my desktop and the dock and then it would crash back to the login screen.

I found the following in the /var/log/system.log:

crashdump: Crash report written to: /Users/robin/Library/Logs/CrashReporter/loginwindow.crash.log

Having a look inside that file didnt really tell me much. So I tried to find the Darwin equivelant of strace or truss. There doesnt seem to be one, however I found fs_usage. This program will log all filesystem access after you run it, until you tell it to quit.

To debug this way you need to ssh into the problem mac from another machine, and on the command line (as root) run:

# fs_usage -w

If you use a bash shell you can capture the output to a file with:

# fs_usage -w > fs_usage.out 2>&1

Then try to login again, of course it will fail again, but this time we have captured all file system access in the fs_usage.out file or in our scroll back buffer.

You probably want to tell fs_usage to quit before you continure, press Ctrl-C.

Looking through this file I searched up from the bottom for the last line containing my username. I found this:

/Users/robin/Library/Preferences/com.apple.scheduler.plist

I went to have a look in that file. All .plist files in OsX are xml configuration files, but this one didnt containt xml it contained binary junk.

I moved this file to a different file name and tried to login again.

All working, thank god we have unix underneath!

Ells found this looks like it is very useful when debugging server side scripts and webserver problems.