SELinux, Fedora, and ASSP

I’m setting up a new Linux server at work to run ASSP, a spam-filtering SMTP proxy. This’ll be my third ASSP server. On the first, I used Fedora 1 (or maybe 2). On the second, the one that’s currently live, I’m using Fedora 4. The new server will be running Fedora Core 6. The reason I keep building new servers for ASSP is largely that I don’t have any budget to go out and actually buy a server for this, so I just keep recycling old workstations into servers, and, eventually, they fall apart. Or our mail volume increases to the point where the old server can’t handle it. Either way, it forces me to keep somewhat up-to-date with Linux.

The new wrinkle in Fedora 6 is SELinux. I hit one SELinux-related snag today that got me browsing around a bit for SELinux info. I stumbled upon Dan Walsh’s LiveJournal page, which turns out to be pretty helpful.

I’m wondering if I should keep using Fedora for this. On the one hand, it’s free and I’m pretty familiar with the basics of the distribution, since a lot of stuff in there goes back to the old Red Hat distributions, which I’ve been using on and off since, I think, Red Hat 5.2, in 1998. On the other hand, it’s not terribly stable. It’s on something like a six-month release cycle, and the legacy support for old releases is a bit questionable at this point. See “Why Fedora Matters” for some thoughts on the subject.

Something like CentOS might be better for a production server like this. It’s based off RHEL, and as such, ought to be a lot more stable that Fedora. I did download CentOS 4.4, and tried to get it working in a virtual machine to try it out, but I had some problems, and just gave up for now.

ASSP, by the way, is a wonderful spam-filtering solution that doesn’t seem to get nearly enough recognition. I’ve followed it through a few releases, and watched as it has changed hands from one developer to another. It’s a pretty good example of an open source project that works well. The original developer stopped working on it a while ago, but other folks have picked it up and added stuff to it where it’s been needed. At this point, it’s a fairly stable, and very configurable, spam filter, probably comparable with serious commercial software.

new Peerflix system

Peerflix has pretty much completely relaunched their service, effective today. I haven’t really used Peerflix in the last month or two. I’ve had no DVDs to send out, and I was at zero Peerbux, so nothing was coming in. The new system assigns a dollar value to each DVD instead of using the old Peerbux system. I’m not sure that I like the new site. I think they need to fix some stuff before it’ll be as useful as the old site. I’m also not sure if I like the new dollar-value system. I guess I’ll leave a few oddball DVDs listed in Peerflix and, if they get requested, I’ll send them out. We’ll see how it works.

Weird Wii Stories

Wow, am I the only one who managed to buy a Wii without any drama? Kotaku has a bit on a CNN reporter who supposedly had a bit of a problem getting a Wii, and the comments on Kotaku would indicate that a number of other people are still jumping through hoops and going a bit nuts about the whole thing. Honestly, when I bought mine a couple of weeks ago, I just walked into the Times Square Toys R Us, picked up a Wii, waited in line, paid for it, and walked out of the store, no problem. Everyone in line was civilized. It didn’t take more that a half-hour.

MacHeist thoughts

Here are a few random thoughts on the applications that are part of the MacHeist bundle (still on sale for another two days!):

  • Delicious Library: I’ve actually started using this to catalog my stuff. I’ve got about 100 CDs in there, plus around 25 books, 25 DVDs, and a handful of video games. (I have *much more* to enter, if I want to catalog my entire collection(s).) It works reasonably well. I’ve found that, with CDs, if you want to get specific about which version of a given CD you have (original, import, reissue, etc), you need to go back and forth a bit to find the right one. And the right cover art isn’t always pulled down from Amazon. Still, it’s right a lot of the time, and it’s not real hard to correct stuff that’s wrong. I find that I can enter maybe one CD per minute. Books (so far) have been a bit more straightforward. I’ve just been typing in the ISBN numbers, and I usually get a correct match, with cover art.
  • DevonThink Personal: I’d like to say that I’m finding this to be really useful, but I’m not. I’m still using an old version of iOrganize for keeping track of stuff. I don’t see too much of an advantage to DevonThink. Maybe I need to play around with it some more.
  • RapidWeaver looks interesting, but I don’t have much use for it right now. I’ll probably play around with it at some point to work on some web site ideas, but I don’t really need it now.
  • I’m hoping to use NewsFire to replace Juice, which I’ve been using for awhile now. Juice works fine, but it’s a bit slow, probably because it’s a cross-platform app that’s not really optimized for the Mac. I’m hoping NewsFire will be better, though I haven’t had a chance to try it yet.
  • I’m not sure what I’m going to do with TextMate. I’ve been using TextWrangler recently, and I’m pretty happy with it.
  • I haven’t really played with any of the other apps in the bundle. A couple of them might be useful.

Overall, I have no problem with the $49 price on the bundle. I’m definitely getting my money’s worth out of Delicious Library, and I’ll hopefully get some use out of NewsFire, DevonThink, Disco, or one of the other apps. There’s been a lot of talk in the blogs this week about whether or not the MacHeist bundle was a good thing for Mac developers or not. Personally, I wasn’t planning on spending any money on Mac shareware any time soon, so right there that’s $49 into the Mac shareware “economy” that wouldn’t have been there otherwise. I imagine a lot of other buyers fit into the same category. In terms of this thing driving upgrade sales, or sales of other products from the participating developers, I can certainly see that happening. I’ll likely buy the upgrade to the next version of Delicious when it comes out. And I may upgrade to the next verison of DevonThink when it comes out, and/or switch to DevonThink Pro.

cataloging stuff

I just bought a license for Delicious Library, as part of a bundle of Mac apps from MacHeist. I haven’t really tried to catalog my CDs, DVDs and/or books at any time in the last twenty years, but I’m always at least slightly tempted to give it a go. If I did, I’d want to be able to sync my library to LibraryThing.com, so it’d all be out there on the internet too.

Cornelius – Sensuous

Some nifty videos from the new Cornelius album can be found here. I really enjoyed Point, and this stuff sounds pretty good too. Point came out in the US on Matador, but I don’t see any indication that Sensuous will be coming out in the US any time soon. I do see it available as an import on Amazon.com, at a variety of price points, the cheapest being a little over $20, available in early January.