I spent hours today trying to fix Postfix, the mail-sending/receiving utility built-in to every OS X install (at least with the developer tools). My ISP had blocked me a few days ago due to large amounts of spam that were getting relayed through my server, resulting in hundreds of undelivered emails being sent to my account. Today I discovered that my initial attempts to filter out this spam were not successful. Using this article as a guide, I tried again today.
I figured out I was editing the wrong main.cf file, for one thing. Apparently mailq uses one, and there’s another in /sw/etc/postfix that is used as well. I configured it pretty tightly so it should be fine now – I hope.
Yesterday I looked into having an external company host my sites. There’s a few disadvantages to hosting yourself, such as speed, reliability, and expensive equipment/software. I currently host five sites on my 1Ghz G4 iMac. It’s done a great job so far but I don’t even have the awesome server software Apple makes. I have configured apache, postfix, etc by hand!
I quickly discovered that a new server for my sites wouldn’t be any easier. For one thing, I’d have to pay them. They also restrict some things and charge extra for others. Also, when I develop new sites I can save and instantly see them on the web, without uploading via FTP. I decided to stick with my current setup, capped upload speed and all. For you geeky end users, how does my site loading time compare with other normal sites out there? I realize my server can’t compete, but how bad is it really? Perhaps even some ping times would be nice, especially from different states!
Well my mail is back to working status, and I did it myself. Hosting my own sites, if nothing else, has provided me with a sense of accomplishment over the years. I run websites, something that is normally done by big companies with dedicated equipment. It makes me feel geeky.
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