Fellow ‘Codex member Jamal was kind enough to put together an AWStats installation guide for Mac OS X Server. AWStats is an open source Web statistics analyzer that appears to compare favorably to Analog, Webalizer, and other freely available web log analyzer tools.

Posted at 8:20 PM PDT with these tags: mac, web

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While most repetitive tasks can be automated via AppleScript, some objectives are difficult to achieve without using Unix shell scripts. Thankfully, Adrian and Janice Mayo have put together a very handy shell scripting guide over at OSXFAQ.

Posted at 8:13 PM PDT with these tags: cli

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There are a number of good alternatives to the veteran Sendmail — including Exim, Postfix, Qmail, and Courier — all of which compile on Mac OS X. While Apple has given Postfix the nod for inclusion in Panther Server, everyone has a different opinion as to which mail transfer agent (MTA) is the reigning king of the hill. Hop on over to Slashdot and join in the flame war — there’s plenty of FUD to go around, but there are a few nuggets of wisdom to be found amongst the vitriol.

Posted at 8:09 PM PDT with these tags: email

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We try to assume as little background knowledge as possible when we put together our how-to tutorials, but it nevertheless always helps to learn a little bit about the Unix commands used to install and configure server software. While O’Reilly’s Learning Unix for Mac OS X is a great dead-tree guide, Kirk McElhearn has put together a handy online Unix tutorial on TidBITS entitled Mac User’s Guide to the Unix Command Line. With three articles in the series so far, Kirk’s guide should be considered required reading for Mac users new to Unix.

Posted at 8:07 PM PDT with these tags: mac, cli, books

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InfoWorld took an in-depth look at Apple’s latest Xserve and Xserve RAID offerings, coming away impressed with their design, scalability, and software/hardware integration. Given how long it’s been since enterprise customers even considered buying Apple server hardware, InfoWorld’s glowing review is a welcome sign: Apple’s increased investment in developing best-of-breed server solutions is starting to pay off.

Posted at 8:01 PM PDT with these tags: mac, hardware

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MacUser has published a review of Servoy. Their verdict: “If you’re a professional FileMaker developer and you find yourself creating workarounds all the time, you need easy access to external SQL databases, or you have enterprise-level customers to deal with, Servoy might be what you need.”

Posted at 7:51 PM PDT with these tags: mac, database

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When mail servers are configured as open SMTP relays, anyone who knows the mail server address can send email through that server. Predictably, spammers often take advantage of open relay capability on mail servers to deluge the world with junk email. Apple has a new Knowledge Base entry on preventing open SMTP relay on Mac OS X Server 10.2.4 and later. A restricted relay only allows trusted users and IP address ranges to send mail, decreasing the odds that your domain will end up blacklisted by other ISPs because a rogue spammer hijacked your mail server.

Posted at 7:47 PM PDT with these tags: mac, email, spam

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Ryan Faas has a new article on ComputerWorld about NetBoot on Mac OS X Server. The author points out that booting a computer from a networked disk image has many benefits but can take its toll on network bandwidth, even at 100 Mbps. While there are several solutions to this problem, staggered client booting is offered as the easiest and most effective.

Posted at 7:44 PM PDT with these tags: mac, network

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Apache’s Ralf Engelschall has written a supplement to the original mod_rewrite reference documentation from the Apache Group. Ralf describes how one can use Apache’s mod_rewrite to solve typical URL-based problems webmasters are usually confronted with in practice. The guide provides detailed descriptions on how to solve each problem by configuring URL rewriting rulesets.

Posted at 7:37 PM PDT with these tags: web, apache

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VNC is a great tool for remotely configuring servers when performing tasks not easily accomplished via an SSH / Terminal session. One thing to look out for, however, is that the VNC server may fail when running on a headless server. You might, for example, set up your server at the remote location with a monitor attached, detach the monitor, and then go home thinking everything is set up fine… which it is, until you restart and find that you can’t log on any more. As explained in the VNC FAQ, connecting a monitor adapter dongle will trick the software into thinking a monitor is attached, thereby getting around this problem.

Posted at 7:27 PM PDT with these tags: network

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