Postfix: Log E-mails’ Subject

In Linux, you can view the statistics of incoming and outgoing E-mails by peeking into a log file called maillog (typically found in /var/log directory). Maillog provides the general information about the mails, for example, the sender and recipient(s), status – sent, rejected, bounced etc. I typically use maillog to check the destiny of mails. At times, it becomes difficult to spot a particular mail due to the sheer volume of mails being logged – especially on a production mail server.

For example: what if we need to check whether a particular mail sent by Person A has been delivered to Person B. Note that Person A might be sending lots of mails to Person B but we need to spot that one particular mail – say the one, which was sent by Person A but did not reach Person B. The only identifier, to identify a particular mail, in the maillog is the cryptic message ID. A better and more readable identifier would be the subject of an E-mail.Unfortunately, the subject of the mails is not logged, by default, in the maillog. But we can configure a mail server like Postfix to log the subject line.

A Perfect Integration of WordPress and Twitter

I have been tweeting and I have been blogging. My blog is powered by WordPress. Integrating the blog and micro blog (Twitter) makes sense and recently I made Twitter and WordPress talk to each other, using WordPress plugins. I used not one, not two but three plugins to perfect the integration as per my taste.

Here is how it started. My initial wishlist from this integration was as follows:

1. Whenever I write a new blog post, it should be automatically posted (or tweeted) to Twitter
2. My tweets should get posted on my Blog

Referring to the second point, I did not want a blog post each, for every tweet. Instead I wanted a single blog post with all my tweets – say, for the day.

Secure File Transfer without Secure Shell

FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is the de-facto but unsecure method to transfer files. SSH (Secure Shell) and its family of services like SCP (Secure Copy) and SFTP (Secure FTP) allows you shell (telnet like) access as well as file transfer via SCP and SFTP, securely. By “securely” I mean the data is that flows across is encrypted including the username and password. SSH is a popular protocol for shell access and file transfer in the Linux world.

So given a choice, SCP/SFTP is a better option in terms of “security”. But enabling SFTP/SCP enables, by default, shell access too. Recently for one of my clients, the requirement was to use SCP instead of FTP while blocking shell access so that no user is able to login, in curiosity, nor could execute any program/script on the server, even by mistake. All they could do is to copy files across – from their desktop to the server and vice versa.  But, I could not find anything in  SSH configuration that barred SSH, while still allowing SCP.

Display Microsoft Word’s Special Characters through Apache

Recently, I carried out a Linux server upgrade for a client where I did a clean install of the latest operating system/distribution. Since it was a clean install I had to backup and note down the earlier configuration (of mail server, web server, database) and redo those changes. Mostly I preferred not to simply overwrite with the backed up configuration files. I rather documented and edited the configuration manually.

It all seemed to have gone smoothly and the new server has been up and running. But one not-so-fine day, the client started complaining that some HTML pages are not displaying properly. These were showing question marks (?) and some other weird characters. I figured out that these HTML pages were generated using Microsoft Word and had those special characters (closing quotes, double hyphens etc.). I discussed with the client that this could be a web browser problem because it is not able to use the correct character set.

Android to India: A Shipping FAQ

Writing this post with an Android Dev Phone 1 (ADP1) lying besides me. Refer to my earlier post for more on ADP1. I bought it through Android Market and it was shipped to New Delhi, India to my residence in about 3 days. While ordering the phone I had doubts and apprehensions, about its cost and shipping to India, which are now quenched – after all I have a working and ringing phone in my hand

I thought it would be a good idea to share the ordering and shipping experience with others – especially those who are wanting to get hold of an ADP1 in India. Instead of writing the entire experience chronologically, I thought I would  jot it as a FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions). Following were a few questions that bothered me while ordering the phone, while the phone was being shipped and when I got to unbox it:

A Web 2.0 App Directory

Stumbled upon this website called Feedmyapp (www.feedmyapp.com) about a month back. Have been a frequent visitor ever since, just to browse through! I must admit, it is very correctly titled as “Your Daily Web 2.0 Sites Dose”. It is nothing but a huge list of Web 2.0 applications. These include, at a broad level:

• Websites
• Frameworks
• Utilities

Websites are a list of sites which are so called Web 2.0 based, frameworks are those which allow a developer to build a Web 2.0 websites and utilities are tiny apps which you can use while building a site. The Feedmyapp website categorizes these under categories like CRM (Customer Relationship Management), Chat, E-mail, Frameworks and even Dating!

Was about to buy an Android

I was thrilled to spot the news about unlocked developer version of Google’s Android based phone.The news revealed a network unlocked phone called “Android Dev Phone 1″. So far, the only Android based phone which has been available is T-Mobile’s G1 – which is a network locked phone and will not work in India (where I live).

Photo of Android Dev Phone 1 from Android Market

Note that the Dev Phone is meant for developers which just means there will be no support by any company (which includes Google, T-Mobile or HTC). Still it costs as much as a consumer phone (as mentioned later).

Fedora X

How things change while on the move! I had been hitting the Fedora site constantly for the Fedora 10 download – last at around 20:30 hrs IST from a client’s office. While driving back, about 30 mins away from home, I checked the site on my Windows Mobile (ironic?) and I spotted “Fedora 10″ written all over the site. Rushed home at double speed.

Fired the torrent as well as direct download. The latter because, saw only one peer @ 98.7% download. Let’s see who, direct or the torrent download, wins the race on my 2 Mbps connection at home. The torrent download is not giving me more than 3KBps whereas the direct download is dicey and swinging – at times from about 260 KBps to 40 KBps

Once downloaded I have to start thinking about backing up my laptop running Fedora 9 and installing the 10. This may happen tonight, if sleep does not take over the X.

Will update this post as I sail to X from IX.

And now (Nov 27, 2008 @ 16:30 IST), my laptop runs Fedora 10 Continuing to write from Fedora 10, about it. Following is the first glimpse, with the noteworthy new wallpaper,  of Fedora 10’s desktop, after the installation:

Fedora 10 Desktop

Googly PacMan Gadget

This Sunday, I planned to resume doing something which I haven’t been doing much – play video games. I was about to turn on my XBox to play “Star Wars – The force unleashed”.This is a new game and I really would have to spend some time understanding it, to play it. I suddenly started missing those classic arcade games which were “on-n-play” and less brainers.

I recalled PacMan – one of the most popular classic arcade video games. I used to play PacMan at a video game parlour each day (literally), on my way from school to home. My friends used to consider me an expert at it

I started googling for PacMan for Linux. While searching, I got to know that this game is available as a Google Gadget. That’s it. I decided to install Google Gadgets on my Fedora 9 laptop. Thought it would be fun as well as learning and I will install more than just a game.

Google Gadgets on Fedora 9 Desktop

Was the Internet down today ?

I was sitting at a client’s place when I could no longer browse websites. After some checking, it became obvious that the Internet link/connection was down. As habitual, I tried browsing from my Mobile (using a Vodfone/Hutch Edge connection). I could not connect using my mobile too!

This happened somewhere between 15:45-16:15 hours IST. Checked with a friend who said he was able to connect. Perhaps the downtime did not happen to all service providers.

When the connection, came back I noticed that I was now able to connect with my mobile too! That is, I was able to reconnect with my laptop (using the client’s Internet connection) and my mobile (through Edge) almost at the same time.

So is this just a coincidence or was there some kind of downtime across ? Checking the news revealed nothing as of this writing.