14May 2020 by Jim Blaich

Proxmox Mail Gateway rejections from some domains but not others, aka “my last post if full of shit”, sort of.

computers, dovecot, email server, Linux, Postfix
It is really hard to test some of this stuff out.  In my last post I did certainly cover the effect but I thought I understood the cause as well.  That is not the case, so I was full of shit, so to speak, and sort of. The problem was, if my customer sent or forwarded from some domains both related to one company the emails were rejected.  A reject email was sent back to the originator of the email. I thought this had to do with configuration of the Proxmox Mail Gateway (PMG).  That was partially correct.  Those things I spoke about in my previous post were problems, and I did correct them, and that is a good thing.  There was more wrong.  I needed to resolve that as…
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23Apr 2020 by Jim Blaich

Server Maintenance and Upgrades.

computers, Linux
The file server has been running for years without issue.  It still is.  The other day I thought I’d do a disk test on the drives in the raid array. In order to have enough drives in the system I had to add a raid card.  These are the cards found in Dell servers that can be modified to turn on IT mode allowing SATA drives.  When you get them you modify the firmware in DOS of all things, but it is super simple.  And then you buy 1 or 2 cables with 4 SATA ends for the drives.  I say 1 or 2 because there are two ports on the card where you can plug in a 4 port SATA cable enabling 8 total.  With a 2nd card you…
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06Apr 2018 by Jim Blaich

Moving WordPress from One Server to Another

.htaccess, aliases, Apache, certbot, computers, DNS, dovecot, email server, firewall, Internet, letsencrypt, Linux, mysqldump, NAT, permissions, pfsense, ports, Postfix, prosody, registrar, Web Server, wordpress
As a network administrator there comes a time when we need to reconfigure our server network(s) to some degree.  We do this in order to be more efficient and solve important issues. In the computer server world that means moving things such as hardware and services around. I have a couple of projects I found where I needed to move services from one computer server to another. Part of this need to consolidate services onto a single machine was spurred on by the need to demonstrate to my site's visitors that server security is important.  Besides, when hosting web sites and email accounts for others, those users want to know that where they are going is actually secure. We've seen cyber security in the press a whole lot more, so…
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16May 2017 by Jim Blaich

Last post to date (5-16-2017)

Asterisk, computers, Linux, Raspberry Pi
I've neglected posting for numerous reasons.  I've wanted to come back and post on several occasions.  Things just keep popping up or I feel lazy.  Since there are a lot of things that have happened during that time I thought I'd update some. Going way back I've been working with getting the pihole working.  This is an amazing tool.  Integrating it with my network is a bit tricky.  Each time I do something like adding stuff to my network I learn what doesn't work and hence I learn new things.  That's really why I am in this field and stay at this level.   The pihole provides a LAN wide blocking of ad and tracking sites.  How it works is pretty simple.  It's based on the concept of DNS. That's domain…
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23Feb 2017 by Jim Blaich

February 22, 2017

AMD, computers, gaming, Intel, Microsoft, Windows
  Explained to David a friend what he would need to implement long range WiFi from his shop to his house.  I also picked up an all in one touch screen Acer.  BTW, do not buy all in ones.  They are too prone to problems and when the main board goes then you loose it all.  Also, there's no need for touch.  I don't think anyone even considers it as a day to day thing.  Maybe once in a while.  Besides, Microsoft isn't any good at touch.  They just shoehorn the shit in.  I tested the Acer's power adapter first.  That worked.  It measures the proper voltage output.  The plug looked like it might fit my Samsung 27" display that I picked up  yesterday from the goodwill.  Nope.  I set…
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17Feb 2017 by Jim Blaich

Windows Launches IE Whenever a Network Connection is Made and Loads the MSN Site

computers, Google, Internet, Microsoft, privacy, Windows
Disabling advertisements is a normal thing these days.  There are many ways to do it.  Some are more detectable than others.  Some sites are more aggressive than others at detecting and reacting to it.  These sites should just accept that people are going to block their sites to rid themselves of ads. The ways to do it are via your router, via a block list that you add to a program that operates as a local domain name server where it checks lists of unwanted sites before allowing you to connect, and then there's the most detectable way which is through your browser with an addon called an adblocker.  Ublock Origin is the most common. The issue that I had earlier has to do with the fact that I use…
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