This article will show you how to dramatically improve the effectiveness of the anti-spam system that is built into Mac OSX Server 10.5. After the upgrade, at least 99.9% of spam should be prevented from reaching your user’s e-mail Inboxes.
This process requires that the Developer Tools are installed on the system. As always, backup your server before making any changes.
I recently set up an RSS-like feed for use with the iTunes store, for distributing media files as a podcast (or “vodcast”). I did some searching for existing PHP scripts to accomplish this, and came across Anis uddin Ahmad’s Universal Feed Writer classes. They can be used to create RSS1, RSS2 and ATOM feeds. I extended his classes so that they can produce iTunes feeds as well, which is a major departure from standard RSS (it has it’s own DTD). I’ll send them to Mr. Ahmad too, in case he wants to add my updates to his files. He didn’t specify any license, but did mention “Share and Enjoy” at the bottom of his blog post, so I’ll do the same: Share and Enjoy! Without warranty of any kind. :)
The iTunes extensions to RSS2 are helpfully specified by Apple. The process of getting the feed set up and into iTunes is laid out in four easy steps by Derik Whittaker. Note that you can create an URL that will open in iTunes so that it connects directly to your site (without going through the iTunes Store), using this format: itpc://FEEDURL.
Although Apple published a helpful list of TCP and UDP port numbers used by it’s products, it’s a little unclear as to which ones Workgroup Manager needs.
You can figure it out yourself by enabling firewall logging on your Mac OSX Server and watching as you fail to connect. Or, you can take my word for it — here are the ports that you need to allow access to:
For the last port, the only option in the Server Admin firewall interface is to enable ports 8000-8999 for “Web Service, iTunes Radio streams”. If you are running other services on those ports that you want to protect, or if you’re just paranoid, you’ll want to add a custom rule for port 8175.
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This site has been neglected for a little while — sorry about that. This summer was a whirlwind of adventure racing, consulting work, vacationing, and more work. This fall I started down the path of attaining the Apple Certified System Administrator certification, which has been time-consuming, on top of work and life. I wrote the first exam, then realized that I could get two-certs right away by writing the desktop support exam. So I did that, and now I have both the ACTC and ACSP certs.
Unfortunately, the Apple Consultants Network isn’t accepting any new members while system upgrades are taking place. The notice on their "Join" page says it will be closed until November — hopefully that doesn’t mean November ’09! =)
I have 3 exams left to get the ACSA. I’ll be writing the Directory Services exam before the end of the month. I had hoped to have all of the exams done before the end of the year, but I don’t think I’ll have time for two in December. I’ll be writing at least one exam in January.
So, sorry again for the hanging threads on this blog. I know that some readers were looking forward to the completion of series of articles that I started, but re-creating the setups for those scenarios takes a lot of time that I just don’t have. The good news is that I’m learning the “proper” way to approach these things, so I might actually go back and revise some of the existing articles.
Then again, I have discovered that the documented way doesn’t always work, and I’ve actually referred back to my own articles here to solve issues that came up while following the textbook approach. I feel sorry for the instructors that teach the Apple courses — it must suck when the software chokes on the official procedure that they’re trying to teach! The best way, I suspect, is somewhere in between the official procedure, and the “hacks” that I’ve spelled out in my little tutorials. I’m toying with the idea of doing screencasts for some of this stuff. Stay tuned!
