Category: General

May 28, 2020

Sendmail on Plesk – user is not allowed to send mail

I recently ran into a strange problem on a Plesk server where one subscription was inexplicably unable to send email using sendmail (which is what the PHP mail() function uses). The following was being logged in /var/logs/maillog for each attempt: plesk sendmail[1628571]: handlers_stderr: ERROR:__main__:Rejecting message: system user uid='<user ID>’ is not allowed to send mailplesk sendmail[1628571]: handlers_stderr: DATA REPLY:554:5.7.0 Your...

Categories General Comments: 0

November 12, 2015

Cumulus attacks on Juniper (again)

I have a lot of time for Cumulus Networks – I think they’re doing some very cool and unique things with their Cumulus Linux operating system for switches and they genuinely have something different to offer, but when they publish blog posts like their one today (https://cumulusnetworks.com/blog/junipers-second-run-up-the-open-networking-mountain/) I lose a lot of respect for them. This seems to be nothing...

Categories General/Juniper Comments: 0

August 21, 2015

The Zimbra merry-go-round

I’ve been a big fan of the Zimbra email collaboration system for many years, using it since version 4.5 or 5.0 (I can’t remember exactly). However, in recent years the product has been falling further and further behind competitors such as Microsoft Exchange, particularly in the all important area of redundancy and availability. Email and collaboration are critical to modern...

Categories General Comment: 1

June 8, 2014

Misleading companies – part 3

The final part of my rant (see part 1 featuring ConnetU and part 2 featuring IX Reach as well as euNetworks) is all about C4L (A.K.A. Connexions4London), a company who are trying to take the take the practice of claiming to have PoPs which don’t really exist to a whole new level! I should start this with a disclaimer. I...

Categories General Comments: 0

June 8, 2014

Misleading companies – part 2

In part 1, I wrote about my experiences looking for IP transit services in Telehouse West and an annoying encounter with ConnetU over a phantom PoP. Part 2 of this rant covers a second requirement from the same project – this time for a pair of 1Gbps layer 1 (wavelength) or layer 2 (MPLS pseudo-wire or VPLS) circuits between two...

Categories General Comments: 0

June 8, 2014

Misleading companies – part 1

Something that I’ve never understood is why some companies feel the need to lie on their websites. I’m not talking about ambiguous marketing twaddle about being “a leading provider” etc. but flat out deception. This seems to be particularly prevalent in the hosting/network/data centre industry for some reason. This specific rant was triggered by a recent project which required an...

Categories General Comments: 0

October 5, 2011

RIP Steve Jobs

RIP Steve Jobs, you have truly changed the face of both computing and society in general. Few people have had such a great and positive impact on the world as you did. You will be sorely missed. Apple have a brief tribute to the great man over at http://www.apple.com/stevejobs/

Categories General Comments: 0

November 17, 2010

Apple iTunes quality checks

Some time ago I purchased Mythbusters series 6 and 7 on the iTunes store and downloaded several gigabytes of episodes. I was watching one of the last episodes yesterday and it reliably skipped significantly at a couple of points with a complete loss of audio and video for 10 seconds or so. I managed to finish the episode and more...

Categories General Comments: 0

August 8, 2008

It lives!

The brand new, all singing, all dancing Don’t Dump That web site is online! It’s been a lot of hard work but it’s worth it for a good cause (and to get rid of the horrible old set-up…) Kieran and I have only just finished the last bit of work on it (merging the hundreds of separate user databases into...

Categories General Comments: 0

August 3, 2008

On the warpath

Hey, guess what? In typical Edward style, it has been ages since I updated this thing and I still haven’t got the site working fully or using a custom skin. I have an excuse… I am busy/lazy (take your pick!) 😉 I got back from going to see “The Dark Night” a couple of hours ago. It’s a bloody good...

Categories General/Mikrotik RouterOS Comments: 0