[CLUE-Tech] RedHat & Postfix

[Matt Gushee]

On Thu, Jun 19, 2003 at 09:18:47AM -0600, Jeremiah Stanley wrote:
> > 
> > Seriously, I'd expect if there's a serious Postfix problem, they'd
> > address it -- it may be that there have been no serious Postfix issues,
> > or maybe they're below the radar... but it seems that RH does issue a
> > lot of security updates. 
> 
> Part of the reason that Postfix isn't as supported in RH is the fact
> that 1.11 (the version of postfix that ships) only supports v1 of the
> SASL libraries. You need SASL to talk to LDAP servers. Since the
> importance is on talking to LDAP for directory service and not
> authenticating users with SMTP AUTH (also requires SASL v2) they have
> yet to upgrade.
> 
> As it sits the packages cannot be compiled to support SASL v2 because
> they have to talk to pre-2.1 openldap. Once the openldap packages are
> upgraded in RH then postfix will hit the 2.0 series.
> 
> <deep breath> This is why RH still ships the 1.11 postfix.

Ugh. Sounds like a mess.
> 
> As for User Mode Linux. You hosting provider is most likely running a
> product called Ensim Server Managment. I admin'd one of these a while
> back. They have proprietary patches that allow them to run instances of
> a kernel in another runspace. Ie, virtual machines. It works similarly
> to UML, so much so that people didn't know that they didn't have real
> hardware (it emulates /proc or the hardware that proc monitors).

Interesting. Of course, I knew I wasn't signing up for a physical Linux
box--that's why it's cheap. Seeing as I don't expect to draw millions of
visitors to my site, that should be fine.

> As to my knowledge of RH support practices: they charge based on the
> number of machines that you register for updates. If you registered
> every UML instance then you would pay for each one.

This may be useful to know at some point. But when I said "supported," I
used quotes for a reason. What I was really wondering about was how well
they could be expected to maintain the freely downloadable package and
the relevant documentation. Since I am reasonably knowledgeable about
Linux and am not trying to run an enterprise-level server, I have no
intention of paying for the supported version (I may be a *little*
stingy, but more importantly I'm very broke).

> Any hosting company that can't package their own RPM's is 1) retarded,
> it's waaaaaay easy and 2) wasting time and money. 

No doubt, but that's not really the issue. I'm mainly trying to run a
web site for my own small business, which currently has nothing to do
with hosting. And as far as the hosting company that I am renting the
space from, I'm sure they could easily do it, and probably would if I
asked ... but the terms of the deal are that I get a server that I can
use as I see fit (within reason, of course) for a very good price. Tech
support is included, but the expectation is that I know what I'm doing
and don't need hand-holding or premium services.

Anyway, thanks for the very thorough explanation.

-- 
Matt Gushee                 When a nation follows the Way,
Englewood, Colorado, USA    Horses bear manure through
mgushee at havenrock.com           its fields;
http://www.havenrock.com/   When a nation ignores the Way,
                            Horses bear soldiers through
                                its streets.
                                
                            --Lao Tzu (Peter Merel, trans.)