bbs.spamgourmet.com

David over at NetEndeavors said he'd be able to set up a dev server for us late this weekend / early next week -- thanks for hooking this up SysKoll!!!!

We'll have a lot more flexibility since we'll be able to tinker with sendmail (or the MTA of our choice) at will, and we'll insulate production from careless mistakes [that I make ].

I'll be in touch as soon as we get the info.

I am soon going to start working on modularizing the spameater code. Right now, the entire processing takes place in a monolithic routine and I propose to break it up into smaller and manageable chunks.

Before I can start on that I would like to setup my own sandbox on the test server. In fact, I would like all developers to have their own sandboxes so that we can use test.spamgourmet.net as a staging area for changes which are to go into production.

How difficult is it to create DNS/MX alias records for the developer test sites? If we can map amit-test.spamgourmet.net to test.spamgourmet.net then we can use apache virtual domains to host the test site on the same server and daemon.

Amit,

That's an excellent idea. Other details: How do we keep sendmail config changes local to each user? Maybe different instances using different ports?

I took a quick glance at the sendmail config for SG and it seemed that we could get away with a single MTA instance: we would just have one config file which would invoke the appropriate perl script based on the domain the email was being sent to. Since all processing is done within spameater.pl it's not as if each developer really needs a seperate sendmail configuration.

We should try to stick to a single web server and MTA so as to conserve resources.

sure -- I can set up additional hostnames for each of us -- what do we want them to be?

I've started modularizing the code, but we still have a long way to go. One thing that would be great to have as we do this is a standardized performance test. Unfortunately for us, performance *is* a concern, and when we deploy our changes, they'll go onto an increasingly busy server. Any ideas for a good way to profile performance?

While we're on the subject, a battery of functionality ("unit?") tests would be good, too.

Additional hostnames:
I was going to suggest josh-test.spamgourmet.net, syskoll-test.spamgourmet.net and amit-test.spamgourmet.net. Or we could
drop one level down in the DNS hierarchy: josh.test.spamgourmet.net etc.

Unit/Performace tests:
I think the unit tests are much more important than the performance tests. I believe that the biggest performance drain comes from having to start a seperate spameater process from each incoming email (each of which opens its own DB connection). That will disappear once we daemonize SG.

I have thought a bit about a unit testing framework for SG. Let me crystallize my ideas and I will open a new thread on the topic.

I've been trying to create new hostnames (syskoll.xoxy.net, for instance), but for some reason bind isn't picking them up -- I've never had this problem before. I'll let you all know as I keep trying.

I got the new hostnames for jqh1 and syskoll -- the mail server is set up to handle them on the test machine, too. Amit -- when you get a chance, create an account for yourself on the box and let me know what the username is -- I'll set up a host for you too.

We went with short hostnames because we'll probably be sending a bunch of test messages manually.

Short hostnames was definitely a good idea.

I have already created an account on the test server (username amit). Let me know when you have setup the DNS record for amit.xoxy.net.

Given that my efforts at adding the domains led to the collapse, upgrade, and misconfiguration of the DNS server, I think I'm going to work on fully separating the test box by putting up its own DNS server and domain....

Josh,

The virtualsertable on the test machine (NetEndeavors) points all virtual host names, including syskoll.xoxy.net, to your jhq1 account. Is that normal?

I meant to forward it to syskoll -- I fixed it.

Josh, the DNS records for our individual sandboxes seem to be missing. e.g. i cannot resolve amit.xoxy.net.

after screwing up the dns for xoxy.net a few times, I figured we could try a different approach.

on the test box, I created a.com (for you, Amit), s.com for Syskoll, and j.com for me. I think I got it working so that we can use pine to send and receive test messages while running the code in our home directories (it was working for me -- if it's not set up for you, look in /etc/mail/aliases, /etc/mail/virtusertable, the .forward in my home dir, and places like that -- remember that you have to run newaliases after changing aliases, and there's a script called 'makethemap' to rebuild the virtusertable, then killall -HUP sendmail).

I don't think this is very usable: we cannot send messages to the test environment from our web-based email accounts. Having to do this from the local machine is constraining, IMO.

Is there a spare domain that we can dedicate for this purpose?