Andy Millar

Configuring a DRAC (Dell Remote Access Card) behind NAT is surprisingly simple, yet Google fails to yield any useful results.

All that needs doing is to forward the following ports (TCP Only) to the DRAC card:

• 80
• 443
• 5900
• 5901
• 5902

If you find that ports 80 and 443 are already mapped to an existing server, you can forward different ports (i.e. 81 and 444) however the DRAC card must be configured with these ports. You cannot forward an external port 444 to an internal port 443! The HTTP(s) ports can be changed from the Services section in the DRAC configuration menu. (Read as: System->Remote Access->Configuration->Services). I have not yet found a way of changing the last 3 ports.
It is worth noting that the last 3 ports are only required for the DRAC console. The web interface (without remote console access) is fine with just ports 80 and 443 forwarded.

I recently experienced a problem with an Exchange 2003 deployment where pop3svc was stuck starting.

To resolve it, try killing inetinfo.exe using Task Manager.

You should then be able to restart the pop3 and imp services via MMC.

Make sure you start the pop3/imap services via the Exchange System Manager as well as via MMC.

Byethost has been mentioned on the StopBadware.org blog - Taking a Byet Out of Badware!

Maxim’s comments are very positive - hopefully there is scope for some form of partnership to help the eradication of badware from the Byethost servers.

Fighting badware is challenging as, as a host, you are always one step behind the spammers and phishers. Proper support from organisations like StopBadware will really help reduce the time between a new badware site being created and the host being notified.

Only cooperation between the hosts and enforcement groups will see an end to badware!

Just as a warning to anyone who uses relays.ordb.org as a dnsbl for their spam filter…

After being dormant since January 2007, relays.ordb.org has decided to mark all email as spam as an incentive to get users to stop using their retired service!

See:

http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/25/2124224

http://www.nabble.com/relays.ordb.org-returning-positive-for-everything–to16286049.html

Now, go fix your spam gateways and remove ordb.

Today (well, actually the 17th, but today is close enough!) is the 1st birthday of my Mail Server as it is today! Happy Birthday!

This also means that this day last year I finally arrived at the only sensible way of organising your inbox… by date!

This way, there is no arguement as to which folder it should go into! You don’t have to waste time sorting your inbox every day! All that is required is a single move operation taking no more than a few seconds on the first of every month!

Searching is simple. If you know the date of the email you’re looking for you will find it in seconds. If not, the advent of Google Desktop and the new Windows Search that comes built in to Outlook 2007 means that you no-longer need to search through a cryptic set of folders to find that all important email!

Although not necessarily beneficial for you, it also allows for a replacement or temporary member of staff to instantly use your inbox and find emails! They do not need to waste time learning how you thought it would be best to organise your inbox many years ago!

This is how I organise my inbox! It is much faster and easier to find emails, and you never have to ask yourself “does this belong in folder X or folder Y“?

It is also worth noting that Outlook 2003 and 2007 support tagging emails with categories. Surely it makes more sense to assign categories, not folders, to emails? This way when an email should be in two places at once under your old filing scheme, now it can!

Try it! It will make your life easier.

Ok. My previous phone handset developed a fault with the scroll wheel. Apparently this is a fairly common fault with the Blackberry 8700.

Orange kindly arranged next day delivery of a replacement on New Year’s Eve. Sadly it seems that the courier was unreliable, and didn’t show up. The courier was rearranged for today and the replacement handset has arrived. Kudos to Orange for their swift resolution of handset problems.

The downside of this is that I have a new Blackberry PIN.

My new PIN is: 25241539

Mass emails for events occurring during a holiday period are generally bad.

Chances are that the person you’re emailing is out of the office, so will not read the email till they are back in.

Secondly, and more importantly, chances are that they will have an out of office auto-responder that Microsoft so kindly added as a feature in Outlook/Exchange.

For all of you that have sent out Seasons Greetings via email, I hope you enjoyed the torrent of “I’m sorry but I am out of the office” emails.

May this be a lesson to you all that sending mass emails is bad!