Software

All of the software and documentation posted here is freely available for download and use.

Documentation

Open Source software has numerous strengths; it is often the “best of breed” for common applications, it is tailorable to your own circumstances, and it is very affordable. One of the challenges often associated with it is the quality or availability of documentation.

The challenge can always be overcome; Google is your friend, together with some experimentation. To save others from repeatedly expending the same effort, I write out what works for me and post it here.

Secure web sites and email servers use certificates to identify themselves. SSL Certificates documents what I had to do to set up my own servers. (If you are thinking about becoming your own mini-Root CA, you should probably read this too.)

Bare Metal Reload describes how to move a Linux installation from one hard disk to another. While distribution-specific, you should find the techniques generally useful for a number of purposes.

Linux

popbsmtpd is a POP-before-SMTP relay authorization daemon that lets mail users with POP or IMAP accounts on a server use that server to relay outbound mail. This is the project's home site.

Being a bit of an anti-spam nut, I spend time playing with Postfix. I run a patched version that can test whether there is a relationship between the sender's email address and the domain from which the connection originates.

This server used to run EnGarde Secure Linux. Here you can find links related to EnGarde, as well as links to EnGarde-specific resources on this site. (Update 2005-11-05: Migrated to OpenBSD.)

iSeries

The IBM mid-range system formerly known as AS/400 (and System/38 before that).

The most underrated system on the planet. “Mid-range”... yeah, right. You could run the VISA® credit-card system on a pair of these. Users went from the original 16-bit systems through the 32-bit ones to the current generation of 64-bit RISC machines (the first commercially-available 64-bit system) without recompiling, thanks to their virtual architecture and VM technology. A couple of years ago, a 24-way i840 broke SPECjbb2000 performance records to become the first server to exceed 132,000 operations per second; I imagine twenty-five years of VM experience can pay off.

CPYTOIFSF is a command that lets you easily transfer files from the iSeries database to stream files in the IFS. They are converted to ASCII on the way, and can optionally be formatted as comma-separated values.

I have been using the FTP Backup for a long time now, but I still need to tweak the packaging a bit before it is ready to post. I intend to demonstrate a number of techniques with it, so I want it to be really clean before presenting it. Check back in a while; or if you are really interested, send me email.

Windows

Given the amount of Windows programming I do, it is amazing that I have nothing ready to post. Most of the interesting stuff belongs to my customers, but I have a few small candidates I could clean up.