Email is down

I'm still suffering some server issues. In particular none of the Leoville email addresses are working. I can see mail in the queue (over 3000 messages) but they're not getting directed to my inbox.

So if you've sent me mail in the past three days chances are good I didn't get it yet. I'm working on the problem and hope to have it solved soon.

UPDATE: After considerable hair tearing, and experimentation, I've figured out (by reviewing the Qmail logs) that Fastmail.fm, my IMAP host, and one I've long recommended, has been greylisting the Leoville.com server. Just in case something like this happens to you, here's what to look for.

My mail follows a somewhat tortuous route. When you send a message to leoville.com it's first forwarded to Mailroute for sanitization. This kills well over 1 million spam messages to me a month. The remaining 30,000 messages a month are sent to my server at leoville.com which immediately redirects it to Fastmail, my IMAP host, where it's stored until I access it. Fastmail has its own anti-spam stuff, including the bit that bit me, greylisting.

Greylisting is a clever antispam technique that tells an SMTP server to come back later. The delay can be anything from 15 minutes (typical) to several days. The theory being that a spammer will move on, but legitmate emailers will try again. Unfortunately Fastmail has set my greymail interval to something like four million seconds, so my mail piles up for several days before it's delivered to me. Fastmail does this if your reverse DNS looks like a home IP address instead of a legit SMTP server. (They discuss what they're doing on their blog.) Makes sense since many home computers are used to forward spam, but it's flummoxed me. I couldn't figure out what was happening.

The fix was to complain to Fastmail and change my reverse DNS to actually say leoville.com. Not sure which worked, but all of a sudden I'm getting a LOT of mail. If you sent me something in the past couple of days I'll get back to you ASAP. Sorry for the delay. Now I've got to go turn off that damn new mail sound.

Are You Being Served?

The bumpy server ride over the weekend seems to have smoothed out.

Here's an update. I've set up hosting (with RAID 5 mirroring and NAS backups, thank you) at Softlayer and am in the process of moving all the servers over. I'll keep the current status updated here and at Leoville.com.

As of now here's what's happening:

• Leoville.com - moved but down due to hardware issues all day Wednesday. Now up and reliable (crossing fingers)
• Leoville.tv - move completed
• Leo.am - up and working fine, all netcast feeds are now good
• Leoville Town Square - back up, a few things are missing like PHP thumbnail resizing, and the old UBB board archive. I’ll get these back online as soon as I can
• TWiT.tv - move completed, there were some issues this morning, but moving .htaccess and fixing a MySQL naming error corrected them. Everything seems to be working fine. If you notice any lingering problems email me. Thanks for your patience during this move.

Since the server moves require IP address changes some sites may not work until your particular DNS server registers the change. This will go more smoothly with the TWiT and Leoville.com moves since the old sites will remain up until all all DNS records have changed over. With any luck you won't notice the move at all.

The .am registrar has updated the address for leo.am but as of this morning it hasn't propagated to the rest of the world. Since the netcast feeds go through leo.am they’re also down until the change propagates. That shouldn't be too long now. Meanwhile all new netcasts are available at TWiT.tv - I've posted at least eight new shows since the feeds failed including a new TWiT. Once the feed goes back up you'll see a lot of downloading - you might want to check to make sure you get all the back shows, however. iTunes and other netcast clients may only download the most recent show.

You may be wondering why I do all this myself instead of using a managed host, or paying a sysop. Because it's so much fun, of course!

My friend, Dane Golden, has started a behind the scenes blog here at http://twit.vox.com, including audio of me tearing my hair out - nice that he's had something to write about this weekend!

Thanks to the dozens of people who offered moral support, hosting, and technical advice. It's nice to have so many friends.

New software

OK. I'm trying out some new software. This blog is running under Movable Type (http://www.movabletype.org). It's a little slicker and best of all, still under development. There are some kinks to work out, but I think I'll be able to import all the old blog entries. Stay tuned!

Moving Day

OK, I've moved the blog over to the new software, Movable Type. I was able to import all the previous entries through May. Still working on the rest. (UPDATE: got everything imported, including the original Blogger entries - all the the entries from the beginning are now in here. NICE!) There are some differences. The main thing we're losing is the voting on each entry. It's fun, but it's not something I'll die without. We gain a bunch more. Most importantly, I hope, more reliable and secure software. There are some other very nice features, including an improved user interface. I'll be tweaking it over time. The biggest problem so far is that if your page is too narrow you lose the stuff in the gutter to the right (widen the window if you don't see my picture to the right of this text). I'm going to tweak the templates to get them to fit Leoville's dull but functional design better. Comments are still enabled. I hope you'll pass along your suggestions. Thanks for your patience during the transition. Incidentally, the old Greymatter blog files will stick around indefinitely, so if you linked to them, the links will still work. I will remove the Greymatter software, however, since it poses a security risk.

Those Curtains Have to Go!

Well I couldn't resist and spent the last two days redesigning the Blog. I manhandled the elegant little templates Movable Type comes with until they looked just like the old blog. The voting has disappeared, but it's nicer in other ways. The archives link is back at the bottom, with month by month and day by day views. I'd like to pretty that up when I get a chance. The calendar feature in the next version of MT should do the trick. I've added single entry view that has a back and next button, so you can go entry by entry reading my original post and the comments that followed. Get there by clicking any post's title or the Comments link. I am also categorizing the entries now. I'll archive by category at some point, as well. For now, there are no categories for the old Greymatter and Blogger posts. I just lumped them all in the 2001 category. At some point I'll categorize them, too. There's an e-mail notification feature, too, but I can't figure out how to make it available to you on the page. It's not documented anywhere, but as soon as I can I'll make it possible for you to receive either new posts in their entirety or an e-mail notification. As usual, I welcome any input or requests. Thanks for your patience during the transition. Now I know what vacations are for. Viva Movable Type!