This isn't really a technical post, but I did want to share that I have Postfix running on my server. I'd never had the need to run my own mail server until I moved my wigglit.com domain. It was initially hosted at 1and1.com, but I got fed up with their service (or lack thereof). I had several e-mail accounts set up there and still needed them to stay active, so I was pretty much forced to migrate the accounts as well as the domain. The domain migration was pretty simple. The Postfix install was much more difficult, even when using Webmin to set it up. I used a Ubuntu tutorial (searched on 'webmin', 'ubuntu', 'postfix', and 'configuration') and used it exclusively to set up the server. I think I have it tuned pretty well so far, only I found some bounced e-mails going back maybe a month or so...I fixed those today. Those weren't actually related to Postfix, though. When I stood up the new server and domain, I forgot to adjust the scripts that kicked off the e-mails (cronjobs). I'll double-check tomorrow, but I think I've fixed those (was able to test the cronjob successfully...generated a test e-mail). I've since been editing the main.cf file to make configuration changes (and restarting the mail server afterward).
I've also been trying to use OSSIM, but I think I need a dedicated machine. I tried to use an install of it within VirtualBox, with very limited success. It seems it needs considerable resources and doesn't run well on a virtual instance with limited CPU/memory resources. I ran VirtualBox on my M17xR3...that machine definitely has enough horsepower, but only has 8GB of RAM...it may need a bit more so that I can give OSSIM ample memory. As well, my RAID 0 drive set may be hindering OSSIM. I got a taste of it, though, and like it much better than Aanval. Unfortunately, I don't have a good spare box at the moment, otherwise I'd be running it already. That was my first time using VirtualBox, also...it's not that much different than VMware...much simpler, though.
So, Slackware v14.0 was released not long ago. I took the liberty of installing it within VirtualBox. It runs very nice! I'm in the process of evaluating it and will soon upgrade my two v12.0 machines. No, I'm not using Slackware on my public server. I opted to use Ubuntu (v12.04) instead. While I love Slack, I needed something less high-maintenance on the public server. No complaints so far and it's been about a year since I flushed it and gave Ubuntu a try...no complaints whatsoever. KISS is where it's at.
Lastly, since I've had success with Postfix, I plan to eventually start evaluating security tools again. I've been out of the loop for awhile and need to push myself to continue to be familiar with Linux and security. I've never used any of the VPN software before, so I plan to establish a VPN conduit between my LAN and my public server. We'll see how that goes soon.
