Geeklog Forums

Hmm, what's is this Geeklog thing? Looks sort of OK, appears to be free. Most really good stuff is. Might just be worth downloading. Yeah, think I will. Let's see, the old PowerBook has got PHP, got MySQL, but I might have to fix SendMail. So I fiddled and tweaked and made a couple of mistakes (well, we can't be bothered to actually read the instructions - no matter how brief - can we?). And then after a mere 30 minutes or so... Well I'll be dipped in doggie poo! The thing actually works! I wonder if it can... Oh yes! And can you..? Yep! But what if I want to..? I can? Wow!Well, I mean really, it's all rather hunky isn't it? Mind you, as a nerd of many years experience I could easily have written something like this myself (yeah right!) but since you people have done everything I had already thought of I don't think I can be bothered any more :-) So I'll fiddle around with the installation on the PowerBook for a bit and then I'll be moving it up to the main server. Thanks for getting me geeked! I'm happy to drop hints for any other Mac OS X GeekLog newbies by the way - the SendMail thing was a little troublesome. - Charlie Dancey

I'm serving Geeklog from Mac OS X which is causing me two problems. One has to do with the fact that I have a Netgear Wireless Router which means I can only access via mycomputer.local (If I put in the domain, I get the router set-up). so to use the site from home I have to change the config file. Is there any checking in the sign-up that would serve mycomputer.local instead of mydomain.com (guess i could try). Main problem though is that email confirmations aren't being sent. How does one turn that on? I hope this isn't attached to the previous message, but I didn't see any post a message buttons. Thanks---Hermosa Beach, California

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Hermosa Beach, California

If GeekLog is failing to send mail confirmations under Mac OS X then your SendMail settings are probably not set up right. SendMail is a paranoid beast designed so as to refuse to send mail except under the most stringent conditions.

You can check the level of SendMail's paranoia by opening the Terminal and doing:

tail -f /var/log/mail.log

Now leave the Terminal open and sign up a new user. You'll then see a couple of lines scroll past as your machine tries to send the mail. What you're hoping for is a line that ends "Message accepted for delivery)" - but I'm willing to bet that you'll see SendMail complaining about "Group Writeable Directories" - or saying "connection refused".

Mac OS X is deliberately set up this way because of the wide range of potential security issues presented by SendMail. (Apple don't want to have millions of Macs out there being hijacked by spammers - it could bring the net to it's knees). A comprehensive guide to fixing this (very common) problem is located here:

http://www.macdevcenter.com/pub/a/mac/2002/ 09/10/sendmail.html

Well it worked for me!

Charlie Dancey