hiya!
I'm James Home, your system administrator.
this help file was last updated on September 18, 2007.
minerva is a Postfix-based system. mail is delivered in Maildir format. you can read your mail from the minerva command line with mutt or pine, or download it to your own machine with a client like Eudora or Thunderbird using POP or IMAP over SSL. Postfix's built-in UCE controls, a few carefully chosen real-time blacklists, and postgrey provide acceptable spam prevention.
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Receiving Mail with mutt or pine
mutt works the same way on minerva that it does elsewhere; just type mutt at the command line and you should be good to go.
pine, unfortunately, is not so easy. because pine doesn't support Maildir format, it is set up to receive mail via IMAP instead. this means each time you start pine, you will need to log into the IMAP server by entering your login password. you may also experience unexpected delays changing folders. if you find this irritating, give mutt a try.
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Receiving Mail with POP or IMAP
to prevent your login password from being transmitted in cleartext where it might be intercepted, we encrypt connections using SSL. this means some one-time configuration hassle that varies in complexity depending on which mail client and operating system you are using. fortunately, it's not hard to find clear instructions for enabling SSL for most popular mail clients; try searching Google for the name of your client and "SSL".
if you client gives you options, you want to authenticate with passwords using Alternate Port SSL with Maximum Compatibility on the default ports (993 for IMAP, 995 for POP). you can safely accept the self-signed SSL certificates that originate from minerva.
- Sending Mail with SMTP
sending mail from the various command line programs should work as expected. minerva also offers pop-before-smtp, so you can send mail from a remote client like Eudora or Thunderbird as long as you check your mail via POP or IMAP first. this is particularly convenient for minerva users with laptops who need to send mail from multiple networks.
don't enable SSL for sending mail via SMTP; minerva's mail relay doesn't accept SSL-encrypted SMTP connections.
- Forwarding Mail
if you don't use minerva as your primary mailserver, you can forward mail from minerva to your regular server by putting your email address on a single line in a file called .forward in your home directory. it is important that you do this; otherwise you will miss important notices about service changes or downtime. since this is the only way I can easily communicate with you, I will delete your account with impunity if you aren't either checking mail locally, have a valid .forward file or have made some other specific arrangement with me.
- Fighting Spam
in addition to Postfix's built-in UCE controls, minerva uses real-time blacklists to fight the deluge. these lists were carefully chosen from dozens of contenders for their relatively conservative policies. together they are effective enough to prevent about 70% of incoming spam with no reported false positives to date. minerva also uses postgrey, a greylisting implementation for Postfix. although it has worked incredibly well for minerva users, greylisting is a little controversial, and consequently you may choose to opt out from the service. just let me know.
- Mail Aliases
mail aliases for nanolux.org are stored in:
/etc/aliases
aliases for all other domains are stored in:
/domains/example.com/mail/postfix.cf
(where "example.com" is your actual domain name). do not hesitate to request additions or changes to any of these alias files.
- Mailing Lists
mailing lists are maintained by the Mailman mailing list manager. our implementation of Mailman is a little unusual. since Mailman's web-based subscription interface is awkward, we don't expose links to it in our list headers, and instead rely on Mailman's more conventional, email-based interface. consequently, we don't send annoying password reminders every month. list administrators can still take advantage of Mailman's excellent web-based list configuration interface. if you would like to run a mailing list on minerva, let me know and we'll get you set up.
minerva runs Apache 2 with current versions of mod_python, mod_php, mod_dav, and mod_ssl.
- Home Directory-based Websites
every user has an htdocs directory in their home directory. you can access content stored in this directory here:
http://nanolux.org/~username
- Domain-based Websites
if you are hosting a domain on minerva, your web content is stored here:
/domains/example.com/htdocs/
(where "example.com" is your actual domain name). access and error logs can be found in
/domains/example.com/logs/
- Uploading Content
minerva accepts SFTP and SCP connections to transfer files. for security reasons, minerva does not accept unencrypted FTP connections. if you need help finding a decent secure file transfer client, try searching VersionTracker for "SFTP".
unless you are comfortable taking responsibility for maintaining your own DNS, please register your domain through Gandi.net, establish me as your technical contact so I can make necessary changes to your records, and have me maintain your primary and secondary DNS. you will need to this information when you register your domain:
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Name of Primary Nameserver
minerva.nanolux.org
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IP Address of Primary Nameserver
208.96.51.52
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Name of Secondary Nameserver
ns.arctic.org
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IP Address of Secondary Nameserver
208.69.40.136
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Technical Contact
JH370-GANDI
you can, of course, choose a different registrar, or use a different primary or secondary DNS server. if you do so, you are on your own. there are too many variables involved for it to make sense for me to support much flexibility here. you will be responsible for initial setup and for keeping your records up to date in the event that IP addresses need to change.
minerva has two hard drives, mirrored using a RAID 1 hardware array. what this means is that all data is simultaneously written to both drives. if one drive fails, the other drive continues to function. this provides rudimentary protection from disk failure. there are, of course, numerous ways massive data loss could still occur, and mirrored drives doesn't eliminate the need for a good backup system. unfortunately, a good backup system has NOT been implemented on minerva at this time. you should be sure to keep a local backup of any content you host on minerva, including web and mail content.
minerva runs FreeBSD on at Tyan Transport GS10 with a 2.66GHz Intel Pentium 4 processor, two Western Digital WD2000JB 200GB hard drives paired with an Adaptec RAID 1 hardware array, and two Mushkin Blue Line 256MB PC2100 DDR memory modules.
minerva is hosted by The Bandwagon Cooperative, a bandwidth co-op that operates a cabinet out of San Francisco's Coloserve. this setup had proven itself to be fast, reliable, and a pleasure to maintain.
this is the third system called minerva to serve this community, and went into service in July 2004. the first system to bear that name came online in early 1997 under the superdeluxe.com domain, which was sold to Turner Broadcasting for the broadband comedy venture of the same name in 2006.
keeping minerva running wouldn't be possible without the generous support of our donors:
on behalf of everyone who uses minerva on a daily basis, thank you so much for your contributions!
working on minerva frequently leads me into situations that require more expertise than I have. when that happens and Google fails me, I turn to:
thank you all for your help!
Minerva was the Roman goddess of the arts, warriors, poetry, medicine, wisdom, commerce, science, trade, and navigation. she is also credited with the invention of music. her name may have originally meant "thought" or "mind". she was the daughter of Jupiter, and is said to have leapt forth from his forehead at birth, fully grown and well armored.
Minerva is featured prominently on the Great Seal of the State of California.
in Robert Heinlein's Future History series, Minerva Long Weatheral Long was Ira Weatheral's faithful sentient computer, the first such self-aware machine to choose to have her personality and memories implanted into the brain of a genetically-engineered human body.
in Neil Stephenson's Baroque Cycle, Minerva is a three-masted Barquentine Dutch Flute-ship built with rot resistant Malabar teak and other astonishing improvements over the state of the art, named in honor of the fantastic Duchess of Qwghlm.
