7-Nov-2023

Another normal month
Again, nothing strange this month. Even mail is normal:

PMAS statistics for October
Total messages    :   1806 = 100.0 o/o
DNS Blacklisted   :     66 =   3.6 o/o (Files: 23)
Relay attempts    :    147 =   8.1 o/o (Files: 30)
Accepted by PMAS  :   1593 =  88.2 o/o (Files: 31)
  Handled by explicit rule
         Rejected :    871 =  54.6 o/o (processed),  48.2 o/o (all)
         Accepted :    176 =  11.0 o/o (processed),   9.7 o/o (all)
  Handled by content
        Discarded :    407 =  25.5 o/o (processed),  22.5 o/o (all)
     Quarantained :     67 =   4.2 o/o (processed),   3.7 o/o (all)
        Delivered :     72 =   4.5 o/o (processed),   3.9 o/o (all)

and again there were a few relay-attempt files that are800 blocks in size but apparently contained no data and therefore were deleted. I’ll check anyway.

18-Oct-2023

Better late then never

Too busy with other things to check on the system last weeks. Had some power outages, both generic, from the grid, as locally while installing an airco unit.
Mail statistics seem to stabilized:
PMAS statistics for September
Total messages    :   1787 = 100.0 o/o
DNS Blacklisted   :     46 =   2.5 o/o (Files: 18)
Relay attempts    :    179 =  10.0 o/o (Files: 30)
Accepted by PMAS  :   1562 =  87.4 o/o (Files: 30)
  Handled by explicit rule
         Rejected :    836 =  53.5 o/o (processed),  46.7 o/o (all)
         Accepted :    238 =  15.2 o/o (processed),  13.3 o/o (all)
  Handled by content
        Discarded :    301 =  19.2 o/o (processed),  16.8 o/o (all)
     Quarantained :    119 =   7.6 o/o (processed),   6.6 o/o (all)
        Delivered :     68 =   4.3 o/o (processed),   3.8 o/o (all)

There were a few anti-relay files of 800 blocks but apparently there was no data in them: EOF was less than 4 blocks, so these files were removed.

The PWS had a memory update, I could buy memory of a former Digital/Compaq/HP(E) engineer, the system now has 1.25 Gb of memory. I should be working on my page-generator again.
The serial port has been connected to my workstation: the motherboard has a COM port on board!

05-Aug-2023

Again, no real problems
On the system front, nothing weird – once more no weird results in email:

PMAS statistics for July
Total messages    :   1970 = 100.0 o/o
DNS Blacklisted   :     84 =   4.2 o/o (Files: 27)
Relay attempts    :    148 =   7.5 o/o (Files: 29)
Accepted by PMAS  :   1738 =  88.2 o/o (Files: 30)
  Handled by explicit rule
         Rejected :   1046 =  60.1 o/o (processed),  53.0 o/o (all)
         Accepted :    194 =  11.1 o/o (processed),   9.8 o/o (all)
  Handled by content
        Discarded :    311 =  17.8 o/o (processed),  15.7 o/o (all)
     Quarantained :     89 =   5.1 o/o (processed),   4.5 o/o (all)
        Delivered :     98 =   5.6 o/o (processed),   4.9 o/o (all)

but on 1st, 6th and 7th of July, logs on relay attempts used 800 blocks on disk but it seems EOF was < 4 blocks - so the files were deleted. On the hardware front however, changes have been made. Mid July, I found that one of the RAID disks in Diana was bad, which may have contributed to performance issues. It also made a lot of noise I found the right type (MAW300NP: 300 Gb, 10K rpm U320 SCSI with 64-bit connector) via Internet, but in the UK, I ordered 2 and had to pay taxes on import....; placed one in Diana and found that the old 9GB SCSI-2 disk didn't work either so that one was removed as well. Plus that the cause of the bad cooling was found tobe cause by accumulated dust in front. Cleaned that, and after that, Diana was put back into action and is running ever since. During that time without disks, I used Dione - the second DS10 - as a backup for all activities except email because I could not handle mail that was on Diane. Dione could be started as well, even using the (assumed broken) cache memory; found that the batteries are bad so caching is now disabled. After the system had hung - again - and was restarted, I managed to make a backup of all four logical disks, hoping it didn't hang again. But it didn't, and Dione was kept alive for one more day, until Diana was re-activated - now with a new RAID disk and a cleaned front so the fans don't have to run at high speed anymore - CPU temp is now well below 40, without extra help. The last few says we have been plagued by power outages, some less than a minute, one for several hours. But since I do no longer have 7 disks that need to spin up - causing a power surge causing loss of power in the attic - there is no need to gradually startup the systems up here. Some outages - in the night - went unnoticed as long as you didn't look at the date and time of operator logs...

02-Jul-2023

Once again: All t be same (almost)
During our holiday trip, the site became unresponsive for some reason and has been off-line for about 10 days. Nothing worked, the only thing on the LAN I could reach was the router. From there, all traffic was impossible. So the problem was either the router, a cable, or a switch in the attic. As it turned out, it indeed was a cable – from the switch to Diana, so NONE of the connected systems could be reached because DHCP nor DNS could be contacted. Once the connection was restored, all worked again. No restart of any system required….
That is why there are less email messages reported:

PMAS statistics for June
Total messages    :   1593 = 100.0 o/o
DNS Blacklisted   :     42 =   2.6 o/o (Files: 14)
Relay attempts    :    129 =   8.0 o/o (Files: 21)
Accepted by PMAS  :   1422 =  89.2 o/o (Files: 21)
  Handled by explicit rule
         Rejected :    869 =  61.1 o/o (processed),  54.5 o/o (all)
         Accepted :    160 =  11.2 o/o (processed),  10.0 o/o (all)
  Handled by content
        Discarded :    194 =  13.6 o/o (processed),  12.1 o/o (all)
     Quarantained :    128 =   9.0 o/o (processed),   8.0 o/o (all)
        Delivered :     71 =   4.9 o/o (processed),   4.4 o/o (all)

It also means that quite a lot of sites that used to send spam, found the site was not responsive and it seems they ‘forgot’ my domain. Which, of course, is fine.

relay attempts are minimized as well, the only ones I found, except the test ones that come from tiscali.it (from different IP addresses, by the way) there were a few in the 21st. Using my email address to a outlook user, and non-existing users to two different hotmail.com recipients.

For the rest: nothing weird.

01-Jun-2023

Just the usual – with a little twist

Nothing wrong – again. Spam filter does it’s work, as usual:

PMAS statistics for May
Total messages    :   2783 = 100.0 o/o
DNS Blacklisted   :    106 =   3.8 o/o (Files: 25)
Relay attempts    :    177 =   6.3 o/o (Files: 31)
Accepted by PMAS  :   2500 =  89.8 o/o (Files: 31)
  Handled by explicit rule
         Rejected :   1400 =  56.0 o/o (processed),  50.3 o/o (all)
         Accepted :    225 =   9.0 o/o (processed),   8.0 o/o (all)
  Handled by content
        Discarded :    424 =  16.9 o/o (processed),  15.2 o/o (all)
     Quarantained :    327 =  13.0 o/o (processed),  11.7 o/o (all)
        Delivered :    124 =   4.9 o/o (processed),   4.4 o/o (all)

Twist is that 3 antirelay logfiles seem to be 800 blocks in size: 01-May, 05-May and 13-May, but these were deleted, where they should have been kept for examination. They could all be undeleted using DFU, but I found they were actually < 4 blocks in size, so it's clear why these were deleted. So deleted them, telling me each of them was 800 blocks - allocation size. Not sure what made them that big... Well, the system is a bit slow at times, perhaps this is symptom of something else I have to dig into. However, I will change to the second system some time soon, but I will have to take out the SA5300a card and put it into the other one (or just the cache card, that's broken on the other machine).
New hardware
On the workstation front: The new system worked fine but I ran into shortage of video memory of the RTX3080 card – thought 10Gb would be enough but it wasn’t. So I found RTX4090 card, 24Gb VRAM, got that and installed it instead. Now I may run into similar issues in the future but for now, this will suffice.
The old motherboard – on which the OS is installed on an M2 card – could be placed in the case I had this system originally, added a few hard drives that are now available (No room for them in the new case) and placed my good old GTX1080 in it. Booted from scratch with no issues. As soon as I get my community license for this instance, I will use this to run VMS on x86 on this machine, as a guest on VMWare Player (or Virtual box, not sure what, as for now) to replace the Alphas.