Using pobox.com redirection and a free webmail account to host branded email for a domain

A friend registered a domain name, and wanted to send and receive branded email using that domain. If your project has a modest budget, you can send and receive branded domain email using a combination of a free webmail account and a pobox.com redirection account for US$20/year.

you can use pobox.com as your receiving post office, and have it forward your inbound email messages for that domain to a free webmail account. You can use the pobox.com SMTP server as an outbound SMTP gateway, with username and password authentication.

By publishing SPF and DKIM records in the DNS zone file for your domain, you can greatly increase the chances that branded email sent via the pobox.com server will be accepted by the remote party and not be mistaken for spam.

Checklist: what you need for branded email:

A domain (example.com)

a DNS control panel for the domain (I don’t let my hosting ISPs get my control of my DNS, I control it via the free DNS control panel that came from my registrar, GoDaddy.) You could probably do the same with your registrar.

A free webmail account (for example, a free @gmail.com account).

A pobox.com redirection account (US$20/year)

Setting up DNS

Log into DNS control panel

create MX records for your domain:

MX @ mx-1.pobox.com priority 12
MX @ mx-2.pobox.com priority 24
MX @ mx-3.pobox.com priority 36

create SPF and DKIM records:

TXT “v=spf1 include:pobox.com”

For the DKIM record, refer to the custom value generated for your domain, and available in the control panel for your pobox.com account.

Setting up a mail client

Start with an email client, like the Mail app on an iPad or iPhone.

Instead of choosing a branded email service with a logo, like Gmail or Yahoo, choose “other” and define a custom email service.

Name: Firstname Lastname
Email: firstname.lastname@example.com
Password: passwordforgmailaccount
Description: firstname.lastname@example.com

Incoming mail server

Host name: imap.gmail.com
User Name: username@gmail.com
Password: passwordforgmailaccount

Outgoing mail server

Host name: smtp.pobox.com
username: username@pobox.com
password: passwordforpoboxaccount

Fixing slow MacOS Finder on Samba file share, optimizing for Windows clients

If you are trying to figure out why your MacOS Finder is slow when it connects to a Samba file share on a Linux server, you are in the right place.

I found the solution in this post:

https://medium.com/@augusteo/fixing-slow-macos-finder-connection-to-linux-samba-server-ed7e5ea784c1

Here is what you need to add to /etc/samba/smb.conf on the Samba server:

vfs objects = fruit
fruit:aapl = yes
fruit:encoding = native
fruit:locking = none
fruit:metadata = stream
fruit:resource = file

While I was searching for things that could speed up a MacOS Finder client’s session, I found a number of optimizations that helped speed Windows clients connected to a Samba file share.

The best of these was a post:

https://eggplant.pro/blog/faster-samba-smb-cifs-share-performance/

with these suggestions for /etc/samba/smb.conf on the Samba server:

[global]

# FORCE THE DISK SYSTEM TO ALLOCATE REAL STORAGE BLOCKS WHEN
# A FILE IS CREATED OR EXTENDED TO BE A GIVEN SIZE.
# THIS IS ONLY A GOOD OPTION FOR FILE SYSTEMS THAT SUPPORT
# UNWRITTEN EXTENTS LIKE XFS, EXT4, BTRFS, OCS2.
# IF YOU USE A FILE SYSTEM THAT DOES NOT SUPPORT UNWRITTEN
# EXTENTS, SET "strict allocate = no".
# NOTE: MAY WASTE DRIVE SPACE EVEN ON SUPPORTED FILE SYSTEMS
# SEE: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=798532

   strict allocate = Yes

# THIS IS TO COUNTERACT SPACE WASTAGE THAT CAN BE 
# CAUSED BY THE PREVIOUS OPTION 
# SEE: https://lists.samba.org/archive/samba-technical/2014-July/101304.html

   allocation roundup size = 4096

# ALLOW READS OF 65535 BYTES IN ONE PACKET.
# THIS TYPICALLY PROVIDES A MAJOR PERFORMANCE BENEFIT.

   read raw = Yes

# SERVER SIGNING SLOWS THINGS DOWN WHEN ENABLED.
# THIS WAS DISABLED BY DEFAULT PRIOR TO SAMBA 4.
# Thanks to Joe in the comments section!

   server signing = No

# SUPPORT RAW WRITE SMBs WHEN TRANSFERRING DATA FROM CLIENTS.

   write raw = Yes

# WHEN "strict locking = no", THE SERVER PERFORMS FILE LOCK
# CHECKS ONLY WHEN THE CLIENT EXPLICITLY ASKS FOR THEM.
# WELL-BEHAVED CLIENTS ALWAYS ASK FOR LOCK CHECKS WHEN IT IS
# IMPORTANT, SO IN THE VAST MAJORITY OF CASES,
# "strict locking = auto" OR "strict locking = no" IS ACCEPTABLE.

   strict locking = No

# TCP_NODELAY:
#    SEND AS MANY PACKETS AS NECESSARY TO KEEP DELAY LOW
# IPTOS_LOWDELAY:
#    [Linux IPv4 Tweak] MINIMIZE DELAYS FOR INTERACTIVE TRAFFIC
# SO_RCVBUF:
#    ENLARGE SYSTEM SOCKET RECEIVE BUFFER
# SO_SNDBUF:
#    ENLARGE SYSTEM SOCKET SEND BUFFER

   socket options = TCP_NODELAY IPTOS_LOWDELAY SO_RCVBUF=131072 SO_SNDBUF=131072

# SMBWriteX CALLS GREATER THAN "min receivefile size" WILL BE
# PASSED DIRECTLY TO KERNEL recvfile/splice SYSTEM CALL.
# TO ENABLE POSIX LARGE WRITE SUPPORT (SMB/CIFS WRITES UP TO 16MB),
# THIS OPTION MUST BE NONZERO.
# THIS OPTION WILL HAVE NO EFFECT IF SET ON A SMB SIGNED CONNECTION.
# MAX VALUE = 128k

   min receivefile size = 16384

# USE THE MORE EFFICIENT sendfile() SYSTEM CALL FOR EXCLUSIVELY
# OPLOCKED FILES.
# NOTE: ONLY FOR CLIENTS HIGHER THAN WINDOWS 98/Me

   use sendfile = Yes

# READ FROM FILE ASYNCHRONOUSLY WHEN SIZE OF REQUEST IS BIGGER
# THAN THIS VALUE.
# NOTE: SAMBA MUST BE BUILT WITH ASYNCHRONOUS I/O SUPPORT

   aio read size = 16384

# WRITE TO FILE ASYNCHRONOUSLY WHEN SIZE OF REQUEST IS BIGGER
# THAN THIS VALUE
# NOTE: SAMBA MUST BE BUILT WITH ASYNCHRONOUS I/O SUPPORT

   aio write size = 16384

 

 

Where CPU power matters, and where it does not

The other day, I was thinking about 3 systems, 2 with modest specifications, and 1 system with great specs.

A 2009 desktop old Vista-class class core 2 duo 4GB RAM 120GB SSD

A 2018 netbook Celeron CPU (more like an Atom) 4GB RAM 64GB eMMC

A 2016 laptop core i7 with 16GB RAM and a 1TB SSD

It would not be a difficult quiz were the object to identify the good system vs the bad one. Hint: it’s the i7.

However, I have learned that some tasks run quite well on limited hardware.

The 2009 desktop was never designed to run with 4GB of RAM and a 120GB SSD from my junkpile, but they certainly have the effect of speeding up the system. This machine, running Fedora Linux, is a VPN server, a file server, a web server, a database server, and can play back 1080p video beautifully over a DVI connection.

The 2018 netbook which costs less than US$200 new, is essentially a Chromebook case with modest Wintel guts. Its CPU is called a Celeron, but given its clock speed and meagre 2 cores, it may as well be an Atom. And yet, this netbook is able to run Fedora Linux and Windows 10 Pro, quite well. It can even run Photoshop.

I have tried to run virtual machine emulation under both of these systems. Even with a stripped-down OS installer, the results were not pretty. For some applications, specs matter.

Although I have not yet spent serious time with a Raspberry Pi device, the full support in Fedora 29 has made me take a serious look at the platform. I predict results similar to those on the systems I described earlier.

Of course, if you throw good specs at a problem, like a recent laptop with a core i7, 8 cores, 16GB RAM, and a 1TB SSD, a lot of other things are possible. I am able to run multiple virtual machines under KVM, and have had a situation where a Linux guest was connected to one VPN, a Windows guest was connected to another, and the main desktop (“baremetal computer”) was on the main network connection, not even slowing down while the virtual machine guests did their work.

A recent sighting of a 13″ MSI and a sale for a Dell XPS 13 made me long for a small, but powerful computer. However, for travel, all I need is that little netbook. In theory, it would be fun to virtualize a few server environments for portable LAMP development, but I have been exploring “containers” like Docker that will allow me to isolate the systems with different PHP/MySQL versions without the overhead of a full virtual machine.

So the question is not whether you need more power. The question is how much power do you need for a specific use?

The containers thing is getting important – my goal will be to build 2 containers – one with mysql and php 5.x, and one with mysql and php 7.x