Install to Ubuntu (optional)

Install to Ubuntu (optional) — How to install milter manager related softwares to Ubuntu Linux

About this document

This document describes how to install milter manager related softwares to Ubuntu Linux. See Install to Ubuntu for milter manager install information and Install for general install information.

Install milter-manager-log-analyzer

milter-manager-log-analyzer is already installed because it is included in milter manager's package. We will configure Web server to browse graphs generated by milter-manager-log-analyzer.

There are two ways to view generated graphs; (1) view them via a Web server at the same host and (2) view them via Munin (and a Web server) at other host. If we already have Munin or exclusive system monitoring server, Munin is a better way. Otherwise, a Web server at the same host is a better way. [4]

We install milter-manager-log-analyzer and then configure an environment to view generated graphs.

First, a way that a Web server in the same host will be explained, then a way that using Munin will be explained.

Way 1: View via a Web server at the same host

Install packages

We use Apache as Web server.

% sudo aptitude -V -D -y install apache2

Configure milter-manager-log-analyzer

milter-manager-log-analyzer generates graphs into milter-manager user's home directory. (/var/lib/milter-manager/) We configure Web server to publish them at http://localhost/milter-manager-log/.

% sudo -u milter-manager mkdir -p ~milter-manager/public_html/log

We put /etc/apache2/conf.d/milter-manager-log with the following content:

Alias /milter-manager-log/ /var/lib/milter-manager/public_html/log/

We need to reload configuration after editing:

% sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 force-reload

Now, we can see graphs at http://localhost/milter-manager-log/.


Way 2: View via Munin at other host

Next way is using Munin at other host.

Install packages

We install milter-manager-munin-plugins package that provides statistics data collected by milter-manager-log-analyzer to Munin:

% sudo aptitude -V -D -y install milter-manager-munin-plugins

NOTE: We need to use databases created by milter-manager-log-analyzer bundled with milter manager 1.5.0 or later to provide statistics data to Munin. If we have databases that are created by older milter-manager-log-analyzer, we need to remove ~milter-manager/public_html/log/. If we remove the directory, milter-manager-log-analyzer re-creates statistics databases 5 minutes later.

Configure munin-node

Munin-node should accept accesses from Munin server. If Munin server is 192.168.1.254, we need to append the following lines to /etc/munin/munin-node.conf:

/etc/munin/munin-node.conf:

allow ^192\.168\.1\.254$

We need to restart munin-node to apply our configuration:

% sudo /usr/sbin/service munin-node restart

Configure Munin server

Works in this section at system monitor server. We assume that system monitor server works on Ubuntu.

First, we install munin and Apache:

monitoring-server% sudo aptitude -V -D -y install munin apache2

We add our mail server that works munin-node to munin's monitor target. We assume that mail server has the following configuration:

Host name

mail.example.com

IP address

192.168.1.2

We need to add the following lines to /etc/munin/munin.conf to add the mail server:

/etc/munin/munin.conf:

[mail.example.com]
    address 192.168.1.2
    use_node_name yes

We will be able to view graphs at http://monitoring-server/munin/ 5 minutes later.

Install milter manager admin

Install packages

To install the following packages, related packages are also installed:

% sudo aptitude -V -D -y install build-essential rdoc libopenssl-ruby apache2-threaded-dev libsqlite3-ruby milter-manager-admin

Install RubyGems

% cd ~/src/
% wget http://rubyforge.org/frs/download.php/60718/rubygems-1.3.5.tgz
% tar xvzf rubygems-1.3.5.tgz
% cd rubygems-1.3.5
% sudo ruby setup.rb --no-format-executable

Instal gems

% sudo gem install rack -v '1.1.0'
% sudo gem install rails -v '2.3.8'
% sudo gem install passenger -v '2.2.15'

Install Passenger

To build Passenger we run the following command:

% (echo 1; echo) | sudo passenger-install-apache2-module

We create passenger.load and passenger.conf under /etc/apache2/mods-available/.

/etc/apache2/mods-available/passenger.load:

LoadModule passenger_module /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.15/ext/apache2/mod_passenger.so

/etc/apache2/mods-available/passenger.conf:

PassengerRoot /usr/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/passenger-2.2.15
PassengerRuby /usr/bin/ruby1.8

RailsBaseURI /milter-manager

We enables the configuration and reload it.

% sudo /usr/sbin/a2enmod passenger
% sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 force-reload

milter manager admin has password authentication but it's better that milter manager admin accepts connections only from trusted hosts. For example, here is an example configuration that accepts connections only from localhost. We can use the configuration by appending it to /etc/apache2/mods-available/passenger.conf.

<Location /milter-manager>
  Allow from 127.0.0.1
  Deny from ALL
</Location>

If we append the configuration, we should not forget to reload configuration:

% sudo /etc/init.d/apache2 force-reload

Configure milter manager admin

milter manager admin is installed to /usr/share/milter-manager/admin/. We run it as milter-manager user authority, and access it at http://localhost/milter-manager/.

% tar cf - -C /usr/share/milter-manager admin | sudo -u milter-manager -H tar xf - -C ~milter-manager
% sudo ln -s ~milter-manager/admin/public /var/www/apache22/data/milter-manager
% cd ~milter-manager/admin
% sudo -u milter-manager -H rake gems:install
% sudo -u milter-manager -H rake RAILS_ENV=production db:migrate

Then we create a file to ~milter-manager/admin/config/initializers/relative_url_root.rb with the following content:

~milter-manager/admin/config/initializers/relative_url_root.rb

ActionController::Base.relative_url_root = "/milter-manager"

Now, we can access to http://localhost/milter-manager/. The first work is registering a user. We will move to milter-manager connection configuration page after register a user. We can confirm where milter-manager accepts control connection:

% sudo -u milter-manager -H /usr/sbin/milter-manager --show-config | grep controller.connection_spec
controller.connection_spec = "unix:/var/run/milter-manager/milter-manager-controller.sock"

We register confirmed value by browser. In the above case, we select "unix" from "Type" at first. "Path" will be appeared. We specify "/var/run/milter-manager/milter-manager-controller.sock" to "Path".

We can confirm registered child milters and their configuration by browser.

Conclusion

We can confirm milter's effect visually by milter-manager-log-analyzer. If we use Postfix as MTA, we can compare with Mailgraph 's graphs to confirm milter's effect. We can use graphs generated by milter-manager-log-analyzer effectively when we are trying out a milter.

We can reduce administration cost by using milter manager admin. Because we can change configurations without editing configuration file.

It's convenient that we can enable and/or disable milters by browser when we try out milters. We can use graphs generated by milter-manager-log-analyzer to find what is the best milter combination for our mail system.



[4] If we want to run Munin at the same host, we need a Web server.