Kyle D. Skrinak

I discovered through the silent scream of no updates from my drupal installation that drupal’s mail wasn’t working. I fired up google and found this excellent post that gets you nearly there. What’s missing, of course, is the enabling binary called “sendmail.”

Here’s how to enable a GoDaddy CentOS Virtual Server’s sendmail so that Drupal can send email:

• Confirm whether senmail is working
  • service --status-all | grep sendmail
• Install sendmail and sendmail-cf
  • yum install 'sendmail sendmail-cf'
• Edit with your favorite editor (vim, no doubt):
  • vim /etc/mail/sendmail.mc
  • Search for ‘SMART_HOST’ and insert the line below just below it. Comment it for clarity’s sake.
  • define(`SMART_HOST',`k2smtpout.secureserver.net')dnl
  • Save and close file.
• Run this command:
  • m4 /etc/mail/sendmail.mc > /etc/mail/sendmail.cf
• Finally, start or restart your sendmail service:
  • service start sendmail

That did it for me.

You be the judge whether this is a “best practice” but here’s my MAMP update process:

1. Do a manual phpmyadmin backup of all sql dbs first.
2. Stop the MAMP servers.
3. Quit MAMP (and/or MAMP PRO)
4. Rename the folder: /Applications/MAMP e.g. to /Applications/MAMP_old
5. Copy the new MAMP folder to your Applications folder.
6. Copy the databases and other files that you want to keep to the new MAMP folder from the old one. Databases are located under /Applications/MAMP/db but there are possibly also other files that you want to keep like the folder /Applications/MAMP/htdocs or configuration files within /Applications/MAMP/conf.
7. Run kdiff3 on the MAMP/conf folders to bring over the customizations
   • Unless you’re an exquiste documenter of everything you do, it’s good to run a diff on the two files.
     • sites apache vhost config file
     • php.ini updates (but check, new libraries are added and versions modified)
8. Copy the uploadprogress.so file, rather than recompile:
   • cp -v /Applications/MAMP/bin/php5/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20060613/uploadprogress.so -> /Applications/MAMP-1-8-4/bin/php5/lib/php/extensions/no-debug-non-zts-20060613/uploadprogress.so
9. Start new MAMP (or MAMP PRO).

The latest HTML Tidy has much goodness that the version that ships with Snow Leopard is missing. You’ll need to compile it to update your binary. It’s simple after you’ve done it once and easy to forget, so I’m documenting it this time.

1. Test version
   1. Load Terminal
   2. tidy –version
      1. “HTML Tidy for Mac OS X released on 31 October 2006 – Apple Inc. build 15.3″
      2. No good, should say at least “HTML Tidy for Mac OS X released on 25 March 2009″
2. Download the source code:
   1. cd to a directory you can track for cleanupcvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@tidy.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/tidy co -P tidy
   2. cvs -d:pserver:anonymous@tidy.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/tidy login
      • Hit the enter key for password, i.e., no password
   3. cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous@tidy.cvs.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/tidy co -P tidy
      • This will create a directory, “tidy” in your current directory
3. Compile
   1. cd into the tidy directory
   2. /bin/sh build/gnuauto/setup.sh
   3. sudo ./configure –prefix=/usr
   4. sudo make
   5. sudo make install
      • If you error, may the Google search engine be your best friend.
4. Test version
   1. tidy –version
      • HTML Tidy for Mac OS X released on 25 March 2009
5. Delete the “tidy” directory
   1. Wow that was easy.

I’m slow to upgrade my OS as I prefer stability to running the latest version of code. As of 2 days ago, however, I have taken the leap to Snow Leopard (now at 10.6.2) and I am very pleased with stability and the reduced footprint of the OS. Also among my upgrade concerns is my MacPorts installation. I have a few ports that I need to have available. This time, my MacPorts migration was the smoothest yet, too. After googling, I first found this blog post about the author’s upgrade, but after reading the blog’s comments found a more reliable (not necessarily more simple  but well worth the added time) way to make the upgrade:

1. Reboot and boot using the Snow Leopard DVD.
2. Before running Snow Leopard, perform a “Disk Repair” in disk utility.
3. Run the Snow Leopard upgrade process. Both of mine were at least 45 minutes; I didn’t stick around for the upgrade.
4. After completing the Snow Leopard installation install the XCode from the Snow Leopard DVD. (This step is important)
5. Run Apple’s Software Update (have broadband ready or expect to wait for the download)
6. Download the latest MacPorts for Snow Leopard disk image.
7. Then follow the steps at the MacPorts migration page.
   1. port installed > myports.txt
   2. sudo port -f uninstall installed
   3. sudo port clean –work –archive all

This process does take up some time, but I reloaded my entire MacPorts without a hiccup, which was nice. Also nice is that my 10.5 MacPorts list contains a number of ports I no longer needed, so the cleanup was overdue. I saw none of the dependency or other issues that can happen with MacPorts.