Month: March 2008

The much awaited release of Bongo M3 has arrived. Bongo Appliance Virtual Machines and install ISO’s can be downloaded from the RBuilder Website

If you already have an appliance running all you have to do is run your system updates through the web interface on your appliance

https://applianceIPorName:8003 then restart the appliance

The New release of the Bongo Appliance Virtual Machines and install ISO’s can be downloaded from the RBuilder Website

If you already have an appliance running all you have to do is run your system updates through the web interface on your appliance https://applianceIPorName:8003 then restart the appliance

Well in keeping with Alex\’s resolution to release more this year, a new version 0.2.94 has been released. To make things more clear as to the process that is taken to produce a new release for the appliance I thought I would set out a typical process.

1. New version of Bongo is released
2. A frenzy of packaging takes place
3. Sorting out any requirements that the new release bring with it
4. Building and commiting the release to the rbuilder repository
5. Building a test iso or vm to see if everything still works
6. the main group is then built and promoted to the release repository
7. The different appliance builds are started
8. once all the builds are complete a release is created and published

So as you can see it is quite involved but it is rewarding to see tat just after you release people start downloading the files.

I hope this makes sense

Well I have been so quiet lately that you probably thought I was missing.Well I was in a way but I am now back.

In my absence the rpath appliance development has leaped forward in huge amounts.Thanks to Stu Gott who is far more familiar with Rpath than I am we have
our first development release of Bongo on the RPath platform. This new
release can be found here
http://www.rpath.org/rbuilder/project/bongo/latestRelease

To install from a CD created from an ISO use this link
http://www.rpath.org/rbuilder/downloadImage?fileId=21395

Be careful as this install is a new operating system on the machine you
insert this cd into. Only use this cd if you intend to use this machine
only for a Bongo server. It will remove any data that is currently on
the machine.

For a Xen raw file system image appliance use this link
http://www.rpath.org/rbuilder/downloadImage?fileId=21401

You will need Xen installed to use this disk image

For a VMware player image use this link

http://www.rpath.org/rbuilder/downloadImage?fileId=21402

Root's password is blank for the images so remember to change it if you

are going to use this live on the net.
When the appliance starts up you will see that a URL is shown for the

administration of the appliance. The address should look like this

https://<IP Address of Server>:8003
The default username is admin and the password is password.
Click OK and follow the instructions to change the password and to

complete the other steps. During this setup you will have the

opportunity to set the hostname and domain name this is a good time to

set these as they are critical to the bongo server setup.
As part of the initial appliance login you also get to set the ipaddress

and primary domain that will be hosted by the bongo appliance.
When this is complete you will have a working bongo install.
Please test this as soon as possible so that we can iron out problems

and work on your suggestions to make it better.
	

Well this must be a sign. With the large portion of help that Stu Gott has given, we have been able to get the appliance ready for some serious testing. This means that rpath Marketing have put the Bongo appliance on the appliance spotlight section of the Rpath Rbuilder website.

What this means is that when you connect to the rbuilder website http://www.rpath.com/rbuilder you will see a familiar graphic with the Bongo logo. When this is clicked on it will take you directly to the Bongo project page and give you the option of downloading the appliance.

This also means that when Rpath send out their e-mail newsletter we will be featured on this as well. All this publicity will definitely increase Bongo’s visibility within the Rpath community.

I can only thank the Bongo team and specifically Stu for getting us this far.

How long it takes to display on their website I do not know as these things take time. I hope that we gain many more Bongoers from this extra exposure we have been given.

Thanks guys

I have recently been preparing to migrate my accounts running on other mail systems to Bongo as soon as we have Bongo 1.

The movement of mail from any system to Bongo was my biggest worry as my account alone had 3700+ emails in 350+ folders.

I decided after a lengthy web search to use IMAP to migrate the mail.

I will detail the steps I used here so others can expand and use them.

I wanted something I could set-up and run from a script but also it should be able to migrate accounts with multiple folders. After searching myself silly on the net I found imapsync (http://www.linux-france.org/prj/imapsync/dist/)

It was an easy to use solution.

You need to make sure that perl module IMAPClient.pm is installed as it is needed

I used the following command to synchronise just my account

imapsync –host1 imap.domian.com –user1 FirstUser –passfile1 /etc/secret1 –host2 imap.destdomain.com –user2 max –passfile2 /etc/secret2 –noauthmd5

This took about 40minutes on my work link and about 1.5 hours on my poor ADSL link at home.

imapsync moved all my mail and created all the folders. The nice thing is that you could set this up before and the regularly sync the accounts until you are ready to move your domain to the new server.

The imapsync documentation is a bit vague but if you run ./imapsync from the directory that you extracted the files to it will give you explanations that are easier to understand. imapsync has more features than what I used and I am sure that when we start migrating in anger we will use more of them.

I hope this is informative

Ok.. So I have not blogged for some time and there is a valid reason for this, actually there are two reasons. The first is that I am a new dad and this comes with quite a few challenges and tasks which has taken me away from doing my Bongo stuff.

The second is that I have not had anything to report on. I have been trying to get Bongo to compile on the rpath distribution and this has been a challenge not only for me but for Alex and the other developers. Rpath has some quirks that make it a challenge to get Bongo working.

I have however been able to get it running and working so now I am working on finishing the package and then uploading it.\\n\\nOnce that is done I need to prepare a group recipe and create the VM’s and install CD’s we want.

I will try to get these things done as soon as possible so that we can be ready for M3.

So that is the update

Well I have just returned from a long drive to Bristol (2h30 one way).

I wrote my Prince 2 foundation exam today and passed.

I was supposed to write it last week thursday but my daughter decided to be born 3 weeks early. (thanks Andy for the blog) Why am I telling you this and what has this to do with bongo? I will now be able to focus on the VM situation again and perhaps get this thing sorted out once and for all. I have put the rpath install on hold for a while until we get to a stable version of Bongo and when we have sorted out all the install issues that exist at the moment.

I will be focusing my energies(that i have left) on a Fedora Core vm and an debian etch vm, if you want me to setup something else please let me know and I will give it a whirl.