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Every now and then, I like to post out here a list of my current “tech projects.”  These are the things that I’m working on for my own network, things that I may or may not start recommending to or supporting for customers.

Here’s my current list:

• InterNetNews (INN):  I had an installation of INN up and running a short while back, but had to resort to an ugly hack with stunnel in order to make SSL work from a newsreader.  To get a clean build, I’ve decided I’ll just start from scratch with a clean installation.  I’ll be using CentOS 4.1 again as I work on transitioning all my Linux-based servers to a newer Linux distribution, and I’ll be compiling INN from source instead of using a package.
• OpenBSD-based antispam gateway:  I’ve got an antispam gateway running right now (uses Red Hat Linux, Postfix 2.1, SpamAssassin, Postgrey, Razor, DCC, and ClamAV), but I want to try building one using OpenBSD 3.8 (just recently released) and newer builds of Postfix, SpamAssassin, and Amavisd-New.  In particular, I’m interested in the advanced integration of newer versions of Postfix and Amavisd-New.
• XC Connect:  I’ve also mentioned XC Connect before as well, but a previous installation proved to be unstable, and the Apache integration was less than stellar.  In fact, the integration was nonexistent.  I’m going to try a clean build of CentOS 4.1 and XC Connect to see if that will correct the stability and integration problems.

I also need to wrap up the documentation for a few completed items, such as the Cisco VPN integration with Active Directory.  Mac OS X integration with Active Directory is also on the “to do” list, but it will have to wait a little while—I’ll need to find another Mac to “experiment” with instead of using my own PowerBook.

In my copious spare time (fellow parents out there know this is a joke), I’m working on a couple of miscellaneous technical projects:

Internal news server:  I’m having so many problems with NNTP-based access from Unison to Exchange Server 2003 that I’ve decided to setup an internal NNTP server using Linux and INNd.  Linux I’m familiar with; INNd is completely new to me.  Wish me luck.

IMAP proxy:  This would use Perdition to proxy IMAP4S requests to my mail server.  I’ll probably have Perdition handle IMAP4S and then pass IMAP to the back-end server, offloading the SSL work to the proxy.

Squid log analysis:  I’m looking for a way to parse down the logs from my Squid web cache.  Once I find a way to do this, then I can really begin offering Squid and SquidGuard as a content filtering solution to some of my customers.

I’m sure this stuff is probably old hat to some of you out there.  Feel free to contribute some helpful information or URLs. I’ll keep you posted on how things proceed with these and other projects as they develop.