QMQP: That Other Mail Transfer Protocol

Everyone (okay, everyone this is relevant to) knows what SMTP is, the standard for mail transfer. It’s even in the name, Simple Mail Transfer Protocol, which is how mail servers have been sending mail to other mail servers since… a while. Well, fun fact, there’s another protocol that accomplishes the same goal: QMQP, the Quick Mail Queuing Protocol.

Continue reading

Adventures in HAProxy

For those of you that do not know, HAProxy is an amazing piece of kit that can proxy HTTP and arbitrary TCP connections. It’s also so customizable that I’m practically using it as my main entry point to my network, and do indeed refer to it internally as the “border gateway.” With two exceptions (SSH and SMTP, more on that later), everything that comes into the TD-StorageBay network, yes, that includes this site too, passes through that one process. However, HA cannot do everything… and I feel that I’m pushing its limits. Not in the “sheer workload” sense, no, I am way far off from that. I mean in the old Mythbusters style “using things in ways for which they were never intended” manner.

Continue reading