Richard Valk maintains a set of step-by-step instructions for making your Mac into a full-blown web, mail and more server.

Today he has released a walk-through for adding dspam , an open-source spam and content filtering system to the mix.

So now, following his guide, you will not only end up with:

a Mac which you can use to host your and your friends web sites by using an Apache2-based web server which uses PHP 5 and can talk with a MySQL 5 database. This means you can install most PHP/MySQL based applications like for instance blogs or forums like WordPress and phpbb. You are also able to provide mail services for them with unlimited mailboxes, domains and web-based email services using Roundcube.

But it will be spam-free as well (well, 99.5-99.95% spam-free is all dspam actually claims).

Nice. email, isp, mail server, web server, roll your own, apache, PHP/MySQL, dspam, roll your own ISP

Late last year, I posted about Richard Valk’s “ISP in a box” project, which offered instructions for setting up a mail, web and more server on a Mac mini (or any Mac) at home.

Richard has now released “ISP in a box” 2.0, a series of blog posts with instructions and links to binaries that allow you to be your own ISP:

If you follow these documented steps you’ll end up with a Mac which you can use to host your and your friends’ websites by using an Apache2-based webserver which uses PHP 5 and can talk to a MySQL 5 database. This means you can install most PHP/MySQL based applications like for instance blogs or forums like WordPress and phpbb. You are also able to provide mail services for them with unlimited mailboxes, domains and web-based email services using Roundcube.

The end result is a system running Apache 2.2.3, MySQL 5.0.24, PHP 5.1.4, Postfix 2.3.2, Courier-IMAP 4.1.1, Courier-Auth 0.58, Cyrus-Sasl 2.1.18, Postfix admin 2.1.0 and Roundcube webmail 0.1 beta2.

Sounds like your kind of thing? Check it out .email in general, web hosting, php, dot it yourself, DIY, mail server, MySQL, Postfix, roundcube

Postfix Enabler is a graphic front-end to built-in services in Mac OS X that helps you to set up your computer to be its own mail server, that is to run its own SMTP, POP3 and IMAP services, with or without SSL support.

It also provides SSL test certs so that you can test the SSL connection. Going the other way, it offers an option to turn on SMTP-AUTH on the server, so that you can authorise remote users who need to send mail through it.

Plus, mobile users can use it to set up a roving SMTP server so that they can send mail wherever they are, whenever they want, so long as they have an Internet connection.

Version 1.2 has just been released which packages the app as a universal binary.

PostFix Enabler costs USD 9.99 and is available from the developer’s website .mail server, postfix, SMTP, IMAP, ssl, pop, universal binary

A few weeks ago, I blogged about Richard Valk’s “ISP in a box, using a Mac mini”, which sets out clearly and in some detail how to set up a mail server on your Mac.

He emails to say that the documentation is now complete. Check it out.

Writing up how to use IMAP for your email over SSL is next on his agenda.