On Tue, 3 Apr 2007 17:34:24 +0100 "Joel Merrick" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> Hello list!! Greetings, Joel. > With the advent of Vista and all the bells and whistles that it > provides, one can't help think that a lot of this functionality is > grossly overkill for a small business environment. I've not actually > checked how SBS2003 will develop, but I'm sure that it will continue > to tow the glitzier line > Myself and a friend are looking to create a linux based system that > contains some of the details what are listed below, but presented in a > fashion that is easy for the end user to understand (even easier than > webmin!). You see, to some end user I've shown webmin to, they've > completely understood the concept, but still lacked some of the > technical capability to properly use it and configure their servers as > needed. The great thing about linux servers is that their uptimes are phenomenal. Whereas windoze tends to get bogged up if too much is going on for too long ,the same problems rarely affect me. I once did some freelance work for somebody who put a small gateway/router/email server in their office about 2.5 years ago now, and it was literally up all that time, for 800 days or so. Finally something went wrong, but I think you'll agree, that's pretty impressive. > Anyway, here is some of the list that we are thinking about > implementing: I have a few suggestions > * Caching DNS Server > * DHCP Server I am really glad I finally got off my ass and set up the ISC dhcpcd server and BIND. It's trickier than dnsmasq or other simple solutions but allows you to serve your dns information locally to both the inside and the outside (if you've a static ip, which I will continue to assume is true) > * Iptables firewall / NAT' Unix is a virtual necessity for security ; ) This isn't difficult -- high security can be pretty easily achieved with a Stateful firewall. > * Content filtering > * Local intranet CMS - LAMP-based > * Shared wiki and / or blogs Huh? > * Groupware > * Email server This is the trickiest network service I've set up yet, but the Postfix/Courier solution seems good. Email doesn't take up much space and so I highly recommend frequent backups and maybe a mirror or something spread over two disks for email. > * Shared calendars > * Spam scanning with mgmnt I use spamassassin myself, and it seems to do a decent job. It supports bayesian learing and daily filter updates with spamassassin-rulesdujour. I don't see why you couldn't run a few seperate filters. > * LDAP directory server argh, that one scares me ; ) > * A/V - clamd Poor windows users... I almost feel bad for them and their virus problems. > * Database server - Mysql For sure, and a webserver too ! > * Remote mounted home directories I have always wanted to get to set up an office environment with unified login access and whatnot. Sounds fun. > * Printer sharing for Lin / Win clients CUPS!!! Unbeknownst to most of the internet, windows supports IPP really well. It just fails to support anything but the most complicated and convoluted server addresses. I got it working with an out of the box XP configuration at least, and didn't need to do anything special. CUPs config on the server side is pretty easy, and once it's configured, you needn't do anything on the server side to keep sharing the printers to the clients. My linux clients even browse the shares and find the shared printers automatically, so one of the most beautiful things about cups is that once the printers installed, config is pretty much done. > * Terminal Services? I don't really know what this means. I know it's a windows thing. I know ssh is a great protocol and I've had it open to the net for a long time and have never had a breakin (strong passwords == good). > I realise that these are a lot of services, so let's boil them down to > a few essential services > > * File sharing > * Print sharing > * Email > * 'Clean' Internet access to other LAN machines. Those are the basic services I offer on my home server, and am happy to say that the resources you need are pretty limited. Of all the services, file sharing is the only one which is likely to reach hardware bottlenecks, and those can be overcome with a combination of RAID and network bonding. > > What I'd be interested in knowing, is people's experience of such > small business environments. How much certain aspects are used... such > as how much groupware is used etc.. > I'm sure that these are pretty open ended questions with even more > open ended answers, but any input would be most welcome The only other thing I would say is to set up both redundant storage mechanisms and strong backup policies for your system. Ideally, you'd have two seperate computers clustered together in case somebody pours a cup of coffee on a server or something. Realistically, I think strong backup policies and redundant storage (RAID-5 or a raid mirror) should avoid any unthinkable disasters. At one point, that computer _is_ going to go down, and the most likely and most important failure point is the hard disk. > Thanks! > Joel and Mark sorry for the rambling, but I find this particular topic intersting. I hope this stuff helps a bit. -- [email protected] mailing list
