Serge, There is some discussion around a Ubuntu Small Business Server in Ubuntu brainstorm.
I agree with the idea of building a framework to deal with these problems. I think it's the first step into simplifying stuff. Cheers, Leandro. Em Dom, 2008-05-04 às 21:44 +0200, Serge van Ginderachter escreveu: > Hi folks, > > > My 2 cents along the line. > > > I'm picking into this discussion, and spit out some different thought on the > matter, to broaden the subject. > Some of these thought might be off-topic for this thread, but I'm pretty > confident they are very on topic on this list. > > I'm looking at this, as a former 100% MS shop engineer, having worked for > different small businesses, and with the needs to quickly setup an > environment for small workgroups. And with 'small' I mean lots of workgroups > strating from a coouple of users up to somewhere between 15 or 30 users. The > needs are comparable to what one needs for say 75 users, but the budget is > very different. That's where a product like Microsoft Small Business Server > rules most networks. Technically, it sucks, but for basic stuff, it hgets the > job done. > > > ----- "Martin Hess" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > > Serge has pointed out what should probably be a 5th requirement. > > * Easy to use > > No point in having a GUI that is difficult to use. Windows is full of > > examples of such GUIs and gave GUIs a bad name. Additionally, if the > > tool makes it possible to manage a set of machines at the expense of > > managing 1 machine easily then it has failed the ease of use test. > > When I'm making an assessment of what is needed, I distinct two big things: > > 1. some gui for *basic* day to day configuration, the kind of stuff a power > user @customer needs to manage himself > - first en foremost, user management, including central and single > authentication, and ideally linked to other things that are important to a > user: > * email address and mailbox management > * managing access to network resources, and managing the desktop > environment so the user easily connects to them (eg. shared network drives) > - managing updates > - managing ip addresses, dns, dhcp, ... > - managing shared printers > 2. easy setup and management for all hosts belonging to a network > I can't hold myself to compare to the Microsoft "domain" model, where lots > of basic stuff is easily centrally managed > > > Here is the requirements list so far: > > > > 1) Optional - must not be required for Ubuntu Server > > 2) Secure - must not have known security issues, must have good known > > security architecture > > 3) Scalable - must be able to administer sets of machines > > 4) Open Source > > 5) Easy to use - for 1 or more machines > > > > Are there any packages that can meet such requirements? > > Not AFAIK. > > - ebox is a starter, but only manages a local pc, not a network domain > - landscape does some basic stuff, also, but is way to basic imho. and it > doesnt handle central authentication. and it's not free software > read up on > http://www.vanginderachter.be/2008/canonical-landscape-for-ubuntu/ for more > of my thoughts on this; > > Some other thoughts: > > * What we really need is a framework for this. Make a good framework, and GUI > stuff will follow. Making some GUIS to solve all problems without being able > to operate by CLI is not the way to go. > * one of the lead projects to take into acount, imho, is Samba 4, which would > be the Active Directory tool on open SOurce. Samba is becoming more and more > the de facto standard for a lot of stuff, and might be the project to pick to > further standardize on. > * eg. LDAP is a standard, but there is no standard address book scheme, which > all mail clients adhere to. > * there ain't something as a standard Samba implementation > > As Martin noted, it's about ease of use. All of this stuff already exists. > But there just isn't a standardized way to implement it. It's pretty stupid > for having to reinvent the wheel for each small customer. > > I'm looking forward on other people's thoughts on all of this and more. > > > > Serge > > Serge van Ginderachter http://www.vanginderachter.be/ > > Kreeg u een "odt" bestand en kan u deze niet openen? Zie > http://ginsys.be/odf > -- ubuntu-server mailing list [email protected] https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-server More info: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/ServerTeam
