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Exactly. We got one of these for work: Supermicro Flex Atom 330+ Intel 945GC

Draws about ~16W of power with a laptop 2.5" sata harddrive and full ram slots. Pair it with either CentOS or a prepackaged firewall setup like Clarkconnect, M0n0wall, shorewall, or firestarter (IP tables gui for full linux install). You can even setup something like Asterisk NOW! and pair in an IP Tables firewall and OpenVPN support for a very robust, small, silent, and low power solution.

I'm amazed at how quickly I was able to set up Joomla for the first time. Including the server install time, I had it up and running in record time. Here are the steps I used to install it on ClearOS/ClarkConnect in case it is useful for anyone.

I'd vote for http://www.clarkconnect.com/. They've got a nice set of features.

I use a fantastic open source firewall/content filter called ClarkConnect. It's content filter based on DansGuardian works fantastically and it is easy enough for my wife to manage. The community edition is free and open source and uses a web interface.

About 12 months ago, we stumbled across ClarkConnect and have been using it extensively in deployments of 30 users or less. Felt compelled to reply to the OP since you mention archive and backups.

It has a very simple email archiving module (using MySQL backend).

For backup, we've been using the Bacula module - but the CC team just recently begin offering a remote backup service that is much more elegant.

All in all, one of the best OSS-based platforms for small businesses, IMO.

S.

We have implemented the following...

1. Limited TV - Rabbit Ears only or pre-selected DVDs. Yes, we say "no" to many programs. When TV goes digital, oh well - we will not switch.

2. ClarkConnect - proxy, firewall, ad blocker, content filter, anti-virus, spam blocker, for the house. Any connection to my wireless or wired LAN has this protection. The time on the computer is limited and monitored.

3. We have not abdicated authority to our children. They are children, we are the parents. The responsibility for raising them and what they take in is with us, not them.

That all sounds reasonable and mature. More parents should follow most of those guidelines.

However, might you state why you don't want to switch to Digital? It's honest curiosity and not an insult.

It's just a box per TV that costs maybe $30, and from your posts it doesn't sound like you have many TVs. You'll still be on bunny ears and thus limited to CBS/NBS/Fox/CW/etc.

It's one thing if you didn't allow any TV in the first place (I know people that did that) but why go from limited TV to no digital? Unless yo do not believe you will have good reception in your location?

We have implemented the following...
1. Limited TV - Rabbit Ears only or pre-selected DVDs. Yes, we say "no" to many programs. When TV goes digital, oh well - we will not switch.
2. ClarkConnect - proxy, firewall, ad blocker, content filter, anti-virus, spam blocker, for the house. Any connection to my wireless or wired LAN has this protection. The time on the computer is limited and monitored.
3. We have not abdicated authority to our children. They are children, we are the parents. The responsibility for raising them and what they take in is with us, not them.

1) Install a proxy server. You probably have a router of some kind. Perhaps it's a linux box. What you could use to save your bandwidth is use some of your server's HD space to download the common items (like patches from Windows Updates). Since the proxy _can_ be transparrent, there is nothing to configure on the other computers. There are many ways to do this. My suggestion: Squid. In particular, I have used the implementation in ClarkConnect. It's easy to setup, and there is a free version. If you want the pay version, it's extremely inexpensive. http://www.clarkconnect.com/

2) Use nLite. nLite is a utility that makes custom Windows install CDs/DVDs. With the program, you can make an updated CD that installs SP2, all the updates, and even drivers. It even has the option to make the install "unattended", requireing no input by you. This might not be an option since you apparently don't have the Volume License version of of XP. None the less, highly recommended for those who have to re-install often. http://www.nliteos.com/

3) Consider some way to harden the researcher's experiance. Don't want to install Linux on your search stations? Use VMWare Player and the Browser Appliance! By doing this, you effectivly remove any possiblity of Viruses, Spyware or otherwise unwanted downloads. And the best part is... if you don't like/can't use the browser appliance to do what you need... go back to windows. http://www.vmware.com/products/player/

Hope these suggestions help.

--Pathway

We use Clark Connect to proxy the internet at our small shop.
It manages to cache almost all windows updates so you get them fast and save your bandwidth.

Used to use Smoothwall, switched to Clarkconnect several years ago and never looked back. It has a standalone install option that will give you all the server apps you'll likely need. I copied the list of modules from their site to give ya a quick overview. - Jonah Hex
Software Updater cc-apt
Web Site Reports cc-awstats
Backup/Restore System Settings cc-backuprestore
Backup cc-bacula
Bandwidth Manager cc-bandwidth
Caller ID cc-callerid
Console Tool cc-console
Print Server cc-cups
Content Filter cc-dansguardian
Caching DNS Server cc-dnsmasq
Mail Server - POP and IMAP cc-dovecot
Maildrop cc-fetchmail
Gateway Firewall Tools cc-firewall-advanced
Photo Gallery cc-gallery
Web Server cc-httpd
VPN - IPsec cc-ipsec
System Statistics cc-mrtg
Database Server - MySQL cc-mysql
Network Tools cc-nettools
PHP cc-php
Mail Server - SMTP cc-postfix
Mail Server Log Analyzer cc-postfix-report
VPN - PPTPd cc-pptpd
Banner Ad and Pop-up Filter cc-privoxy
FTP Server cc-proftpd
Windows File Server cc-samba
Web Proxy Reports cc-sarg
Intrusion Detection cc-snort
Intrusion Detection Reports cc-snort-report
Antispam Quarantine Tool cc-spamassassin-filter
Web Proxy cc-squid
Webmail cc-squirrelmail
System Status cc-status
Wireless cc-wireless
Webmin Software webmin
System Watcher cc-syswatch

Check out http://www.clarkconnect.com/info/info40.php (the upcoming 4.0 release in coming weeks) regarding Kolab and Outlook access, etc. ClarkConnect is a kick butt distro that should be checked out ... and with the new features pending for 4.0 it will be even more so.

The poster forgot to point you to the ClarkConnect website: http://www.clarkconnect.com/ I've been using ClarkConnect for 3 years and am very satisfied with it.

Check out http://www.clarkconnect.com/ if you are so inclined at all for a pretty darn good and robust solution in terms of a software approach. It does many things including VPN services.

Clarkconnect is what you are looking for, hands down.

I've been using the built-in PPTP server (Poptop) that comes with ClarkConnect Home and it works like a charm. Very easy to setup and configure via web interface. As long as you don't expect too many high bandwidth connections it should be a good solution.

http://www.clarkconnect.com/

Important Note: The Linux kernel does not have support for MPPE encryption, which is what PPTP uses. Most distros will require a kernel patch and recompile to do this, ClarkConnect does all of this for you (I believe Mandrake does as well).

FYI, there's at least two Linux distributions that I know of which cater to the SMB market. Both have easy-to-use web-based interfaces.

Clark Connect - http://www.clarkconnect.com/
Nitix - http://www.nitix.com/

Xandros is hardly being new and innovative here.

http://www.clarkconnect.com/
This one works...

When I see what I can do when sober, I'm thinking I could start hitting the bottle and at least enjoy my errors 8p

"Use the Preview Button! Check those URLs!"
Sorry again

If I was stating from scratch I go wireless. No or very few calbe to take care of and it should be fast enough.

Also I'd recommend getting a preconfigured server.
If you want Linux then there is
*SME - http://contribs.org/
*ClarkConnect - http://www.clarkconnect.com/

Both have a free version. Basically they wrap everything to together with a web interface. Things are bolted on as plugins.

Or if you want to go the Microsoft way there is
*SBS - http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2003/sbs/def ault.mspx

Anyway those are my recommendations.

I like using ClarkConnect. This was the first time I had ever used anything Linux-based and I couldn't have been happier.

I have not had time to read every post, so I apologize if this has been mentioned before. I think putting up a gateway server based on Linux would be very helpful. A product like ClarkConnect (http://www.clarkconnect.com/info/) would serve well in that situation. This is the solution I have used. A quote from their website: "The award-winning Linux-based solution includes firewall and security tools, along with file, print, web, e-mail, proxy, antivirus, antispam, content filtering, VPN servers and more. A detailed feature list is shown in the sidebar below." You could also use something like SmoothWall (http://www.smoothwall.org/) as a gateway as well. By setting up a true firewall you can limit the outbound as well as the inbound ports. This will not eliminate the problem but reduce it to a great extent. Further services like anispam and antiviri will bring the number of issues down considerably. The downside to this is the the computer will have to be somewhat beefy. For 500 users look at 3.4Ghz with 2+GB ram and a few nic cards. I know there is no $ for this project, but that is just not reasonable. Getting the money for this would be VERY easy. Say the cost was $10K this would only be $20 per person (500 users). This could be charged as a one time fee or spread over a monthly payment (barring the school would front the $). You could also start this by charging users a fine for not following documented procedures for using the network. Uncontrolled Virus: $50 fine. Allowing your machine to be a Zombie Server: $150 Etc etc etc.. You would have the money in no time! Good luck with this, it may seem impossible now, but it is really not that hard to fix.

If you have a good, reliable broadband connection from an ISP like Speakeasy, then you can probably set up a small server and handle your own e-mail and hosting. So long as you don't need rocket science, you'll get really good results. You just need to have an ISP that gives you a static IP (ideally) and has an AUP that allows you to run servers.

If you do that, then good options for the hosting OS itself would be either the SME Server (from http://www.contribs.org/), or the new version of Clark Connect that just came out this week (http://www.clarkconnect.com/ - I use the commercial version for my home server). If you're not serving up tons of dynamic content a fairly small PC and relatively low-bandwidth DSL line will give you really good results. I also use ZoneEdit for my DNS and backup MX service - that way with backup MX even if I'm down for a while I won't miss any mail and I'll just get it despooled when I come back up.

Another option potentially would be to use a Mac Mini with the 10-user version of MacOS X Server - that'd give you a nice turnkey server for about $1k. But it won't give you spam controls, which both the Linux distros I mentioned above will do. And day-to-day admin of both SME and ClarkConnect are real easy - in fact, ClarkConnect will take care of automatically providing all your updates when you buy the commercial (and cheap) version. They'll also do e-mail antivirus and give you what ZoneEdit offers as an ASP service - though it's not cheap.

If you want to run your own mail server with very little hassle, check out ClarkConnect. Their 3.0 version just came out and looks really cool. I've used their 2.1 and can verify that it is really simple to run.

Sounds like somebody never heard about ClarkConnect. Their distribution is awsome and requires very little user intervention. Everything is done through a web interface.
I highly recommend it!

I picked up an HP Vectra running at 133 MHz (a K6 PR 166) with 64 MB RAM, 1.7 G HD, and 3com NIC for $10. I installed ClarkConnect on it and an additional NIC and stuck it behind a dresser with the cable modem. That ran great for about 6 months, then I put an 80 GB drive in. I now run it in just about exactly the same config as you describe. I store all my pics and SHN's on it, run Samba and Apache and it is my home share, webserver, etc. I have nery had any issues with it, and power consumption was not a particular problem.

I also like the Vectra's because the case is somewhat slim (3"? about 3U?). They can be had cheap here: http://www.retrobox.com

Single sign-on is one of the major components currenlty missing from Linux.

However, this is being addressed by several companies. One I know of and have experience with is ClarkConnect. Their version 3.0 is supposed to support single sign-on for several if not all of it's components. They have a great product that is pretty much a drop in solution for small business running an NT server.

SUSE Enterprise version 9 appears to be similar. I'm not sure if they have implemented single sign-on, yet. but I'm sure they're working on it. It really shouldn't take them long to implement something similar to their current windows Novell authentication.

I find a ClarkConnect box works well as a drop in solution for a single server small business. Probably isn't as robust as AD though.

I recommend ClarkConnect for a firewall for those who can't figure out iptables. It's got a nice default config and a web gui to tweak it. Plus it has other nifty stuff setup; like snort for intrusion detection and gives some nice stats with mrtg.

1. E-smith (formerly owned by Mitel, and still the basis of their commercial products for both general and telecom servers) is currently in transition to full ownership by the developer community, so there are two sites: e-smith.org and contribs.org, it's new home.
2. Clarkconnect - not nearly as comprehensive as e-smith, but good for the basics: clarkconnect.com

I use it for FTP, WEB, SMB, AppleTalk and print server as well. Heck, they even give you a free dynamic DNS address.

They also have a commercial version that supports IPSEC and PPTP, although you can install that stuff yourself.

Check it out here for the hobbyist version, or here for the commerical version. Enjoy!

-Fordboy0

But its not for someone who could set up a Linux box.

Exactly. Which is why there are Linux distros like e-Smith and ClarkConnect that offer exactly the same sorts of functions to run on most any standard hardware.

This is nice, and interesting, but hardly newwsworthy, right? I mean, is there anything this box does that hasn't been done for years by other appliance servers from Cobalt, Gallantry, and the like? (Not to mention any ordinary machine loaded with one of the distros above...)

I'm really surprised - there are posts here mentioning some truly obscure solutions, but no one's mentioned one of the most popular: Smoothwall is all-CD-based, and is certainly one of the most widely used CD-based firewall distros on the net. The link above is to Smoothwall's corporate, supported version, but a less featureful free version is available. It used to integrate well with the Dan's Guardian content filter, until Dan joined Smoothwall, so they no longer tell you how to mke the two work together, since that would compete with their commercial offering. Still, their pricing seems reasonable, and while not a state-of-the-art firewall, it's no worse than all the other stateful packet filters out there. (Ultimately, that's just not a very good way to provide security, which is why SPFs are no longer permitted by the military.)

If you don't have to have it run from CD, you should probably check out T-Rex (NOT a stateful packet filter, but the free version is lagging a bit), or, if you need a firewall combined with other functions (such as serving files, mail, web, etc.) then check out e-smith or ClarkConnect.