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A "MAS 6000" is a Mitel Networks 6000 Managed Applications Server, which is a prepackaged Red Hat Linux server, usually in a 1U rackmount unit. "The 6000 MAS is simple to use and requires little or no IT expertise to install and manage," says the vendor. It provides a "firewall", E-mail, and other standard server functions. It's a "network appliance". The installation instructions actually say to put it in a closet and disconnect the keyboard. It's supposed to be secure out of the box.

There is at least one known FTP buffer overflow vulnerability for this system, but FTP must be enabled for it to work. Similarly, there's an SSH vulnerability, but SSH must be enabled for it to work.

A "MAS 6000" is a Mitel Networks 6000 Managed Applications Server, which is a prepackaged Red Hat Linux server, usually in a 1U rackmount unit. "The 6000 MAS is simple to use and requires little or no IT expertise to install and manage," says the vendor. It provides a "firewall", E-mail, and other standard server functions. It's a "network appliance". The installation instructions actually say to put it in a closet and disconnect the keyboard. It's supposed to be secure out of the box.

There is at least one known FTP buffer overflow vulnerability for this system, but FTP must be enabled for it to work. Similarly, there's an SSH vulnerability, but SSH must be enabled for it to work.

Might have a look at Mitel (formerly e-smith) SME Server. I've been using it for my file server at home, email, and to host a few domains for a couple of years now. Good stuff, pretty secure, can also be your router/gateway.

Here's another vote for Mitel SME Server. Download an iso from here and off you go. *Really* simple web interface, DHCP, NAT gateway, Email server, DNS, print server, samba server, web server, appletalk server, VPN server... etc all ready to go. Easy backups, easy administration. I'd recommend it for any SOHO all-in-one server job for non-experts. I have no connection with e-smith (or Mitel) other than having fortuitously picked it for an office I didn't want to have to spend time administrating. They can do it all themselves and they've never had a moment's problem with it.

Might have a look at Mitel (formerly e-smith) SME Server. I've been using it for my file server at home, email, and to host a few domains for a couple of years now. Good stuff, pretty secure, can also be your router/gateway. One ther I haven't looked at, but I intend to check out soon, is BlueQuartz. Not really a distro, but the results of Sun open-sourcing the Sobalt RaQ550 network appliance. There's a binary install kit for a basic Redhat/Fedora setup, source, and many howto's out there...

I'm afraid that this is going to be the course of all good free/open source software projects. I work in an envioronment that uses Free software for our servers because the schools can't afford others. We've been using Mitel's SME Server (E-Smith for you old-schoolers) for quite a while. Recently Mitel is dropping support for this. This announcement came right after Redhat's shakeup a while back. Free/swan is an excellent tool that we've been using to connect schools and homes. Anyway, I'm afraid that education will suffer, which in turn will lead to everyone's suffering.

Sorry, forgot to include the links to e-smith:

e-smith.org The original Mitel developer site, which is moving to: contribs.org the community development site, and a repository for extensions and modifications for the server, as well as docs, howtos, and the new home for the user discussion forums.

Things are a bit rough at contribs.org right now, but they only found out Mitel was looking to hand the distro over a few weeks ago, so things are still (messily) in transition. It should be getting much smoother over the next few weeks...

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 completely agree with you... two of my favorite specialized distributions are:

E-Smith - Small business server/gateway. Allows VERY easy setup of samba shares and a few other things through a web based control panel.

and

IPCop - Firewall distro that is only 20MB!

Don't charge anything for it, not even a tip jar. Advertise the service and encourage them to stay longer and buy more coffee and invite friends to switch from StarBucks to your shop.

Have them give you their MAC address and add them to the access list. Block those who abuse. Of course publish the rules first and give them the rules when they give you the MAC.

e-smith is a very easy to setup/use/admin firewall/gateway/router/etc that will run on little hardware and do all you want (plus more) for free. You could even add a printer to the e-smith box to really attract the business users. Put a tip jar next to the printer.

What gives? there are a lot of slants in this survey. Look at #10 for the business side:

10. Rank the importance of server operating attributes to your organization. (1 indicates a preference for low product cost and more administive and end-user time. 5 indicates a high up-front product cost but less user effort)

What gives? I already use mutiple servers that are FREE: E-Smith AND Easy to set up. It takes, honestly, 15 minutes to set up (Includes formatting drives), and 15 minutes to install filters if it will be used as a web proxy. Then I leave it set for 6 to 8 months. It doesn;t get any freer withless effort.

Yes, you can have it both ways.

Congratulations to all those who made Smoothwall's latest release possible.

Based on personal experience, I highly recommend that anyone planning to use, donate to or purchase support for the Smoothwall product first research the company and primary members of the development team, such as founder Richard Morrell, before making a committment. Of course, that's a good idea under any circumstances, with any software product. :)

Personally, I use the Mitel SME Server distribution (formerly e-smith) for my needs, but the feature set is somewhat different and it may not be a good fit for you. The community of users supporting users, however, is a great assett to the SME server project.

I don't want to preach; but, to me, the trust issue (as mentioned earlier) is the key to raising children. Trust them and let them know you trust them. But, children will screw up and loose that trust. Let them know that the trust is gone and let them know what it will take to get that trust back. And LET THEM EARN THE TRUST BACK. I have seen many parents that "give up" when a child becomes untrustworthy. When that happens, the child doesn't have anything to strive for in his/her parental relationship. Is this "Trust See-Saw" easy to handle? No, of course not.

Let me get back to the topic: Start young with teaching children what is appropriate and inappropriate. (For the parents with teens, it may not be too late to start, but it will be tough if you have to convince you child that certain clothes he/she has been wearing for two years are now inappropriate.) Is it easy to discuss this with children? It shouldn;t be hard.

Let me use a personal example: My son, at the time was age 9, went to spend the night at a friends house. While there they watched an austin powers movie. This came out in conversation a couple of days later. My wife and I were horrified that this happened, but we didn;t yell and hoot and holler. We asked about the movie and he told us about it (We had seen this movie a couple of years before at a friends house (Strange how things work out)) During this conversation we talked about attitudes toward women and sexuality. And we talked about whe we found certain things objectionable. But it wasn't a lecture. we were having a conversation and he understood why it was inapproriate when we had finished.

You may say, "Bah, kids can't handle that kind of talk." Well, you'd be suprised. It you are honest and open with your children in ALL areas, they will learn and respond in this type of conversational enviornment. A few months ago, My son was at an overnight with a few friends and a movie was going to be shown. He asked what it was rated and got a couple of friends to go into another room and play cards (or a board game, I can;t remember. He's in bed now, or I would ask him). But I think that takes some maturity. Maturity that comes from learning how to think along the lines of what is appropriate and what is not.

How does one get to a point where we can trust the kids to make good choices? As parents we should make good choices ourselves and explain these to the kids. Dinner is a great time for these discussions. And whenver something comes up, don;t hide it from the kids. Let them in one what is happeneing. Another example: A student from where I teach was kicked out of his house. We let him stay with use for a bit while things got straightened out. My children were, of course very curious about what was going on, and we told them about the neglect, abuse, and everything going on. My children were very welcoming and treated this person as a brother fot the time he was here. Since then, my son has volunteered his time at some charities in the area for other "transients."

Again, bak to the topic: In the manner of the internet, as with all areas, be open and honest. When you are deleting spam from your email, there is a great learning experience for the kids. "Look at this junk. Enlarge your breasts..." and get into a discussion about the previlence of sexual attitudes in society. It works, kids listen, and they will understand. Yesterday, When I was playing my father-in-law on some online chess and my kids were helping out, I got an offer across AIM (Through trillian) to check out some girls webcam. (Yea right.) Well what a great learning experience about the inappropriateness of the internet. We even went to the link, and sure enough, it was filtered out.
which leads me to...
Don;t let children surf without proper filtering. All of our computers run through an E-Smith server (modified red-hat small office gateway and server) which runs an excellent free SquidGuard filter. This doesn't mean that you don;t t

We were put on some DNS blacklists just because the IP addresses were assigned by DHCP. Didn't matter that it was a business acount, with static IPs ("reserved DHCP"), running secure server software. Simply the fact that we were on a cable modem in the ISP's DHCP range got us on a couple blacklists. As far as I know, they're still on at least one of those.

That's the problem with server blacklists. Unless you manually verify each one, you're going to get collateral damage where innocent servers are blocked. Nobody seems to care about this until they're the innocent server.

Remember that we don't need to totally stop the transmission of all spam emails for spam to become ineffective. If everyone deleted every spam they got, spam would no longer generate any revenue. Actually, you'd only have to get rid of every spam going to everyone who actually buys the spamvertised goods. Once nobody is buying anything, the tiny cost of sending email (electricity, ISP, labor, etc.) will outweigh the advantages. The spammers who understand simple math will realize they're losing money overall by spamming, and will choose to stop.

So go install a good, easy to use spam filter for someone you think might actually buy something spamvertised. Once we stop all their spam, all spam will stop.

OLD??? I am a total Linux Newbie and my first project was to install an e-smith server at home as a gateway server. It is still under active development by Mitel's as it is used for their Mitel Networks 6000 Managed Application Server .

I use it to:

• Act as a Domain COntroller for my home network (Windows PC's)
• Host web application I am testing. Comes with PHP, MySQL, APACHE, other stuff
• Web filtering (ala DansGuardian)
• IMAP Mail available for each local user account
• External Access to IMAP with IMP from HORDE that comes preinstalled
• Web administration panel

  • Absolutely awesome product that I really recommend. It has worked for me better than I imagined.

Try E-Smith, or the Mitel Server, both by Mitel. One box shopping.

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...)

That is the developers' release pages. They expect that you already know. Try Mitel Networks for the marketized version of everything.

I'm not sure what this phrase means. "Something for the masses" is usually a euphamism for "mass produced item sold at walmart stores that takes no intelligence to use."

Now computers and extra equipment usally are not for the masses if they requirme more thought than pointing and clicking. When you start mentioning things like (from the article:) Mirra comprises three pieces: hardware, software, and service, you start start losing the masses. If I were to say this to my grandmother, mother, sister, brother, father, etc they would all think I was talking about some slothing line and laundry service.

For those of use that are not part of the masses and know how to install an operating system, There are may great linux distros that do everything that is offered in the article for much cheaper. Look at E-Smith for a great solution for home/office/small business, or even school districts. It's free for the developer release and it even runs on those old Pentium 233 machines that are laying around.

/plug

A lot of people here are suggesting using LDAP anyway, despite your statement that you don't have hte time or desire to learn al lthe arcana required to implement it.

In that case, then, I have a solution for you - the E-smith Linux distro, which will build you a dang useful server, including LDAP, within about 5 minutes of completing one of the easiest Linux installs you've ever encountered.

I don't bother with crap like configuring LDAP, Samba, firewalls, or mail servers anymore - E-smith has made it automatic and left me to add real value where it can do some good. Download an ISO and go to town - you'll be glad you gave it a try, and you'll have a complete working, properly configured LDAP server in mere minutes.

A lot of people here are suggesting using LDAP anyway, despite your statement that you don't have hte time or desire to learn al lthe arcana required to implement it.

In that case, then, I have a solution for you - the E-smith Linux distro, which will build you a dang useful server, including LDAP, within about 5 minutes of completing one of the easiest Linux installs you've ever encountered.

I don't bother with crap like configuring LDAP, Samba, firewalls, or mail servers anymore - E-smith has made it automatic and left me to add real value where it can do some good. Download an ISO and go to town - you'll be glad you gave it a try, and you'll have a complete working, properly configured LDAP server in mere minutes.

Currently version 6 is in beta, probably to be released real-soon-now, and it includes the dovecot IMAP server. This is proving to be a champ of an IMAP server, particularly when integrated with the e-smith automation. It runs great on even low-end hardware, is proving robust yet easy to manage; a real winner.

My suggestion is to download a copy and take a look. Also check out the add-ons that take advantage of the e-smith templating & web management systems. There's even a marvelous set of Lazy Administrators command line tools for making bulk changes to accounts and settings. For a nearly turn-key solution it is quite impressive.

For those looking for support Mitel has a commercial version of e-smith called the Mitel Networks 6000 Managed Application Server which offers more groupware features and other nice things.

I've used E-smith at home for three years now. It's all web-based configuration once the initial installation is done. It provides IMAP (I think Courier, but I could be wrong), webmail (IMP-Horde), POP3, SMTP. VERY easy to setup - I was by no means experienced with Linux or email servers when I first set it up, and it's only gotten better with maturity. Plus, for a few bucks you can order support services which include secondary MX services. The latest version is based off of RedHat 7.x I think.

I have no relation to the folks at e-smith, I'm just a happy user.

Code generation is definitely something programmers of large/complex projects should look into. There's a lot of different forms of it, and I'd be surprised if people haven't used on form or another already.


One good example of how this can be applied in familiar terms is the excellent e-smith Linux server distro. E-smith uses a set of non-trivial Perl templates to generate all the server's configuration files, and another set of templates, based on FormMagick, for its server manager interface.

While it takes a bit to get fully up to speed on the templating system, (the downside to all code generation systems, but something that in this case is only required for programmers/developers, never users), it ensures that the correct thing always happens at the correct time. Once you realize that permanent changes must be made to the templates, and never the regular config files, as most admins are used to, it's easy.

The simplicity and robustness that this templating/code generation setup brings to the resulting system is why e-smith is the most solid and easy-to-use Linux *server* distro I've run across.

(Want a perfectly functioning firewall, mail server and Samba server (with Mac support) in minutes, without even having to know there's such a thing as *.conf files? E-smith is for you...)

There are other great examples of code generation in practice, but this is one that more people should be aware of...

With 160GB HD's available for US$100 the space isn't much of an issue. Also Unison is pretty clever about how it updates the files (rsync) so bandwidth use is reasonable enough even for home use.

FWIW For a server I use the free e-smith Red Hat-based distribution which is trivially managed from a web browser. It has a custom Unison rpm available for really simple synchronization setup.

The second suggestion is my other solution; an external drive. A cheapie USB2/Firewire case can be picked up for US$40 and any IDE drive popped into it. Again instant reasonably high-speed storage. One can even compress the files to it for more savings, use PGPdisk, encrypted NTFS, etc.

However if you're wedded to using CR/Rs or CD/RWs check out the free Burn to the Brim. While not specifically a backup application (no compression) it does pack the files best for CDs, can sort on many criteria including mp3 tags, and can generate ISO images.

Finally if you really do want a full backup strategy then I suggest Dantz's Restrospect package. Under US$100, very easy to use, cross-platform, long track record and does all that you'd want of it. Good product at a good price with good support.

My biggest problem with Novell is that to get any of the great benefits that Netware provides, I have to buy a slew of stuff -- like ZenWorks and BorderWare. To get a complete network OS, I have to either shell out, or make some kludges to get things to work together, using olde batch files, for example.

In all, this means it's better to start of with something that only claims to be the hub of an NOS and build other software on to it -- like SME Server -- and its at no cost.

In buying Ximian, I hope Novell will be able to offer SMEs a workable, useful, solution that gives everyting a NOS should be capable of for the same price (rather than just the core) so desktop management (over Windows, Linux and Mac), e-mail, and firewalling would all come together at a Microsoft-beating price.

When I started on linux I had a similar problem. While all the tools are there thay are hard to find. What they allow though is multiple interfaces.

If you want an EASY server for none technical people DON'T give them Linux. Give them an application server powered by linux.

The best example I know of is E-Smith which does everthing for you. The only problem we've had is that it doesn't handle 2,000 users very well (It was only designed for
If you want a general server then use webmin over ssl. It lets you do everything.

Once you've set these up the users never even logs onto the terminal they just use the web interface.

As others have said, the hardware you have in mind is *way* overkill. Any old Pentium II would be fine. In fact a Pentium I would probably be fine too. Just get good quality hardware that won't let you down (particularly the power supply), a good backup system like a tape drive, and a good UPS system to protect it all.

I wouldn't buy a Wal-Mart Linux machine for this reason -- the hardware is not commercial grade, designed to run 24/7 for years without crapping out. Reliability is key. You might look into a used/refurbished server from IBM or Dell. Dell has had some incredibly cheap deals on new servers lately. I'd probably go for one of those, as cheap as possible, but splurge on backup and UPS. RAID might be a good idea too. Still -- you're probably talking about less than a grand.

Someone mentioned Sun -- that would be fine, but chances are you're already more familiar with Linux. And Sun parts and accessories are more expensive, new or used, even if the boxes aren't.

Speaking of reliability, have you considered software? Of course any Linux distribution would do, but you're going to have to do a lot of configuring, plugging security holes, etc. So why not start with a distribution that's tailor-made for your needs, set up for exactly the things you want to do, and is proven reliable? Why not use something where someone else has already figured out and fixed all the gotchas?

Try SME Server. It's a Redhat-based system designed exactly for what you want to do -- a router, firewall, mail server, and web server with virtual hosting capability. It's already configured for all this. All you have to do is load it. Administration is via web interface. There's plenty of documentation on the e-smith site, and good community support too.

The closest thing to SME Server is a Cobalt Qube/RaQ. However, SME Server can be loaded on any Pentium class machine. It's also a full Redhat system with command line access and all the Redhat tools. So you can add whatever else you might need later, just like any other Redhat box.

Finally, a Qube Professional with a tape backup and UPS might be a fun toy, but a conventional Intel box with SME server is a more capable, flexible, and cheaper solution.

As others have said, the hardware you have in mind is *way* overkill. Any old Pentium II would be fine. In fact a Pentium I would probably be fine too. Just get good quality hardware that won't let you down (particularly the power supply), a good backup system like a tape drive, and a good UPS system to protect it all.

I wouldn't buy a Wal-Mart Linux machine for this reason -- the hardware is not commercial grade, designed to run 24/7 for years without crapping out. Reliability is key. You might look into a used/refurbished server from IBM or Dell. Dell has had some incredibly cheap deals on new servers lately. I'd probably go for one of those, as cheap as possible, but splurge on backup and UPS. RAID might be a good idea too. Still -- you're probably talking about less than a grand.

Someone mentioned Sun -- that would be fine, but chances are you're already more familiar with Linux. And Sun parts and accessories are more expensive, new or used, even if the boxes aren't.

Speaking of reliability, have you considered software? Of course any Linux distribution would do, but you're going to have to do a lot of configuring, plugging security holes, etc. So why not start with a distribution that's tailor-made for your needs, set up for exactly the things you want to do, and is proven reliable? Why not use something where someone else has already figured out and fixed all the gotchas?

Try SME Server. It's a Redhat-based system designed exactly for what you want to do -- a router, firewall, mail server, and web server with virtual hosting capability. It's already configured for all this. All you have to do is load it. Administration is via web interface. There's plenty of documentation on the e-smith site, and good community support too.

The closest thing to SME Server is a Cobalt Qube/RaQ. However, SME Server can be loaded on any Pentium class machine. It's also a full Redhat system with command line access and all the Redhat tools. So you can add whatever else you might need later, just like any other Redhat box.

Finally, a Qube Professional with a tape backup and UPS might be a fun toy, but a conventional Intel box with SME server is a more capable, flexible, and cheaper solution.

My home server is a Mini-ITX box that I bought from iDot Computers - it's a C3-533 processor in a case using an external PSU (feeding direct DC into the case and avoiding one fan that way). The lower-speed C3 is fanless, and I put a 30GB laptop 2.5" HD in it to lower heat even further, letting me disconnect the internal fan as well. The server's got 512MB of RAM, and it runs e-Smith server (based loosely on RedHat) with a plug-in package for Spamassassin added in.

I use it for file storage, web and mail services, and MP3 serving - it has a built-in 10/100 Ethernet connection and I have a cheap Linksys 10/100 switch. I support 4 client computers in the house typically - both Mac and Windows with no problem, and the web server doesn't have any trouble keeping up with a light load over my 1.5/768 DSL connection.

The box itself is utterly silent - there are occasional noises from the HDD, but it's a lot quieter than the typical desktop-class drive is. I keep it in a spare bedroom today, but when we move in a couple of months I have a small rack area planned in the basement of the new house and I'll be moving it downstairs at that point.

Consider hosting it yourself. It's pretty easy with a Consider hosting it yourself. It's pretty easy with a Linux
distribution like e-Smith (now SME
Server), and can be done on a broadband connection (depending on your
TOS) without a static IP if you use an outfit like No-ip. You could also pony up
the money for a business-class line and have even less concerns with
having your service cut off. It's more expensive (I pay
$250/month for 1Mb/s SDSL, but the benefits are certainly there.

Really -- be your own webmaster.

[Posting this AC for obvious reasons]

The main thrust of Mitel's VOIP strategy is to relieve the need in small to medium sized businesses to run two sets of cable everywhere, and to roll the cost of voice and data communication into one package.

I participated in trials of their 3150 switch and their IP phone product, and my experience was, for the most part, a good one. There were some early glitches, I'll grant you. Occasionally every phone in our section began ringing simultaneously and for no reason. I also learned to ignore calls from extension 666[*] until they fixed that particular bug.

[*] Not the real number, of course, but that's what we called it.

The 3150 acts as a bridge between IP traffic on the internal network and PBX to the outside world. As such, it's not a pure VOIP product. That said, it's a solid hardware/software solution that has some *very* cool features.

The SME Server (which is running my public gateway right now) is an exceptional piece of software, even without VOIP. I'd highly recommend the GPL version to anyone who wants a secure, reliable internet server whose installation and configuration interface is second-to-none.

SME Server has recently been updated to provide support for pure VOIP over IPSEC VPN. Unfortunately, I ended my association with Mitel before I could test this feature.

Unfortunately, most of it is commercial ... although the SME server software is open source and available from the E-Smith developer site. Still, their voip stuff looks standards-based, so hopefully it interoperates with other stuff.

A stripped down Redhat-based distrib entirely managed by a well-scripted web-interface they really can be locally administered by the Office Administrator. The install is short and sweet and with a few questions it sets up a well organized server offering 'bout anything a modern office would want all automagically.

Ok, actually it's all done off an impressive system of scripts and templates but as far as J. Random "Administrator" is concerned it just works, and all from the clean browser-interface. Groups and accounts, POP & IMAP, LDAP and Webmail, all come built-in. A hardy user community contributes their own extensive set of ports and script templates including user self-management web interfaces, MySQL administration, mp3 jukeboxes, log and queue management, etc.

I set this up on a donated Compaq box a year ago for a local youth services organization (read: Human Services-type folks who don't know anything about computers, aren't inclined to learn much, and really just want this stuff to work with a minimum of muss and fuss so they can get on with their real work) and they've loved it. Ok, actually they don't care: It just does what they need it to do, is easy to get to do those things, offers the services they needed and they're not interested beyond that, which is a Good Thing.

Oh yeah, services they use their E-Smith box for are:

• Firewall protecting their office network
• Caching speeding their web-browsing
• A filter blocking many of the web-ads
• A local email-server for their inter-office confidential email
• A NAT allowing them to save money on the ISP plan they use
• Shared File-Space
• Shared Address Book
• Shared Printers
• Personal Directories so everything isn't only stored on their individual aging PCs
• IMAP folders so all of their email records aren't only stored on their individual aging PCs

Personally I've got E-Smith servers in both of my residences (different countries) where I use a Unison implementation for E-Smith to keep both boxes synchronized. It also provides a handy VPN between both houses as well as offering all of the other services listed above. Next up it'll be hosting photo galleries and some web sites for the family as well as a Twiki server for friends to share.

Oh, and best thing about all of this? It runs on low end PIII's, 200MHZ w/ 128MB RAM, not speed demons but stable, reliable, secure, and very effective. Did I mention trivial to administer too?

A stripped down Redhat-based distrib entirely managed by a well-scripted web-interface they really can be locally administered by the Office Administrator. The install is short and sweet and with a few questions it sets up a well organized server offering 'bout anything a modern office would want all automagically.

Ok, actually it's all done off an impressive system of scripts and templates but as far as J. Random "Administrator" is concerned it just works, and all from the clean browser-interface. Groups and accounts, POP & IMAP, LDAP and Webmail, all come built-in. A hardy user community contributes their own extensive set of ports and script templates including user self-management web interfaces, MySQL administration, mp3 jukeboxes, log and queue management, etc.

I set this up on a donated Compaq box a year ago for a local youth services organization (read: Human Services-type folks who don't know anything about computers, aren't inclined to learn much, and really just want this stuff to work with a minimum of muss and fuss so they can get on with their real work) and they've loved it. Ok, actually they don't care: It just does what they need it to do, is easy to get to do those things, offers the services they needed and they're not interested beyond that, which is a Good Thing.

Oh yeah, services they use their E-Smith box for are:

• Firewall protecting their office network
• Caching speeding their web-browsing
• A filter blocking many of the web-ads
• A local email-server for their inter-office confidential email
• A NAT allowing them to save money on the ISP plan they use
• Shared File-Space
• Shared Address Book
• Shared Printers
• Personal Directories so everything isn't only stored on their individual aging PCs
• IMAP folders so all of their email records aren't only stored on their individual aging PCs

Personally I've got E-Smith servers in both of my residences (different countries) where I use a Unison implementation for E-Smith to keep both boxes synchronized. It also provides a handy VPN between both houses as well as offering all of the other services listed above. Next up it'll be hosting photo galleries and some web sites for the family as well as a Twiki server for friends to share.

Oh, and best thing about all of this? It runs on low end PIII's, 200MHZ w/ 128MB RAM, not speed demons but stable, reliable, secure, and very effective. Did I mention trivial to administer too?

However, since apparently you're not real good with online resources I'll just feed it to you:

1. There are two versions of e-smith/SMS: Commercial and non-commercial.
2. The commercial version went to 5.6 recently
3. The non-commercial 5.6 is still in beta (hence the beta-files)
4. This is the regular release procedure for the product, most expect 5.6 non-commercial any-day-now
5. As to exactly when: "When it's ready"

Clarkconnect is a robust "turnkey" server package that really kicks ass. I have used e-smith, Mandrake's SNF (Single Network Firewall) and Smoothwall.
I am running this firewall/fileserver on a P100 with 96M of ram, so performance was pretty important to me.
I run the following servers on the box...
Appletalk (netatalk), Samba, FTP (Proftpd), HTTP (Apache), SMTP (exim), DHCP, SSH, CUPS, WEBMIN and SQUID.
The performance of the box is outstanding and very robust. It has a really nice web-based interface for modifying the box's setup.
I'm not knocking any of the others... I still have an e-smith server running at a clients and it's been chuggin' along for a couple of years now.

Just my $.02
-Fordboy0

Now that I think about it, E-Smith suits most of the requirements.

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.

One of the best ways to educate kids in this area is to "let them back there." One of the things we did last year was to let some students in our "internet society" build/configure and install a server. We chose E-Smith.
These kids were able to help us kick the tires, and they grew a lot in their understanding. They learned a lot about networking, internet protocol, proxies, samba, and the like. The kids in this computer club are not the brainy students either. These are the kids that some teachers or principals might not trust. They may even be script kiddiez. But I'd rather have them "help out" and learn than be excluded and watched when they lash out with their scripts with no understanding of what they are doing.

To get students to "do linux". ALl you need is a teacher that has them use the computers constructively and have working linux computers for the studetns to use... at all grade levels. Get them while they are young. Would this work? You bet. Why do you think Microsoft was giving away software to schools 4 or 5 years ago?

Not to mention the Mitel 6000, which is a Linux small-office server with integrated telephony features. The nice thing about the Mitel stuff is that they "get" Linux - the group that does their Linux stuff was formerly e-Smith inc. Check out the e-Smith site (now Mitel) here

Been using it for years. It's a file and print server (Samba), email server (Qmail, with Imp webmail), web server (Apache, for internet and intranet), database server (MySQL), and it's all run from a handy web interface. It installs in 30 mins max, and it just works.

They have some value-added features that you can pay for, like support and antivirus and stuff, but the ISO itself is a free download.

I like e-smith, now called something like SME, but you still can download the CD from e-smith.org. It's really easy to use and admin. You can also buy support from them if you want.

I would think about taking a look at E-Smith Server. It could buy you a few different things, though with the exception of automatic backups that synching will buy you. Internally you could have Samba and Appletalk running, externally, you could connect via their I-Bays for file storage. Also has an IMAP server if you wanted to store things that way. I guess you could cron copy from this machine to another for the backups.

This is actually very true. I work in a high school, and software knowledge problems are from the educators 95% of the time. I have 10 computers in my classroom, and I installed OpenOffice on them when I was denied an office suite due to $$ restrictions. The students picked it up in 10 minutes (as an aside: Open Office also works great for opening corrupted powerpoint and excel files that office 2000 won't). During the summers, I train teachers how to use software, and it is FRUSTRATING when an adult looks at you as if you have strange jungle disease when you explain how to copy and paste.

Can schools make the switch to Linux? Yup, Doing it now. No need for MS Proxy or Border manager when E-Smith(the commercial site) offers a great solution.

Open Office / Star Office is the best thing that has come down the pipe for schools. If a student can learn to use these less expensive/just as robust software packages productively, then they can switch to using what ever MS office product that they may need to use on the job once they get out in the "Real World." What is wrong with education? I don't think computer illiterate teachers are the problem, but it fixing that certainly doesn't hurt.

I note that ipcop is only on version 0.1.1 and I wonder if this means that the product is still evolving.

How would a product like Mandrake Server compare, apart from potentially being much bigger? (e-smith was only about 400 MB for the complete package).

linux e-smith
Got a Free masquerade/firewall solution (SME Server V5)
Download and burn a autoboot CD and you turn in 15 minutes a old pentium into a fully featured home server/firewall box.
Can't tell about the security, but it's free and apparently well done

linux e-smith
Got a Free masquerade/firewall solution (SME Server V5)
Download and burn a autoboot CD and you turn in 15 minutes a old pentium into a fully featured home server/firewall box.
Can't tell about the security, but it's free and apparently well done

Please check this out.

It's the esmith configuration schema.

They have already solved this problem in a neat way.

I'd go for the Mitel SME server, a _very_ easy to install Linux distribution made for these kind of situations.
Installation and maintenance is a no brainer.
I think Mandrake and Suse also makes similar products.

I use E-Smith Server as my firewall/NAT/webserver. (It is a pretty cool distribution.) Anyway, it uses virtual hosts, so host headers is enabled--you can't find the web server by IP address.

However, when I do a scan of my box it shows port 80 as open. Wouldn't they just scan their own IP ranges and find these ports open? Or am I missing something?