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"Turn-Key" Linux-Based Fileservers?
idjitProof asks: "I work for a non-profit organization with about 70 satellite offices. We're trying to find a cheap way to get these offices out of the stone age and into an ethernet with centralized, secure file-storage. I was wondering if there is a Linux hardware solution that is fairly dummy resistant or, alternatively, remotely configurable (with decent security). I spent the better part of today searching the web, but all I could find was boxed software products, no hardware solutions. I'd appreciate links to any companies that might have this kind of product."
Is there some reason you can't just set up a distro how you'd like it on an appropriately powered machine and just use that? You can easily set it up so you can log in from elsewhere to admin it...
Linux may be free, but you're looking for something that costs money and comes with support...
:)
Apple's XServe servers aren't a bad deal. OS X is based on FreeBSD, so don't think that Apple is still in their proprietary little world any more. They're certainly better at embracing open standards than that silly Redmond company.
- Peter
INsigNIFICANT
Is the Cobalt Qube dead?
Why not roll your own? If you are going to remote admin it, certainly you can set it up on your own.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
have teamed up to do this kind of thing.
l
http://www.netmax.com/products/magnia_prods.htm
We use their software based distro in a couple of our remote office at work.
Failing that sort of effort you might just want to do a full system backup of a master that works they way you want. Copy the backup to cdrom and fire up the RIAA disapproved duplicators and go to it.
Look in your local events paper in the musicians section there are ads for bulk cdrom houses, these do press runs for Demos tapes and limited releases mostly. If you can convince them that it's not copyrighted material they may even do it for the Tax Deduction.
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
This is the Aries from Celestix. The model linked has groupware apps, as well as file/web/Internet sharing. They make a few models. Some have embedded CheckPoint FW-1 (pricey). You can get a more basic config for about $700.00 USD.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
Quantum's SNAP! servers take 5 minutes to install and configure. Great support from Quantum. Fantastic linux based devices.
http://www.quantum.com/
Now called SMS, but the same thing (look in www.e-smith.org for the free version and support).
It's a cd you pop into a pc and turns it into a really dumb-proof server. very complete and cheap!
-Kz-
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
Ligaguinggligagiggagoogoogwillgo
http://linksys.com/products/group.asp?grid=35&scid =43
If at first you don't succeed, skydiving is not for you
It looks like the hardware people use the phrase "Network Attached Storage" for devices that are dedicated to serving files. LinkSys calls theirs EFG80 (such poetry), but you need a Windows PC to run setup. Sun has a whitepaper. A Google search on "Network Attached Storage" turn up mostly hardware turnkey solutions.
Para-Docs offers a turn-key solution for file management. In addition to traditional file serving, the appliance offers document management with workflow, trigger-fired messaging, and a ton of other features. The appliance is linux-based and uses postgres for it's database. It rocks, and is available at several price points.
Let me know if you need any additional information.
Matthew
matthew@mattshouse.removethis.com
/. finds me to be 20% Troll, 80% Funny
Why?
Seriously, if its a small satellite office which has survived until 2003 without a LAN, LET IT BE. It sounds like you're trying to push a square peg into a round hole. Something is obviously working.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
why? you mentioned secure remote file storage for 70 satellite offices.
esmith can do smb, as well as vpn. sounds like it'll fit your bill. The install is straight forward, and you can get pre-setup boxes from www.myezserver.com, as well as support.
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
The Excel Meridian NAS is pretty cheap, and support is great. A client of mine got 160G of RAID5 for $1k. You can reach files via Appleshare, SMB, NFS, and HTTP. Novell, too, I think. Web-managable, knows rsync (if you turn it on), pretty easy to set up and run.
You lost me at "centralized." You've got 70 branch offices and you want to create a centralized file server for all of them? Have you considered how much this is going to cost per month is telecom charges alone?
;-)
If you're remotely accessing a file server, a point-to-point T-1 per branch office is the absolute bare minimum you'll need for connectivity. Don't even think about using a VPN over the Internet; the latencies will be so high that nobody at the branch offices will be able to tolerate using the central file server, so they'll store their files locally, which defeats the whole purpose.
A much better idea would be to put small NAS devices at each branch office, and a big server at the central office. Have the central server back up each NAS server every hour, either using a commercial backup product like Legato (bad idea) or using the NAS vendor's remote mirror feature (good idea). Snap's remote mirror feature, for example, is called Server-to-Server Synchronization. You can do remote-to-central syncs over a VPN over DSL or something equivalent.
There will probably be occasions when a branch needs to access files from another branch. When that happens, you can either have the person who needs the file mount the appropriate filesystem from the central office and copy his file, or you could get a little fancier. You could easily whip up a simple system for scheduling asynchronous file requests. Person X goes to a web page (hosted at the central site) and finds the file that he wants, then clicks a button to submit a transfer request. He goes about his business while the file is transferred via FTP (probably) from the central server to the branch server, then he gets an email, IM, or SMS informing him that the transfer is complete. You could just let all the transfers happen at once, or you could get a little fancier by priority-queueing the requests and executing them in order. This would have the advantages of being easier for your users-- they wouldn't have to know where the file was stored; they could just search for it-- and of keeping all the files on the various NAS servers for easy administration and backup.
Email me for more details.
I write in my journal
We're trying to find a cheap way to get these offices out of the stone age and into an ethernet with centralized, secure file-storage. I was wondering if there is a Linux hardware solution that is fairly dummy resistant or, alternatively, remotely configurable (with decent security).
Get a Cobalt Qube, or whatever Sun renamed them to when they bought the company. Plug it in, switch it on and it does all your typical LAN services like file'n'print, web proxy cache, firewall and so on. All remotely administered via a web browser.
http://www.datahiveserver.com/products/servers/m1/
The Qube or Raq 550 provides the simplicity you are looking for. Also check out the Control Station for remote management and administration.
http://www.sun.com/hardware/serverappliances/
Central office gets a vpn server and file server
/ default.asp?EDC=4 03464
(plenty of links above)
each satelite office gets a vpn endpoint/router
http://www.cdw.com/shop/products
(dont know how well they work yet but they seem simple and small)
Find Pentium II 300 for 80 bucks on eBay, or in the back room at work.
Put some IDE hard drives in it, set up raid, install slackware fromt the web...
install webmin
They make some nice rack mount units that should do the job (about $13K for a RAID 5+1 500GB hot swappable Relion 240 configuration).
Can You Say Linux? I Knew That You Could.
I've used these devices extensively. (Snapservers - www.snapservers.com). They are Linux based NAS devices that take no more than 10 minutes to set up. They are much more superior than anything than M$ can dish out. They have different performance levels at very reasonble prices. These devices eliminate the blackmail that M$ has been attempting with their new licensing scheme.
Quit playing Monopoly with Bill.
Linux - of the people, by the people, and for the people.
Wow! Cool...someone looking for exactly what my company does. Give is a look at Premier Networks
We set up many of our systems for secure remote administration as a lot of our customers simply want us to handle it. We are not a hardware shop, we are a professional services company and our prices reflect that fact (they are extremely competetive).
If they are small offices or don't do much over the lan, just grab an old pentium, throw in a large enough hard drive for their needs, and install your network-fileshare-system-of-choice and sshd. If they are stuck on dialup, just have the servers accept call-ins as well. Once you get one configured how you like it, mirror it to the rest. Cheap, easy solution. (Oh, and buy UPSs. I know this is a non-profit, but they are worth every penny.)
Including the UPS, I'm guessing each machine could be configured for about 120GBs of storage without going overe $300. You're going to be hard pressed to find a NAT that will do the same thing for that price. Don't worry about the reliability of a home-brew solution - a properly setup NFS/Samba/sshd server will probably stay running until the hardware fails. Plus, all of the components are cheap, and easily replaceable.
Oh, one last thing : if they need backups, either look into rsyncing it to a main server, or teaching the secratery to swap tapes at the end of the day. Plus, you probably want to set up a cron job, timed so that every day, 2 or 3 of the machines email you with their status for the month.
Of course, I'm not in your shoes, and maybe something like a NAS/SAN is what you really need.
A quick google search or just goto freebsd.org and nose around..
Tons of options out there.. for most every need/budget..
A little bit of homework goes a long way.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Give them a week of using VPN to get to all their files and they will start a riot..
Not that it doesnt work, but latency sux.. and it runs your cost up due to major increase in bandwith needs.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
In addition to the almost limitless support provided by discussion forums on the internet, you can get commercial support for Linux from many companies in your area. Pick up the phone book.
Blimey. Some people...
"And the meaning of words; when they cease to function; when will it start worrying you?"
The Quantum Guardian NAS servers sound like exactly what you want. It's turnkey hardware fileserver solution that uses Linux behind the scenes. I posted some detailed information about one of these devices here. It's a pretty polished system and you might want to take a look at it.
The Subject asks it all, folks.
Background
The latest post on the front page
of www.e-smith.org refers to a 5.6
version of SMS (formerly e-smith),
but none of the ISO's are ver 5.6
Has someone got a URL link for a 5.6
ISO?
TIA
Why should it take me three (3) clicks
on the button to get a reply to
post ['using Opera 6.04, if relavent]?
TIA
However, since apparently you're not real good with online resources I'll just feed it to you:
- There are two versions of e-smith/SMS: Commercial and non-commercial.
- The commercial version went to 5.6 recently
- The non-commercial 5.6 is still in beta (hence the beta-files)
- This is the regular release procedure for the product, most expect 5.6 non-commercial any-day-now
- As to exactly when: "When it's ready"
If you've any other questions I really suggest you invest a few minutes looking over the e-smith.org website, particularly the FAQs and the General Phorum. Your question has been answered there MANY (many, many,) times far more authoritatively.I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
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
Next up is getting them a tape-backup for disaster recovery and reconfiguring things so all of their email is local IMAP-based and downloaded by the server so they can use MS Outlook in the office or the web interface when out of the office, and then VPNs for them when they're working from home.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?
I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
check out qsol.com
we have a number of their 'devices'. they kick ass.
http://www.netapp.com/products/filer/
u id es/DNFSDatasheet.pdf
If need fast remote NFS access but don't want the headache of micro managing replication, consider
Netapps NFS caching devices:
http://now.netapp.com/NOW/knowledge/docs/olio/g