"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."

Comments

Re:Why not one of the commercial UNIXes? (Apple?)

[sweetooth]

Dell and IBM both sell Linux boxes with all the support your want (or are willing to pay for).

Though apparently most people forget this.

Netmax/Toshiba

[martin]

have teamed up to do this kind of thing.

http://www.netmax.com/products/magnia_prods.html

We use their software based distro in a couple of our remote office at work.

Re:Why not one of the commercial UNIXes? (Apple?)

[Ratso Baggins]

Since they're non-profit, I guess this means budget. Xserves are more than $7000!! what planet are you from?

Redhat Advanced Server + 2 (or more) $200 Wallmart boxes (for redundancy) per remote.

All the redundancy & clustering is handled out of the box.

With $upport of varing level$, you're way ahead, <snagglepuss> an order of magnitude even...sheesh!</snagglepuss>

EXACTLY what you want!

[Jeremiah Cornelius]

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.

Re:EXACTLY what you want!

[Directrix1]

I believe Snap! Servers would be more down this person's alley. They are rack mountable, easily configurable, and relatively cheap. Although, I can't imagine a plain old file server bringing a company out of the stone age. Time to bring in a middleware tier if you want to be considered "out of the stone age".

eSmith

[Kz]

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!

Clarkconnect!

[fordboy0]

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

My company does exactly this...

[rindeee]

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).