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Axentra Rumba Server - Home Do-It-All Box
JigSaw writes "OSNews has an exclusive article on a new Linux-based server appliance product -- the first in the family -- the Axentra Rumba Server. The product is to be launched soon, but details of it have being leaked out already: The device has a mini ITX mobo, VIA C3 800 MHz CPU, 256 MB RAM, 40 GB hdd, USB 1.1, 2 LAN ports and in 1 WAN port (extra Wi-Fi USB device required). The device is useful as an Internet Gateway (DNS, IP filtering, Port forwarding, NAT firewall), as a network service (web server, file server, WebDAV, IMAP/SMTP, Samba, Content/Spam Filtering, photo album). It has an embedded web server so you can administer it via your web browser. It is compatible with Linux, Macs and Windows."
Is it just me, or does this thing sound exactly like the Cobalt Cube from a few years back? It ran a modified Red Hat, was an "Internet appliance" turn-key box, and did all the fun router/web server/email server/file server stuff with just a simple interface.
What's old is new again, I suppose.
--GrouchoMarx
Card-carrying member of the EFF, FSF, and ACLU. Are you?
First of all, the "in" seems extraneous? Secondly, doesn't "WAN" mean "WIDE Area Network", not "WIRELESS Area Network"? I thought the term for 802.x1 type stuff is "WLAN"? (Wireless Local Area Network)
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
I am curios to see just how popular such a device is. I am not sure who the exact target would be. Anyone highly skilled or professional level could just build and setup their own with more stuff at a cheaper price. Those who don't have much computer skills will never hear of or have any need for this device. I guess if it is cheap enough so that someone would rather buy it then take the time to build one themselves, it could do well. My personal opinion is that it won't be priced low enough. They will sell a few, but not a ton.
One is running Here so slashdot it please - it needs stress testing.
I'm not Seth.
Most linux/*bsd buff can build one of these on any given sunday. But it is great to see a consumer oriented device targetted at home (mainly windows) users that offers what was once only available to geeks to the mass market... well I for one hope it takes off anyway.
This seems like a pretty cool little device. Maybe with appliances like these more people will start to get interested in hosting their own website on their DSL/Cable connection, or doing other "server" type stuff. I really dislike how the Internet today is seen as just a place to visit web pages. Maybe with a simple server appliance people will get the idea that they can publish stuff on the web and share stuff with their friends and family that way. They could even have it run things like a jabber server. Wouldn't that be cool? What this company would do if they were smart is automatically give everyone who buys one of these a dynamic DNS account, so your little server could have its own permanent address with no configuration necessary.
main(c,r){for(r=32;r;) printf(++c>31?c=!r--,"\n":c<r?" ":~c&r?" `":" #");}
1 WAN port (and 2 LAN ports). What the hell is a WAN port? Is it ethernet or not? Is it just slow 10 mbps ethernet rather than something faster? And why the hell require an extra Wi-Fi device? And if it has to be USB (I'm guessing because there are no slots, or no slots available), then why put USB 1.1 on a new product when the rest of the world is dealing with USB 2? Particularly when current Wi-Fi (802.11g) is a lot faster than the ill-conceived USB 1.1?
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
This seems like it could be a good stepping stone for more advanced Windows users to discover Linux. As long as the price isn't too much greater than what it would cost to build you own, I could see this creating it's own little market.
vampirical
The Rumba with a samba server. First slashdot was making it too easy, now these guys?
That's it. I give up.
--
"I'm not bright. Big words confuse me. But Wanda loves me and that should be enough for you." - Cosmo
No, no they're not. See for yourself. Find ONE instance of "Macintosh OS" on that entire site (apple.com).
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
Well, it's wrong for "Apple Macintosh computer" anyhow. It's "Mac", not "MAC".
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
I mean we all know that "photo album" is really just "porn collection" in disguise.
But does it run Li.... Oh.
Definitely cheaper, and by my reckoning, better by far. Better in the sense that you could put that wasted hard drive money into RAM. If the thing is to act as a server you don't want it reading off a hard drive anyway. Skip the hard drive and add a Gig of RAM and you could still be less than two hundred bucks with all new parts. If someone bought one of these and then you showed them the right way to do it with a LiveCD, they'd feel like they had been ripped off.
Once you get past ten gigs or so, the real purpose of a hard drive becomes juke box or media management center as opposed to old fashioned computing. This thing is obviously marketed as a server and not as a media device so the 20gig drive is essentially just a way to get rid of old inventory. Sure it's cool because it's GNU/Linux, but let's not get carried away just for that. It's not important to have Best Buy and Circuit City prostletyze Open Source, it really doesn't fit in their scummy bag of sales tricks and they will just make it look like a rip off with misfit products like this. Product placement is life and death in the market, but strictly speaking GNU/Linux isn't in the market since it's available for free as in beer. I believe that is its primary strength.
But speaking of prostletyzing, I digress. Back to the topic of using dated hardware appropriately, I think Murdoch has a better use for those old hard drives which is to use the next generation of video compression to make them look like fat PVRs. At least it's an efficient use of an outdated technology rather than pawning them off as "server" use.
Wel according to the article the machine offers nothing to make configuring the firewall (IP Filtering + NAT) easy or foolproof.
So what do we got? Not much more than cheapo walmart pc and distro.
We got a linux based firewall running on the same machine as the files and photos and everything else.
What the hell is the difference between this and any other linux machine?
It certainly won't make security or sysadmin any easier.
It's a home linux nightmare waiting to happen. Can't wait.
Ah! I've got it! All techy things in the new millenium have to rhyme, and not just once, multiple times!
Romper Stomper Bomper Boo, buy my crap -hey buy two!
Magic mirror, I see dead people. Ooops. Too much genre blending.
Good old Roomba. Saved me from back pain plenty a times... You did mean the vacuum didn't you?
MoFscker
What I would like is that Via come out with some more powerfull proccessors. Their 1 gig is only about equal to a 700 celeron, and depending on what it is actually doing it can get beat out with a 300Mhz pentium in bench marks.
I love the small formfactor stuff. If you got a vid card, sound card, networking card, and 1 or 2 pci slots, what more do you need for a desktop computer??
And I was wanting to build one, but a 2.2ghz celeron with a low-end mini-atx motherboard is cheaper then a mini-ITX 800mhz C3 motherboard and 10x more capable.
just buy a efficiant fan, underclock/undervolt the cpu and get a nice heatsink and you'll be able to make it as quiet as any C3, except for the fanless ones.
Useful as a file server with only 40GB HDD? I can't see that taking off...
This is a server. Most servers are actually unlikely to need FIrewire or USB.
And for the record, yes, VIA motherboards DO as a matter of fact choke on dick.
Just remember that this is a server, or a firewall. It's not, in actual fact, a super gaming machine designed for l33t haX0r d00ds, it's just a great idea-a virtually plug and play Linux solution for everyone who needs a server of pretty much any kind.
I love it. I want one.
If you're happy and you know it read my blog
I'd much rather take an older computer and throw ClarkConnect on it. Comparing the feature list above with CC's features:
Security
* Stateful Firewall * Intrusion detection with Snort * Secure shell via SSH * IPsec VPN (Office Edition only) * PPTP VPN (Office Edition only)
Web Server
* Apache web server * Support for CGI and PHP * Secure/SSL support
File Services
* Journalled file system with ext3 * FTP server * Windows file server * AppleShare file server
E-mail
* POP and IMAP servers * SMTP server
Filtering
* Banner ad blocking * Web proxy * Content filtering (Office Edition only)
Printing
* Print server support * Printer sharing for Samba/Windows networks
Easy Configuration
* Web-based configuration* Optional Webmin package
Network Support
* DSL (including PPPoE) * Cable Modem * 802.11b Wireless (Office Edition only) * Internal DHCP server * Caching nameserver
There's a few not listed on the quick info page, such as Gallery and SpamAssassin, but you get the picture. Not to say that you couldn't add on to the software on the Rumba, after all it is Linux based, but who says they'll make it easy for you to do so. I have no problems adding new goodies to my ClarkConnect box, such as a NWN and TeamSpeak server for my gaming friends or SliMP3 server for around the house music, and I wouldn't give that up.
To give fair time to two other Linux firewall distros I've used in the past and like almost as much as ClarkConnect, check out Smoothwall and IPCop.
Jonah Hex
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
But very few build whole computers from scratch. They don't view it as worth their effort. They would rather buy an off-the-shelf system, and maybe add a little memory. A year down the road put in a bigger hard drive...
My point, the vast majority of technically literate people DON'T build their own from scratch.
Ouch!
How right you are. My apologies for my stupidity and ignorance...
--- My dad's political betting
1. if webservers worked fine in 1998 with 400mhz, then 800 today will be fine. (we are not running the 2004 olympics on one server here so its ok)
2. what server needs USB2 ? cameras? video devices? get outa here. 1.1 is ENOUGH!!
3. the point is that if X company wants 20 boxes stacked as a rendering farm or crack server, or game servers, then its easy just to order and plugin, no ones gona hack away for 500 hrs building 30 servers by hand.
But on the other hand, id love to have an OQO , stack like 4000 of them in one room and make a super computer fit in one 19inch rack box. might get very hot though....
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
I think TigerDirect already let this one out of the bag. The website says that they will announce it (and it's price) soon. This week's TigerDirect catalog already has it..
/w any standard usb->wireless adapter. WiFi is NOT standard.
TigerDirect print ad
The ad specifically mentions that it supports WiFi wireless networking
Apple Macintosh Computer. . .
;)
Hmm.. AMC? Well, both the Pacer and the Mac are funny looking.
- Turq.
- Turq - "That's TRON, he fights for the users."
Of course it's ethernet.
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
The difference between this and any other linux machine is a small footprint, high cost, no video card, and (hopefully) quiet operating.
Googling around, we even found a test server for the Axentra Rumba Server. Go on, give it some stress testing!
Ummm... they don't know us very well, do they?
I'm surprised there's been no mention of the Tranquil PC. This is perhaps the quietest and sexiest mini-itx based system and the starting price is ~$600 USD.
int func(int a);
func((b += 3, b));
Hot damn! That's pretty smooth. I love the idea of having a vacuum that can be an internet appliance as well. I guess someone had to do it eventually. What? Oh... you said Rumba not Roomba.
Un-news
I work with a bunch of embedded applications developers, and I know of only one other guy who builds his own machine. First off, they view their time as valuable. Every minute they can spend with their families is worth it, and building a machine can be time consuming. Pricing out parts, and getting up to date knowledge can take a lot of research. Second, as people get older, it seems they just don't want to mess with it. This is synonymous to old cars. Young people will tend to buy cars and restore them, while many older people will prefer to buy the car already restored. It costs more money, but they don't have to mess with it. Finally, with computers, when you buy legal software, I don't think you save any money when building your own, and most people want the warranties and one source of support that come with someone like Dell.
-- the computer doesn't want any beer, no matter how much you think it does. NEVER, EVER feed your computer beer.
2. what server needs USB2 ? cameras? video devices? get outa here...
Inexpensive backup? Get an external USB2 drive and back up your device as & when.
moog
No Norm, those are your safety glasses; I'll wear my own thanks...
All in one server box yes, but can it vacuum your entire house on it's own?
20*24*365*0.12/1000 = $21.0
The distinction between WAN port and LAN port is that someone coming in from the WAN side is assumed to be a script kiddie until proven otherwise. And that's if you open up any access from the outside at all. The Prime Directive of Firewalls says that an attempt to open a socket from the WAN side should fail. The most notable exception is for FTP, but the corresponding socket must have been opened from the LAN side out first. Also, they mention VPN capability - the tunneled traffic is considered to be LAN for firewall purposes.
Yes, they could call the ports 'eth0', 'eth1', and 'eth2', but that doesn't explain their functions.
[100% ISO 646 Compliant]
SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
Power consumtion is simply not a problem for anything under the level of "major appliance", ie fridge, air cond, etc. Since my AC is off for the season (and my heat/stove is gas) my electric bills has dropped to around $30 a month, and that includes running 3 computers 24/7 with NO power management enabled. Of course my ClarkConnect firewall box rarely has a monitor attached to it, and my Video/Jukebox/eMule machine only has the monitor on for a few hours each day.
Jonah Hex
Horror & SciFi Erotic Nudes
A WAN interface is an interface that connects you to a larger routed network. Traditionally, that's your nailed up line (T-1/leased-line/Frame connection/etc). A WAN port is an open slot, usually on a router or similar appliance, that you can use to insert a card for handling a connection as above. As others have indicated, this could potentially be used for your DSL connection by just putting an ethernet card in it. However the article seems to indicate that this is a USB port, and 1.1 at that, so they're probably right that it's better suited to connecting to a wireless LAN. Though that hardly makes it a WAN port.
"No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
--James Madison
I heard it sucks.
Laws are for people with no friends.
Maybe with a simple server appliance people will get the idea that they can publish stuff on the web and share stuff with their friends and family that way
Would having thousands of servers with exactly the same configuration and hardware be a good thing. We've seen what happens when problems are found in today's servers. Sure, it would be easy to fix them all with one patch, but even people that run servers today don't patch them up as much as they should... Would the average user running an out-of-the-box server patch it? probably not.
Mod parent up (I have no points right now).
I set up a Xandros box and (stupidly) left it exposed to the outside world without shutting down all of the default services. It being Debian based, and hence having apt, I kept the software up to date with all the patches from security.debian.org. Not good enough. About a week later someone came in through a service (which was not part of the standard Debian distro) meant for system administration that had the port open to * (as opposed to 127.0.0.1).
The lesson is that easy to use distros with lots of things to make it easy on the end user (like WebDAV) are all well and good behind a firewall, or as a sacrificial box in the DMZ, but should not themselves be the firewall. It would be possible to create a firewall in a box that would keep itself up to date, but with all the bells and whistles on this thing, it's going to be as dangerous as Windows.
Microsoft would have a fair point if they said this, "if you want a lot of open ports and friendly services for easy system interop, and you don't know how or don't want to invest the time to secure your machine, and you don't keep the software up to date, it will be compromised." The same is true of Linux.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
The Mini-ITX hardware is a cute way to go though, if you don't mind the world of hurt which comes of trying to get the onboard VIA Rhine-II ethernet to work. At this very moment I'm part way through a Red Hat install onto a Mini-ITX which is going to be my new firewall and mail exchanger...
Toshiba has had a box like this for some time. In fact I picked one up for testing for a scant $299. It was the SG20, but it still works as advertised. Not too powerful, but could work for a small workgroup. Here is a link to those boxes.
I generally tell people not to build their own/use a prebuilt system. Why? Because new machines are generally ATX and because they can get a support contract, which means they're not calling me whenever anything fails. Sure, I still get harassed for software issue, but friends and relatives aren't expecting me to come out and swap their video card for them. The exception is my father, who has been placed at the end of my upgrade queue. When I upgrade, my girlfriend gets my old system (or video card or whatever) and he gets hers.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Power dissipation is higher when the processor is doing more work. While the C3 will have less power use at idle than the Athlon will, consider the energy cost that goes into making that other motherboard. It might cost you a little more to run it but it's probably cheaper for the planet to use it than to buy a new system.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
Besides which, Cobalt Raqs have a nice-looking case and a LCD for status and setup. Your case is ugly as hell. You can buy a case that ugly at fry's.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If the idea behind this thing becomes popular, it's a matter of time before someone starts knocking out something similar on the cheap. All-in-one mobos are cheap as chips, and drivers don't seem to be as much of a problem as they used to be anymore. Stick one in a case, add a hard drive and maybe a DVD-ROM and pop your favourite distro on it. If it has TV-out, supply a SCART to phono and 3.5mm stereo lead {you may have to solder this yourself} and it'll run into any modern enough telly. A TV receiver / video capture card would make it into a tapeless VCR.
It might need a console-based configuration utility for setting its IP address. Once that's done, and the machine is on a network, everything else can be done through a web browser with a bit of p(hp|erl|ython) scripting.
It could firewall off your vulnerable Windows boxes from your ADSL connection, and provide a proxy to block ad.doubleclick.net and other objectionable sites. No ADSL? Then it can do on-demand dialling. It could collect your e-mail from several different servers and distribute it amongst several desktop machines - you can use POP3 to collect it and thus obviate the need for a static IP address. With the video and audio outputs, it could be a telejuke.
And, because it's programmable, some loon will almost certainly find a use for it none of us have thought of yet.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
the Net Integrator series... http://www.net-itech.com =8-)
Does it support UPnP? Many new home routers do this now, eg. Netgear, Linksys. Also, does it support socks5? A lot of application that are broken behind NAT have the ability to use SOCKS5. For example, file transfer in icq/AIM, and voice/video.
At home, time and money are even tighter, and I do build my own boxes, maintain my own firewall, etc. It hasn't saved a penny, just made it possible to buy nicer kit, and the only way I can justify the time spent is the jump up the learning curve.
.sigless since 2003
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:
Absolutely awesome product that I really recommend. It has worked for me better than I imagined.
The weathers here - Wish you were beautiful
What, no Amiga support? Fuck it then. Why do the 99.9999% of users get all the new toys?
Often in Error, Never in Doubt.
For bored slashdotters, HERE and HERE are 2 web servers running on these things... /. effect!
Even I have really only *built* one PC - and that was out of spare parts. My desktop (now an Athlon 900) was merely upgraded a few times... from a 4.77Mhz XT. Although I did use to take said XT to bits and then put it back together again - does that count as building?
Pretend that something especially witty is here. Thanks.
now I don't have to go through dell for my next computer purchase, this is exactly what I've been looking for
-Tim Louden
It's not a matter of "knowing what they mean". You'd know what I meant if I straed tklanig scarmlbed lkie tihs... but it wouldn't be correct.
Honey, I shrunk the Cygwin
Rumba is a registered trademark.
It's software product from NetManage that is close enough in functionality to this product that they would probably have a valid trademark infringement claim.
---------------------------------------------
SERENITY NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The reason I don't build boxes anymore is economics. Back when I could build a system for a grand that was comparable to a $1500 OEM box, or save money by leaving off things I didn't need (first computer had no sound card), it was worth it. Plus my time wasn't worth as much--no family, low-paying job. Now, I can get a 2.2 GHz Dell with a 17" CRT for $499 (dell.com/tv) or I can go around and buy a bunch of parts for about the same amount, spend a couple hours putting it all together, hope you got all the jumpers right when you power it on, and still have to find a monitor and a pirated copy of Windows. Same with cars. You can spend 20 minutes and $20 at a drive-through oil place, or spend $12 on oil and filters so you can dig out your wheel chocks, jack up your car on your sloping driveway, and crawl around underneath for a half-hour scraping your knuckes on the frame.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
here's the ad image as linked from osnews: http://grokthis.net/~raptor/rumba.jpg
chock full of typos and a $499 price. not bad. (the price, not the typos)
Gabriel Ricard