Ebox the answer to all

Ok I know I have been away for a while and have popped in on once or twice but i have found the answer to my dreams. I need to check a few things but it seems to be ok for schools licencing It is based on ubuntu and so is very simple to set up. EBOX eBox Platform
I have it running at the moment as
1. a pdc(dhcp and dns) 2. egroupware which includes mail polls wiki calander timesheet knowlagebase for trouble shooting resourses and much more. 3 a transparent filterproxy and fire wall 4. file server 5 vpn server 6. internal jabber server 7. spam filter 8. user/group manager. 9. lots lots more

what i liked about it was it took me 1hour to set the lot up for 50 students as a test platform and I love it and if it proves its worth i might ditch the widows boxes and transfer all to this box I love it its simple easy to set up free as far as I can see I will try ad set up a demo site for people to have a look but I would like to know if anyone uses it has used it or is considering it as i am but dont want to feel alone.
its the easyest linix i ever set up

this is pretty awesome mate - thanks for the headsup

Since this was last posted Ebox has bee updated and is now a awsome piece of kit it includes active dir intergration dansguardian squid spam assin Asterisk EGroupware Jabberd2 Postfix Samba Clamav P3Scan to mention a few look here for more Document/Documentation/Software It is very easy to setup and maintain and you can setup users and groups very easy. uses ubuntu as a base so is very stable. The possabilitys are endless one of the best bits are the egroupware and the OpenVPN have a look have a play works like a dream.

Is anyone here actually using ebox in anger?

I've spent much of the afternoon reading all the documentation on ebox that I can find and it seems a pretty nifty system. But is it too good to be true? What are your experiences of actually using it?

I dont like the idea of 1 box doing everything... or did i get the wrong end of the stick?

Doesn't have to be that way. Different services can be split across different boxes that run specific implementations of ebox. You can have a separate firewall, print server, file server, mail server, DC, etc.

No different in concept to having different boxes each running Win Server 2008 but doing different tasks.

I'm just wondering if it actually works? :-)

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Originally Posted by Number6

I'm just wondering if it actually works? :-)

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Good point.

Wonder if the installation process is where you add/remove features.

I am using it in anger (lol) in one primary school and 2 bisnesses and aslo at home as a firewall gateway mail filter fileserver and is runs like a dream it too 20 mins to install and setup and it talks to my 2003 server I did have a issue with it talking to vista and running a bat file at loging but there is a fix for that now. there are continuing to update it as well and fourm support is really good and as long as you have done a search and not found nothing they will help or point you in the right direction. It is installed first ubuntu 8.10 and then installes the ebox packeges and only the ones that you need. I love it as you have got really good control of users and groups via the admin panel so you can tie share permisions down to a user. I would say if you got a old machine install it and have a play I have it installed on a 9 year old dell server and it runs fine.

Thanks for that alonebfg.

I'm thinking of installing an ebox box as a new DC within the existing forest at a primary school that I look after. The site runs SBS2003 and we're running out of available uersers so my thinking is to set up ebox as DC for the pupil logons. I have an old Dell server that I can use and if I can make it run, and talk to the other Windows server infrastructure then I've saved the cost of upgrading to a new 2008 / Exchange 2010 combo.

Is there a users limit at all?

UPDATE - But of course I just remembered that SBS doesn't support child domains :mad:

I did try ebox as a viable alternative for our DNS, firewall, filter and VPN server but in reality I couldnt get it to do what I wanted it to. Since my domain is primarily a windows AD domain, I had difficulties getting AD LDAP multi filter groups to work. I opted to continue paying the £ for ISA and use a dedicated squid/DG box for my filtering. DNS is still handled by the primary (overworked) windows server.

My brain and training has always told me that an edge firewall should be an edge firewall and thats it. I know virtual servers muddy the water a bit but I still try to keep edge firewalls a separate box.

How long ago did you try it as they have done a lot of work on it in the last 6 months and it has changed compleatly as it now has really good intergration with ad and it gives tou the option to set that up on startup now and will allow you to sync between the servers.

Email is one of my major concerns. We're heavily dependent on Exchange at the moment so how does ebox handle mail and what clients does it like?

as far as i know you can use it as a email server or a pop3 email filter if used as a gateway you can create vurtial domains with it and within that domain create groups users and also a egroupware profile so diffrent groups can have diffrent profiles.