Topic: enable IIS & turn e-smith into dev-box for ASP

[Dean]

Has anyone tried using e-smith as a test box in a Microsoft(ASP) -oriented web-development environment? i.e. install IIS patch for Apachie, etc.?

I understand, e-smith is best suited for providing file and print sharing, and e-mail services in a small office.   Is there a Linux distro that has been customised and tailored for ISP's ?

What are the strengths/limitations of e-smith in terms of 24x7 web-hosting in general?

[Paul Miller]

Dean wrote:
>
> Has anyone tried using e-smith as a test box in a
> Microsoft(ASP) -oriented web-development environment? i.e.
> install IIS patch for Apachie, etc.?

Should be as easy to set up using e-smith as any other distro. Making an e-smith-manager customization spedific to the ISP is where the value would be.

> I understand, e-smith is best suited for providing file and
> print sharing, and e-mail services in a small office.   Is
> there a Linux distro that has been customised and tailored
> for ISP's ?

I expect ISPs could use the caching DNS e-mail and web server in e-smith to advantage.

The Cobalt RAQ series has been used by ISPs and small offices for a few years.  Like e-smith, it has a web interface or telnet. There is not support for customizations like e-smith has as far as I know and I can vouch for the fact that their tech support does not have the same depth as e-smith. It is Linux on proprietary hardware.  Sun recently aquired it.

> What are the strengths/limitations of e-smith in terms of
> 24x7 web-hosting in general?
e-mail for 10,000 users is a typical ISP need.  The only part I would question about e-smith would be how to efficiently manage a very large group of users. As user lists become large, adding, modifying or deleting users might not scale well.  I started having problems with adding users to a Solaris system a few years ago when it passed 2000 users.  It started getting slow to add or delete a user from the GUI.  

e-smith doesn't get in the way of apache but you might want to make customizations for particular purposes.  A strength of the e-smith approach is that the configuration management can be set up by an expert (an rpm) and then installed and operated by people who are not Linux gurus.  This brings the technology closer to the customer because they usually can understand the differences between various policies and are less likely to be intimidated by the choices.  I expect most ISPs try to get economy of scale by offering 'cookie cutter' solutions.  In my opinion, e-smith supports this objective quite well.

I have not actually tried to do ISP things using e-smith.  However, I spent a few years as a ISP sysadmin using primitive templates to add virtual domains and web services from the command line.  The e-smith manager allows you to quickly do more with improved confidence and far less effort.  In addition, the support is always terrific.

Hope this is of some value.
Paul Miller