Topic: Webmin and addons?

[Eric C.]

Hey I am rying out e-smith or SME Server and I find so far that it sorta is lacking. I want to install Webmin but read it causes conflicts. I also find the server manager pretty much useless. This is becoming a pain. I think it is too dumbed down. Anyways I am used to http://www.clarkconnect.org I think SME might have one or 2 pros over it but CC 1.0 has many over SME. How does one run any addons or updates for say MySQL PHP and various other apps without going to console? I don't think you can. I also don't see anything that lets me view what services are running. I have installed the 5.5 alpha version and its the same except for the redhat kernel and version from what I can tell at a glance. I am not dissing the product but all I can use this thing for is a situation where I need a really dumb server for maybe webaccess. I don't know how people use it for email it has so few options there as well. I also don't see any squid options either! WTH I should be able to change the more used options and ACL lists all that. This thing is just frustrating. I do like the templates though .

[Devlyn Davis]

The main thing that attracted me to SME, at least at first, was the mail server support.  There is no other distro, that I'm aware of, that has an easier to setup mail system.  On top of that, one that non-techies can administer.  

I agree that the interface and scritping can be limiting to an experienced admin, but I think its strength lies in that same fact.  For the most part, we want to drop these things in places where the small business owner or office administrator will do ~95% of the day to day admin stuff.  We do not want them getting into the 'guts' of the sytem.  We want them to be able to add and remove users and resources, but not much else.  

I haven't installed Clark Connect yet, but it looks interesting.  But from what I can tell, it does not offer any pre-configured mail system.  Also, how easy is it for the admin to break the system by doing something he shouldn't?

Regards,
-Dev

[Bill Talcott]

What exactly is it that you feel is missing or inadequate? As Dev said, it's geared more as a Plug n Play box to drop into a small office, not as the ultimate server for a Linux guru.

We had a Netwinder (http://www.netwinder.net/) put in for our small office when we got a new server. When we had a hardware failure with it, we found out the company was going out of business and started looking for alternatives. The Toshiba Magnia SG10 is another one we tried. It didn't work at all, but we were told that was due to having the wrong programming dumped into it at the factory. Compared to these, our e-smith is much cheaper (the others started at over $1000, compared to buying another NIC for an old PC we had sitting here). The e-smith uses standard PC parts, so our next hardware failure means a trip to the store rather than buying a whole new unit. The Netwinder also used a custom version of Linux, but it had a StrongARM processor and a lot of nonstandard components (so it could fit into a box the size of a cable modem). I find the e-smith much easier to expand since it's based on open source software and has a large userbase that contributes back to it. If something extensive does need to be done, you can drop to the console if needed.

In many cases a standard e-smith install can be dropped in and work perfectly without doing anything outside of the Server Manager. With a few of the contributed pieces from http://myezserver.com/downloads/mitel/ and http://www.e-smith.org/cgi-bin/contrib.cgi I've found that it gains a lot more functionality and configurability. Overall, I'm very pleased with the e-smith for our situation.

[Eric C.]

Both of you are right. ClarkConnect does have email support built in. I use webmin for everything just about on my CC boxes. The thing I didn't care for was that I couldn't edit the config on squid quickly. I just didn't have access if I needed to change a small setting. E-Smith worked fine it just didn't offer me any choices the web manager just didn't give me the option to start or stop services. I love being able to drop a box that cost me maybe 3-500 bucks with a free iso image like CC or SME and configure and let it go. Sometimes though you just need a little extra. I just felt crowded in SME to where I didn't have more control. What if you wanted to update apache or say PHP I can update it faster than Mitel will or if I need something extra just one more rpm. I realize I would have to do that through the console if it would work at all. Just my taste I but I do agree with both you on your points and you are correct.

Eric

[Devlyn Davis]

Well, I for one appreciate the choices that open source software affords us.  I think having more choices is better than having less choices.  Like I said, I haven't tried Clark Connect, as of yet, mainly because it didn't look like it had built-in email support.  However, if I am wrong about that, I'll give it a shot.

Thanks for pointing it out.

-Dev

[Devlyn Davis]

Actually,  looking at the feature list page for Clark Connect, I do not see where it has a built-in mail server.  When you say it does, do you mean one can easily be added, or do you mean that it is already built in/configured?  In either case, how easy/hard is it to maintain?

http://www.clarkconnect.org/docs/x32.htm#AEN35


Thanks,
-Dev

[Michael Bernardi]

One disadvantage of Clark Connect is it requires a more powerful PC, with more memory, just to get running.

Also if you want to change the configuration of your SME server just use SSH, to connect as root and you can hack config files with vi to your hearts content!

Mike

[Andrei Taylor]

Oh! And Eric if you go to myezserver.com they configured an RPM a while back that tells you which services are running from the server-manager. I think that folks need to look around the forums more for add-on functionality options.

Here are a few sights that have addons out the wazzoo for your SME server!

www.myezserver.com/downloads

www.star-support.com/downloads

www.dungog.net/downloads

Peace!