Topic: Commercial implementations

[guest22]

Hi,

Just curious here...

Did you ever deploy SME Server in a commercial/non profit environment, meaning real business situation.

If so, please tell us about the setup, business requirements, number of workstations and as much details you can/may share. What services are used and what contribs do you use?

And ofcource it the usage of SME Server lived up to the 'promise'

Thanks,
RequestedDeletion

ps. No commercial details please, just 'scenario' style.

[Boris]

I've many dozens "small business" deployments (less then 10 workstations, and few up to 30)

On my main work, we've deployed over a dozen servers as small file/backup servers for smaller workgroups up to 130 users and few bigger boxes as central web and database servers for 1700+ users.

Typical SME use is: firewall/gateway/VPN, file-print server, less mail server and almost always backup server all on the same box.

In the bigger installations I've used it as dedicated mail or/and webserver, dedicated file server and often as domain controller.

Never as a firewall only, but often as a file server only.

Depends on installation purpose I use AV/spam related addons, advanced workgroup addon, dhcp management, chroot ftp, user-panel, awstats, system-monitor, APC-UPS, phpmyadmin, backup2ws, disklow alarm, raidmonitor, if mirror used, twiggi.

From my understanding this is attemtp to collect "real-life to wish-list" set of standrd or most used addons. I would like to see the core distro clean as it is and then add addons as a packs. Let say "WEB server pack" include awstats, chroot ftp, user-shell etc...
"LAN server" pack with advanced workgroup management, DHCP, domain management tools etc...
"ADVANCED MAIL Server pack" AV, spam control, vdomain management, fetchmail or similar etc..

Often used add-ons like system-monitor, disklow alarm, raid-monitor should be part of core distro.


As for if SME Server lived up to the promise, that I only had once have to replace SME with MS Windows server because the main application requirements and I still regret that. So much more problems for the same money

[duncan]

Most of the installations I have done are of the mailserver/gateway variety. Always with the current spam/virus contrib at the time of install. In every case - we will have a couple of users set up for vpn access - either mail collection or accessing services behind the gateway (pcanywhere - remote desktop etc).

These are usually companies around the 15 - 25 employee mark that are migrating from dial up to ADSL and want to administer there own mail domain.

We never install as gateway only and never do file and print serving on a machine running as a gateway/mail server.

In terms of the install living up to the promise - every time. The customer is always happy with a reliable/simple install - set and forget if you like. I have had them quite willing to spend money on new hardware when upgrading from the early e-smith versions to the current SME versions.

A little OT - but my most memorable install was an old 4.something version (remember the original red web pages) that I was using as a test machine for Hylafax. P100 with maybe 80 meg of ram.

A customer who we had just installed a new PABX for was having problems keeping up with Faxes and the paper trail into their call center. I suggested a loan to tide them over until they came up with another solution. That was 2 and a half years ago - they ended up buying it. Every time I go into the comms room to do some work - I see racks of expensive servers, routers and backup gear - and the little P100 still recieving faxes.

[patrick]

Hi. We currently use SME in our school in Perth, Western Australia for PDC, mail, proxy, filesharing, print, remote access(vpn)

We have over 200 user accounts on one server and about 800 on the other, with about 300 machines on the network/s. It is a mixed environement of Wintel, Mac and Linux workstations, and we have various other servers including Win2003, Mac OS X and debian linux.

Teachers have access to various admin functions using user-panel.

Contribs in use are many:

clamav, dialup config, system monitor, dhcp manager, dansguardian, qmHandle, and probably more that I cant think of at the moment (im on holidays)

Im very keen to see what Lycoris does and the licensing model they use.

Cheers
Patrick Tehvand (elSpike)

[NickR]

Like Duncan, I have about a dozen SMEs deployed in smallish installations.  These generally fall into 2 types:

1) Long-standing clients who are still running old Netware servers that are just too damn reliable to die!  In these cases, the SME is just used for email (inc Webmail), firewall & AV.

2) Satelite offices/shops - used here for fileserver, firewall, email, FTP, PPTP.

I have one installation where the SME (v5.1.2) is their only fileserver & is used for major shared-file database work for 10 users with a RAID5 SCSI array & a gigabit NIC.  It hasn't been re-booted for over 2 years!

The majority of my clients were using a paid-for Linux-based server appliance which stopped having any updates etc. and the SME was a fairly close match at the time.  I'm very pleased with E-smith / SME & so are my clients.

I do make extensive use of various contribs & I would emphasise that I feel that this one of the real strengths of the SME.  The contribs are what make the SME such a flexible platform to use as a basis in the small business environment when budgets are often tight.

[crazybob]

I have about 15 servers with ver 5.6 to current. With the exception of the one I use for a little web hosting They are in small offices and configured as server/gateways. Office staff varies from 2 or three to 10 people. I am using software raid with IDE drives on all boxes, and have added a few add ons as needed. I can not see trying to administer all these server using anything but SME. I am far from being a network or Linux or Windooz guru, but this distro ROCKS

Bob

[stephen]

As a general rule I do not use the gateway function of E-Smith server - I have always used IPCop.

Having said that I tend to use E-Smith in two ways:

1) as an email server/webserver/webmail server
2) as a file/print/database server

I am not sure what the intention of this thread is but if it is to determine future directions for E-Smith I would like the ability during the install to select from perhaps a greater number of options on the functionality of the particular server. Currently during the install you get to select either a server/gateway or server only. It would be nice to be able to select from a greater list of options and have some of the services that are not required turned off. This is coming from a security viewpoint ie the smaller number of services running (ie only those required) the smaller the possible attack vectors.

Cheers Steve

[kmccarn]

I have almost 20 SME's deployed around the US. From California, to Boston, to here in Washington, DC.

All of them are for email mostly. Either hosting it or scanning it in front of an exchange server. (or another SME)

I use Dungog's rpm's with a smattering of others.

I also rely heavily on Jesper's work over at Swerts-Knudsen -  his install scripts make my life easy.

I have experimented with many others - got Nagios up and running yesterday and am monitoring 10 of my hosts for one client with it now.

I have always found SME to be a VERY satisfactory solution to many business needs.

[mbachmann]

I have 3 SME's running, one production, one test, one monkey-wrenching, serving some 30 workstations.

The server is used by a company which is manufacturing metal parts. There is left some money for IT but not much - as long as serious problems will not arise.

I have used it since 4.12 (?). The machine servers various purposes, mostly email, internet-gateway/protection, file services, internal webservices and pdf printer. I only have 2-3 years Linux experience with Debian and the SME, as i am more a generalist (like from managing databases to soldering cables) and me is lacking in-deep-special-knowledge.

I plan using VPN/remote access to the companies MS Database when the need comes up, also some webservices are on the horizon and recently RequestedDeletion showed me the wonderful world of VoIP using SME.

Heavily relying on the work of people like Jesper Knudsen, Muzo, Master Sleepy, Duncan Thomas and Robert van der Aker to name but a few. Without them and all the other helpful people i would be quite lost, although there are some Linux grandmasters around here working for XL companies who i could ask.

[kohne]

I have several commercial SME servers running, in different scenario's depending on the requirements of the customer:

A
All-in-one server for e-mail (using Squirrel, amavis en spamassassin), internet gateway, file- en printserver, backup (daily on tape for emergency rescue and rsback on    disk for protection against users). Serving up to 10 clients running W2K

B
Internet gateway for 60 workstations network served primary by Novell Netware. Squid, Dansguardian, amavis minor webservices. Mail is redirected to Mercury mailserver running on Novell áfter being processed by amavis and spamassasin.
Also providing VPN connections for those who need to work at home late.

C
All SME network with three SME servers:
1: internet gateway (squid, amavis, spamasssin)
2: file, print en database (mysql) server, running twiggi for mail/calendar
3: backup server, using rsback to connect to the 'file-server' and using a firewire attached disk (automount) (changed weekly and taken off-site)
I'm still looking how to get a full backup (for bare metal restore) from the 'fileserver' on this box...

D
Using SME server to create a dedicated 'production network', separated from the companywide MS AD network . The SME box act as the gateway between those networks and act as file- and printserver for the production network. This client needes the separation because otherwise they could not fulfill the requirements set by validation officers, when directly connected to the AD network...

E
Privatly, testing, running Twiggi for my mail and calendar, and hosting low bandwith websites (php, mysql, apache) for almost a dozen of domains...


Cheers!

[BoZz]

Hi Brett From Sydney Australia, I've used SME E-Smith / Contribs since the very first beta release many many years ago. Like most have posted I have several commercial SME servers running, in different scenario's depending on the requirements of the customer. Some mixes also include IPCop and MonoWall as the firewall / gateway. And of late MS 2003 server / Contribs mix. I use E-smith with PHP Nuke, PHP Website, Oscomerece, etc. Open GPL Software is great for all. I have found e-smith and the public support far better that any MS product when you match apples for apples if you know what I mean. From a End User point of view better control of internet connection would be good and better Backup. I have some server 's with 40-80 gig of data. A DLT Drive and Tapeware have fixed the back up and IPCop / Monawall for the ADSL / ISDN / Dailup side of the job is a great solution.

[haynest]

I set up a 5.6 system in the summer of 2003 for the school where I teach. We are a laptop school, and used the SME server as a file and web server for the 750 students.

We used phpsysinfo, awstats, userdir and the mondo backup contribs. The users were added and managed via the lazy admin's toolkit. For a while, we ran squid and squiguard on this machine as well.

We had to increase the number of threads for the squid process to handle the traffic. The quotas would get corrupted, and so I reapplied them via a script every morning.

The server performed quite well, although the squid and quota problems were puzzling and of course did not show up until the load was heavy. This server saw very hard use in our boarding school.

[phool]

I have set up 2 SME boxes in my wifes business.  One acts as gateway and the other as an internal fileserver.  

I added meeting room booking system onto the internal private server and use it as a scheduler for appointments.

I am no linux guru but the distro has made things easy to install.  Some editing the php code was needed to get MRBS running.  

The system is soo stable and reliable.
My main need is the security aspect on the gateway box and ease of admin.

Admin of my wifes business lan now happens using putty and SSH and remote desktop.  That gateway box has been rock solid!  

Thanks sme.

As for the future,  Id be hoping to see more detail on security, updates and patch management and as already mentioned spam/mail/antivirus options.  I currently (with only 8 or so users) outsource the mail totally to a US host (Plesk 7 management).  That way I dont worry about being an open relay - whatever that means (see my problem - im clueless).

In a larger number of users scenario would I cough up $ for this?  I would pay a support contract of a couple of hundred a year to have the box remote managed, antivirus and antispam sorted and patched up to date, possibly more....security is very important.

[Brenno]

I've got two "production" servers running right now.  Both are using 6.0 final, Pagefault's antivirus, Jesper's SpamAssassin, as well as other "standard" contribs such as the diskusage, ftproot, user panel, backup to workstation, etc.

The first is my home-based web/email server on which we host small business websites.  It runs on a Proliant 6500, 4xPIII 500 Xeons, and a hardware RAID5 via a SmartArray 221 controller.  This machine runs in server/gateway and provides file storage and internet access for my small home network (<7 PCs.)

The second is for my work web/email server on which it supports about 30 users for IMAP email and hosts 3 corporate websites.  It runs on a Dell Precision 420, dual 1GHz, 1GB RAM, with SME's RAID1 software mirror.  This machine is in server-only mode.

Both machines perform flawlessley and are extremely reliable.  I really enjoy the feeling of being an adminstrator despite my lack of formal training or certification - this goes to show the ease of use for the server which makes it available for many who aren't professional server gurus.  It's also been a great tool to help me learn Linux in general via usage of the command line interface.

As an aside, I've also really, really enjoyed the benefits of this online forum.  Again, not being a professional or accredited administrator has meant that on more than one occassion, this forum has saved my behind and kept my machines running.

Hats off to all the staff, volunteers and enthusiasts who keep this program and it's support running.  I only wish I could help more.

[ryan]

I have SME in use on 4 servers with a state agency.  The primary SME server filters email for viruses and uses rbl, then passes the email to exchange.  This server also provides SMTP service to applications.  The primary SME server also is a proxy for 5 sites.  Squidguard & Sarg allow for required monitoring and filtering of www traffic.  

We have 5 sites with high speed static IP internet connections.  3 of the 5 have IPCop as the IPSEC router/firewall.  The other 2 use a Linksys VPN router/firewall (connecting to IPCop).  

On the side, I have setup a 25 PC (win2k) Dr. Office using SME for the following:  Firewall, pop email, webmail, proxy filtering, and PDC emulator.  The Windows database application is installed on a 2k member server which belongs to the SME Domain.

Another side job includes a similar setup with 6 PCs (winXP) for a realty office.  

Many others have posted much larger and involved SME setups.  The primary reason I posted this message was to relay the problems I had upgrading SME from 5.1.2 to 5.6 and then 5.6 to 6.01-01.  In both cases, PDC samba was negatively impacted.  All clients will lose their trust with the server.  With the 5.6 to 6 upgrade, simply keeping a copy of the secrets.tdb file and copying it to the new location it is stored on SME 6 will correct the problem.  In addition to the samba issues, PPTP between 2 SME 6 servers is still a problem.  

Hopefully future final (upgrade) releases will have all the stock services throughly tested and proven before being released.

ryan