Topic: Is this a good fit for SME?

[Jay69]

This is my question,

We have a small engineering office with 20 people, we are mostly AUTOCAD and Rivet users with 180gigs of drawing files to date. We are having another small office joining us from accross the US, at this point the ammount of information between us is small but we hope to grow that, they will have there own server at this point!

For the last 4 years or so we have been just using a ReadyNAS box with (3)300gig drives in Raid1 and no user accounts. The back up server is some old computer with NASlite. All has been good upto this point.

Looking to update are file server and would like to know if SME is a good fit? I have been playing with SME for about a year and it seems fine, but also it seems to do so much more than we need it to do, so I'm having second thoughts.

Things I want to do.

Serve files (samba)
Sync with a off site box
Local Web Interface, because I'm a noob
RAID
User Accounts
SSH if needed?
Remote Access thru are VPN/Router (PPTP?)

Would prefer to build are own matching boxes with two in the office (primary and backup) and a third (off site backup).

Will want to build a seperate FTP box to, thats what I have been using the current SME server for, it works fine but the one thing I dont like is that all my users can see all other user folders, I'm sure there is a way to fix this but have not been able to find it.

We also have another seprate box that we are using for a print server, I think we will leave that one alone at this point.

Being that our drawing and specification files are all that keeps are company running, I like having one box to handel just that if that make any sense.

I guess I belive the KISS approach.

Thanks

Jay

[mercyh]

It seems to me it would work fine.

but also it seems to do so much more than we need it to do, so I'm having second thoughts.

If you are concerned about the Web and E-mail capability and would choose not to use it you could just not allow those ports out through your router.

One concern with using multiple solutions like you are doing is that it will be difficult for you to have a single user signon for all systems. Ideally with only 20 users you would want to consolidate as many services as possible on one server and then concentrate on a good backup/redundancy solution for that box.

I personally would try to get everything working on one SME then use affa onsite and offsite. You could quickly "rise" the affa box if anything went south with the main server.

What are you trying to accomplish with your FTP server? would this help?
http://wiki.contribs.org/Webshare

[sal1504]

Jay69

I have two engineering firms using SMEServer V7.3. Both are very happy. They are servers that I built for them. They use them for Web Services, FTP, EMail, Collaboration and Project Management, one  using GroupOffice and the other Egroupware. They are doing every thing you are wanting to do and then some. They are using Autocad and are sharing a HP Plotter and a CalComp plotter off the back of the server.

Sal

[Jay69]

Thanks guys,

I will give it a whirl. I was looking at the Egroupware that does look nice, saw that earlier today, will have to load that up on a test box.

I also like the webftp idea to, the only concern I have is giving the outside world any chance of getting to are main the files, that was the only reason I wanted it on a seperate box, guess I'm a little paranoid about that:)

I was looking at Ubuntu Server with Ebox to, I loaded that one up, thats way to much, but very neat I thought.

I guess what makes this so confusing for me is that there are many Linux choices and i don't know where to start or what fits best. I am, or was a windoz guy, we only had three choices. But I will say I'm loving this Linux stuff. Installed a Trixbox PBX for are phone system with some help, now that is really cool.

Thought the new server would be easier:)

Thanks Again

Jay
 

[gzartman]

Jay,

I did EXACTLY what you are wanting to do in my company.  I have a small engineering company with offices in two towns separated by 80miles or so. 

We work primarily with AutoCAD files. 

I can tell you this from my experience:  What you are wanting to do is not easy to maintain with SME Server.  Here's why:

1. It is no doubt desirable to you, as it was for me, to centralize user authentication.   There really is no easy way to do this for two subnets, connected by a WAN, with SME Server.  You'll either need to have a single SME server at one location, meaning the remote office will be authenticating across the WAN.  Lose the WAN and your users won't be able to log in to their workstations.  Or, you'll need to have an SME Server at both locations so both subnets can have local auth, but the difficulty is how to keep the two sets of users accounts synchronized.   

If you can setup a reliable VPN connection between your two subnets, then you'll likely have the best success with a single SME Server providing auth for both subnets.  Again, the WAN is the weak link here.

2. The files you are working with are too large for users to pull back and forth across the WAN.  Therefore, the best solution is to maintain identical sets of data at both locations.  I did this using the utility Unison.  I created a set of perl scripts that I'd be happy to send you that syncs ibays between SME Boxes at desired intervals (I used once per hour).   There is a slight issue of a user modifying the exact file at both locations at the same time, which can cause some sync issues.  However, this issue is managable with some protocols to your users.

Also, have a look at my recent work with smeserver-adv-samba here:  http://wiki.contribs.org/Advanced_Samba

This wiki document provides some functionality that will be of value to you and it also relies on updated e-smith-samba packages that provides updated WINS functionality that enhances network browsing across subnets, which is what you are going to need between your two subnets.

There are just a few thoughts.  I just want to impress upon you that using SME to tie two offices together with the types of data you and I work with is not for the faint of heart.  Proceed with caution and only deploy your solution in production once you've field tested it.

Greg


 

[Jay69]

Greg

You are correct in the way Autocad works, you either need fiber between your buildings or a product like Riverbed. Autocad does not play well over a VPN with the way it hashes the file back and fourth.

At this point it will be 2 seperate servers with one at each location.

Sounds like this is going to be a fun little project, I design electrcial systems for comercial buildings and play computer guy 10% of my time, always fun to learn somthing a little different.

Jay

[kevinb]

We have a similar situation except our engineers are spread over six sites. We use the subversion add-on with very good results. All files are worked on at the local host and sync'd to the server. It will prevent accidental over-writing of others' files and keep a history of the files checked in.

It shares files over the internet using SSH so the clients do not have to be on the same network nor do they need to VPN in.

[gzartman]

If centralized authentication is not a priority, then this effort loses an order of magnitude of difficulty.   However, without centralized auth, keeping user accounts in order becomes an increasingly time consuming and complex task.  Personally, I'd setup VPN between the routers for the offices and have all user auth provided by a single SME box.

Local file servers would then house the data for each office.

Unison is definitely a very good option for syncing data, as unison is a cross between rsync and CVS.  Essentially, you get the versioning benefits of a CVS, without users needing to know CVS or interact with some kind of client app. 

Another option for managing AutoCAD files is Autodesk Vault.  Vault is a CVS type setup for AutoCAD products.  You setup the Vault server on a dedicated windows box, then install vault clients right in AutoCAD.  Users can easily check out and check in drawings/projects from the vault server just like a typical CVS setup.  I just recently setup a Vault server, but am not sure how it would function across a WAN.  Perhaps it is possible to setup vault servers at each location and configure the vault server to sync with each other.  Might be worth looking at.

Greg

[Jay69]

If centralized authentication is not a priority, then this effort loses an order of magnitude of difficulty.   However, without centralized auth, keeping user accounts in order becomes an increasingly time consuming and complex task.  Personally, I'd setup VPN between the routers for the offices and have all user auth provided by a single SME box.

At this point centralized authentication is not required, with that being the case would that change your mind Greg

Jay

[gzartman]

At this point centralized authentication is not required, with that being the case would that change your mind Greg

Jay

Yes.  Setup an SME server in each office and configure them in workgroup mode. 

Setup unison to sync the ibays between your offices.  I'll dig up my perl scripts and post them in my contribs area and get back to you. 

Greg

[Jay69]

Thanks Greg

Jay

[kevinb]

Greg, I would be interested too in your scripts too.

I have never used Unison and am just reading up on it now. From what I can tell (please correct me if I am in error):

Pros:
No user interface required
Users read and write to local server
Can replicate several servers in both directions
File history is maintained (unsure of where)

Cons:
It sounds like it is designed to replicate files on demand and not when modified (maybe it can with some work)
Admin intervention required if two files modified at more than one site
If two files modified then one will be deleted completely
Secure data transfer setup may be complicated
Multiple users at one site could modify the same file and the first change would be lost
For SME it needs to be setup and configured
For SME it is not updated


Using SVN to manage working folders and files:

Pros:
SVN is a SME add-on
SVN will be updated as long as a contributor updates the sme-addon repository
Authenticates against SME user accounts
Working files are copied to the local host (user can be off line and work, they just can’t upload, good for laptops and road-warriors)
Users can lock their files preventing accidental overwriting by others
One way replication of server data can be done. Users read from local, replicated server and write to master server. (not setup in SME)
Can be upgraded to a full blown PLM system, Collabnet (not in SME)
Simple, intuitive user interface via Windows Explorer
Users can resolve their own conflicts
All conflicting files are saved in case the wrong file is deleted
File history is maintained
Can be accessed over the internet via SSL (good for home users and road-warriors)
Only files changes are transferred for non-binary files (less bandwidth)

Cons:
Client software must be installed
To date two way server replication not possible
Some user training required


If you use SVN you could have a primary SME server at one site for everyone’s email and SVN and a secondary SME server at the second site. Have SME backup servers at each site for local backup using AFFA and use AFFA for cross backup of the other site.

As Greg pointed out central authentication is difficult (but not impossible) with two SME servers and his work on samba will improve this. Someday central authentication may be a no-brainer.

[gzartman]

CVS/SVN is not a good tool, IMO, for version control of AutoCAD based design files.   It can't really do anything for you other than let you know if someone else has checked out the file or if their is a conflict.  Once a file is checked in, there's no way to know what changed.  CVS or SVN can't read *.dwg format...

If you are wanting true version control of your drawings, you are going to need Autodesk Vault.

It's hard to compare SVN to Unison because they serve two different purposes.  As previously stated, Unison is basically rsync with a CVS backend.   Unison is really closer to rsync than CVS.

Unison was designed to synchronize data and with a little config work, can give you everything SVN is giving you. 

Finally, I wouldn't feel comfortable deploying SVN/CVS clients to regular users, which is what your typical engineer is.   I have no doubt my guys would just make a mess of things -- I imagine I'd have multiple local versions spread across several workstations, or something like this.

With unison, I know the files are getting synced properly, because I control it.  While there is some risk of a version conflict, it is pretty small really.  If it really worries you, then set the unison syncs really close.  If a ACAD file gets opened, unison will sync over the drawing lock file, preventing other users from opening the file in read-write mode.

Greg