I'm proud to announce that after 18 months of intense work, we have managed to release v9 of Koozali SME Server.
This has been a massive task and a huge amount of work for the small but dedicated team behind it.
You can download it from here :
www.contribs.org
Release announcement is here :
http://lists.contribs.org/pipermail/updatesannounce/2014-June/000366.html
Remember, it is free to download install and use, but it is NOT free to build.
We have numerous costs associated with producing Koozali SME, the largest being the hosting costs. If you want to see it continue, please consider a donation.
If you use it in your business, especially if you are an integrator and profiting from its use, please pass a little of that profit back to Koozali so we can continue to update and build new versions.
The easy to setup and simple to use small business server is now based on RHEL/CentOS 6.
In migrating to CentOS 6 the main plan was to move everything 'as is' (as much as we could) to the new, more 'up to date' base. Please see the release notes for other items fixed or updated.
Now we are on the new base we can start to look at other areas of the system that we can update - the server manager panel iteself will be a major focus for us as we head to towards RHEL / CentOS 7
A huge thank you to all those involved in the project.
One note of extreme sadness is that Chris Burnat, one of our senior developers, and without whose support and huge efforts we would be nowhere near finished, died shortly before we released.
We dedicate this release to the memory of him.
Thank you Chris. May your star shine forever brightly.
Showing posts with label server. Show all posts
Showing posts with label server. Show all posts
Saturday, July 5, 2014
Thursday, January 31, 2013
SME server - easy to use linux server
Thought I would write a short piece on my favourite Linux server software.
Thinking of moving away from Windows, or feel you could do with a small file server at home ?
I have been using SME Server aka contribs.org for about 10 years now. It's history is long and varied and has passed through a number of hands, and plenty of turmoil, in that time.
The commercial version of it is used as the basis for Mitel Networks VOIP servers.
The fundamental tenet of the distro is that it should 'just work'.
The base system is CentOS - repackaged Red Hat Enterprise Linux. So you get a rock solid core.
The system is designed to be secure out of the box. You can change that as you require, but you can sleep easy knowing that even if you aren't a linux admin, your box is safe.
On top of this is an easy to use management system written in Perl (I know, I used to panic, but not any more - if you think PHP is great, read here and here). The beauty of it is that you can start by just using the built in web interface. So it is easy to set up users, shares, email etc.
Underneath this simple system is a very clever set of templates. So all the fundamental config files are regenerated without you having to touch a thing if you don't want to.
If you want do do more, the template system has an override system, so you can add your own templates, or fragments thereof, which will be incorporated into the config when you regenerate files.
All the important system settings are stored in an easy to use database system and you can modify or add to these easily from the command line if you so require.
There are numerous contributions from users for all sorts of things. I have run various different applications on mine - currently we use vTiger for work, I have one for SVN and trac, Joomla, eGroupware, Wordpress, ZenCart and so the list goes on.
It has 3 basic modes - Local server only, Local Gateway and server or Public gateway and server. You can also modify it to run on a VPS as well - this needs a small hack now, but will be incorporated in due course.
The downsides. There aren't many really.
It's weakest link is that is IS easy to use and attracts a lot of 'non' admins. That means that there are fewer competent people to code for it. As a result after the release of v8 based on CentOS 5.x last year, things had gone very quiet.
However, there has been a renewed interest recently, and the community is now trying to forge ahead and build v9 built on CentOS 6.
I for one would recommend it to anyone, but particularly if you are just starting with a linux.
I did, mainly because I was concerned about security as I didn't have that much knowledge and was concerned that if I built a box myself, it would be vulnerable. Why reinvent the wheel ???
In 10 years I have had only two successful hack attempts, and both of those were because the people whose servers were hacked had done some silly things - one had disabled the automatic enforcement of strong passwords and changed their passwords to easy ones....... and the other one had installed a php application, disabled some security, and not kept it updated..... both against my advice :-)
Even now, I have no reason to go elsewhere. It does all I need, quietly and without fuss. The uptimes can be astonishing (the odd updates excepted).
So if you fancy a play, go and have a look on www.contribs.org
And don't just download it, join in. There is a job for EVERYONE ! It only works with help from the community, be that coding, bug fixing, testing, writing or reading documents.
So go on, grab a copy and have a play ! It's childs play.....
Thinking of moving away from Windows, or feel you could do with a small file server at home ?
I have been using SME Server aka contribs.org for about 10 years now. It's history is long and varied and has passed through a number of hands, and plenty of turmoil, in that time.
The commercial version of it is used as the basis for Mitel Networks VOIP servers.
The fundamental tenet of the distro is that it should 'just work'.
The base system is CentOS - repackaged Red Hat Enterprise Linux. So you get a rock solid core.
The system is designed to be secure out of the box. You can change that as you require, but you can sleep easy knowing that even if you aren't a linux admin, your box is safe.
On top of this is an easy to use management system written in Perl (I know, I used to panic, but not any more - if you think PHP is great, read here and here). The beauty of it is that you can start by just using the built in web interface. So it is easy to set up users, shares, email etc.
Underneath this simple system is a very clever set of templates. So all the fundamental config files are regenerated without you having to touch a thing if you don't want to.
If you want do do more, the template system has an override system, so you can add your own templates, or fragments thereof, which will be incorporated into the config when you regenerate files.
All the important system settings are stored in an easy to use database system and you can modify or add to these easily from the command line if you so require.
There are numerous contributions from users for all sorts of things. I have run various different applications on mine - currently we use vTiger for work, I have one for SVN and trac, Joomla, eGroupware, Wordpress, ZenCart and so the list goes on.
It has 3 basic modes - Local server only, Local Gateway and server or Public gateway and server. You can also modify it to run on a VPS as well - this needs a small hack now, but will be incorporated in due course.
The downsides. There aren't many really.
It's weakest link is that is IS easy to use and attracts a lot of 'non' admins. That means that there are fewer competent people to code for it. As a result after the release of v8 based on CentOS 5.x last year, things had gone very quiet.
However, there has been a renewed interest recently, and the community is now trying to forge ahead and build v9 built on CentOS 6.
I for one would recommend it to anyone, but particularly if you are just starting with a linux.
I did, mainly because I was concerned about security as I didn't have that much knowledge and was concerned that if I built a box myself, it would be vulnerable. Why reinvent the wheel ???
In 10 years I have had only two successful hack attempts, and both of those were because the people whose servers were hacked had done some silly things - one had disabled the automatic enforcement of strong passwords and changed their passwords to easy ones....... and the other one had installed a php application, disabled some security, and not kept it updated..... both against my advice :-)
Even now, I have no reason to go elsewhere. It does all I need, quietly and without fuss. The uptimes can be astonishing (the odd updates excepted).
So if you fancy a play, go and have a look on www.contribs.org
And don't just download it, join in. There is a job for EVERYONE ! It only works with help from the community, be that coding, bug fixing, testing, writing or reading documents.
So go on, grab a copy and have a play ! It's childs play.....
Wednesday, January 16, 2013
BT email servers and settings
Oh joy. BT are upgrading their email system. Welcome to the brave new world of Office 365. What a piece of junk it is too.
Which meant that I, and plenty of others, have been left up a creek without a paddle.
OK, so you are wondering what they have done and how to connect.
In the first instance they have sold their souls to the devil (that is M$). That's because it is easier for them to sub it out. It also means that M$ get their hands on a whole pile of new customers to try and flog their products too. Oooohhh, and I guess a sneak preview of all your lovely data for 'Boing' too. Nice.
BT will undoubtedly get some 'kickback' from M$. Despite Phorm being kicked in to touch, I am pretty sure they do a whole load of looking at your data - all those 'useful' BT helper applications monitoring all your activity.
They have also tried to cure that pesky problem of greedy little businesses trying to run servers and lots of computers behind their routers. What a nasty bunch of users they are too. They've all got loads of money and none of it is going to BT.
OK. So the bit you want. New BT login details as follows.
POP setting
SMTP setting
Username maybe one of the following depending on what service you have :
Office 365 drawbacks. Where do I start ? BT expects that every user will use the online webmail. Which is awful. No consideration that people might not want to use it.
If you do you still use a desktop client, each user now has to authenticate with their own login details to send email (the From address has to match the login details). It completely screws you if you have your own server using the BT/M$ smarthost using one generic account for sending. I guess you can so something if you have M$ Exchange server, but if you use something like a Linux server, then currently you are right royally buggered. There probably is a solution, but at the minute I don't know what it is and I'm trying to find out.
So now you have to set up each client to send directly to the BT/M$ smarthost, bypassing your own server. A lot of work, and it means you can't control outgoing mail on your server so no generic company signatures, outgoing virus checking etc etc etc
This was changed without any notification and left lots of people wondering why their mail wouldn't send. Nice.
It was done allegedly to cut out the amount of spam being sent through BT. Sorry. That's there problem to sort out. If their systems are that awful they need to sort it out. Not screw the genuine customers who cause no problems.
(And I know how bad they are from the time I accidentally hacked one of their servers. I didn't even mean too ! Their 2nd in command for all their systems acknowledged it was about 9/10 on the severity scale, and had I been a bad boy, I could have royally shafted them. When they looked at the exploit they even found several more..........)
If you use an older version of Outlook e.g. 2003 or before then this seems to be your only choice. For newer versions it seems they provide a yet another pain in the arse 'helper' application for you. Oh joy. See this http://btbusiness.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/18599
For Outlook Express (Does anyone still use it ? If so they should be shot) and similar see this : http://btbusiness.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/18740/kw/18740
With my linux server and Thunderbird I have had to temporarily route all my mail via another provider. Ironically that is Telefonica, who own BT !!!!
Your problems don't end there. There are new sending limits but they don't tell you about it when (if) you are notified the system is changing : http://btbusiness.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/c/2048,2053,3883,2073/a_id/1241/kw/email%20sending%20limits
Ha, and another gotcha - they sent us a notification they were changing the account, but they sent the login details etc to the NEW email account. Great when you don't know the details..... idiots.
Anyway, so you get a bigger mailbox, but what they give with one hand they take with another....
The biggest problem:
1. using SMTP you can only send to a max of 50 people with a limit of 25mb per email
2. using Outlook Web Access it is 200 people and 10mb
3. No more 'catch all' mailboxes
So no more email newsletters. Well, you could always pay more I guess.
If you hit this page you will see it says :
"There’s a problem with your SMTP authentication.
If you're getting an error message saying Recipient not authorised, you may need to change the SMTP server for the mail account you're sending from."
Yeah, so how, as I said above, can you get your SMTP server to individually authorise each outgoing email ???
A few other little gotchas that you might like to think about.
Make sure that you at least login to your OWA account and turn off automatic junk just in case. I'm not sure what happens when you collect mail, but to be certain it doesn't just collect from your inbox, thereby missing a potentially important message it thought was junk, it is worth making sure that it all stays in your inbox.
Note that they also have there own junk filters which take out anything THEY consider to be junk without a by your leave and no notification. So if you have been wondering why you sometimes don't get an email, this could be the reason.
365 uptime? 99.9% (so they claim) up time = 364.635 days. So that isn't 24/7/365 is it ? And you can be sure that half a day it's down, you'll need it most.
365 has already had a number of notable outages. Personally I wouldn't trust any cloud system with my mail. I will never use gmail for anything other than junk. Same goes for M$. I have to use M$ at the minute but won't leave anything on their servers. And shortly I will have my own server running and be totally independently of them.
I'm sure I could go on. Certainly if you look in the help forums (which are heavily moderated) there has been a lot of unhappy customers.
Personally I am taking away ALL services from BT barring the line itself. Quite simply, I just don't trust them.
Good luck !
Which meant that I, and plenty of others, have been left up a creek without a paddle.
OK, so you are wondering what they have done and how to connect.
In the first instance they have sold their souls to the devil (that is M$). That's because it is easier for them to sub it out. It also means that M$ get their hands on a whole pile of new customers to try and flog their products too. Oooohhh, and I guess a sneak preview of all your lovely data for 'Boing' too. Nice.
BT will undoubtedly get some 'kickback' from M$. Despite Phorm being kicked in to touch, I am pretty sure they do a whole load of looking at your data - all those 'useful' BT helper applications monitoring all your activity.
They have also tried to cure that pesky problem of greedy little businesses trying to run servers and lots of computers behind their routers. What a nasty bunch of users they are too. They've all got loads of money and none of it is going to BT.
OK. So the bit you want. New BT login details as follows.
POP setting
- Server name: pop.outlook.com
- Port: 995
- Encryption method: SSL
SMTP setting
- Server name: smtp.outlook.com
- Port: 587
- Encryption method: SSL/TLS
Username maybe one of the following depending on what service you have :
- yourname@btclick.com
- yourname@btconnect.com
- an email address which uses a domain name you own, e.g. yourname@yourcompany.co.uk/.com/.net
Office 365 drawbacks. Where do I start ? BT expects that every user will use the online webmail. Which is awful. No consideration that people might not want to use it.
If you do you still use a desktop client, each user now has to authenticate with their own login details to send email (the From address has to match the login details). It completely screws you if you have your own server using the BT/M$ smarthost using one generic account for sending. I guess you can so something if you have M$ Exchange server, but if you use something like a Linux server, then currently you are right royally buggered. There probably is a solution, but at the minute I don't know what it is and I'm trying to find out.
So now you have to set up each client to send directly to the BT/M$ smarthost, bypassing your own server. A lot of work, and it means you can't control outgoing mail on your server so no generic company signatures, outgoing virus checking etc etc etc
This was changed without any notification and left lots of people wondering why their mail wouldn't send. Nice.
It was done allegedly to cut out the amount of spam being sent through BT. Sorry. That's there problem to sort out. If their systems are that awful they need to sort it out. Not screw the genuine customers who cause no problems.
(And I know how bad they are from the time I accidentally hacked one of their servers. I didn't even mean too ! Their 2nd in command for all their systems acknowledged it was about 9/10 on the severity scale, and had I been a bad boy, I could have royally shafted them. When they looked at the exploit they even found several more..........)
If you use an older version of Outlook e.g. 2003 or before then this seems to be your only choice. For newer versions it seems they provide a yet another pain in the arse 'helper' application for you. Oh joy. See this http://btbusiness.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/18599
For Outlook Express (Does anyone still use it ? If so they should be shot) and similar see this : http://btbusiness.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/18740/kw/18740
With my linux server and Thunderbird I have had to temporarily route all my mail via another provider. Ironically that is Telefonica, who own BT !!!!
Your problems don't end there. There are new sending limits but they don't tell you about it when (if) you are notified the system is changing : http://btbusiness.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/c/2048,2053,3883,2073/a_id/1241/kw/email%20sending%20limits
Ha, and another gotcha - they sent us a notification they were changing the account, but they sent the login details etc to the NEW email account. Great when you don't know the details..... idiots.
Anyway, so you get a bigger mailbox, but what they give with one hand they take with another....
The biggest problem:
1. using SMTP you can only send to a max of 50 people with a limit of 25mb per email
2. using Outlook Web Access it is 200 people and 10mb
3. No more 'catch all' mailboxes
So no more email newsletters. Well, you could always pay more I guess.
If you hit this page you will see it says :
"There’s a problem with your SMTP authentication.
If you're getting an error message saying Recipient not authorised, you may need to change the SMTP server for the mail account you're sending from."
Yeah, so how, as I said above, can you get your SMTP server to individually authorise each outgoing email ???
A few other little gotchas that you might like to think about.
Make sure that you at least login to your OWA account and turn off automatic junk just in case. I'm not sure what happens when you collect mail, but to be certain it doesn't just collect from your inbox, thereby missing a potentially important message it thought was junk, it is worth making sure that it all stays in your inbox.
Note that they also have there own junk filters which take out anything THEY consider to be junk without a by your leave and no notification. So if you have been wondering why you sometimes don't get an email, this could be the reason.
365 uptime? 99.9% (so they claim) up time = 364.635 days. So that isn't 24/7/365 is it ? And you can be sure that half a day it's down, you'll need it most.
365 has already had a number of notable outages. Personally I wouldn't trust any cloud system with my mail. I will never use gmail for anything other than junk. Same goes for M$. I have to use M$ at the minute but won't leave anything on their servers. And shortly I will have my own server running and be totally independently of them.
I'm sure I could go on. Certainly if you look in the help forums (which are heavily moderated) there has been a lot of unhappy customers.
Personally I am taking away ALL services from BT barring the line itself. Quite simply, I just don't trust them.
Good luck !
Monday, October 8, 2012
BT Office 365 upgrade disaster
Well, today BTs planned upgrade to Office 365 started. What a complete and utter bucket of shite, both the upgrade and the software.
At about 2pm we stopped receiving any email.
After sitting like a pillock for a while, I started to have a look around and realised that lots of people seemed to be having problems.
I contacted BT on their upgrade line, but the people there are CLUELESS about what is going on, and can't do anything to help.
Apparently I should have received an email about the upgrade. Nope. I had one originally advising me that it was going to happen, but nothing subsequent to that. Apparently it would give me the new server details. Nope. More advice about that email. "BUT I DIDN'T FUCKING GET IT. GET IT ???????"
I had logged into my account a week or so back to see what was happening and there were a load of Office 365 upgrade 'problems' e.g. short passwords - that needed 'resolving'. I did that (wonder what would have happened if I hadn't ?) and all seemed well. Until today that is.
I figured that the quickest route to solving this would be to change the DNS settings and push all mail for my domain to my own server and cut BT out of the loop entirely. Except. BT, of course.
My web server is already pointed elsewhere so I should be able to do the same with my mail server. Nope. Seems that they have forgotten that they manage this domain as there is nothing in the domain control panel. Pricks. Probably disabled as they change all their DNS stuff for their mail servers which is probably where all the fuck ups are in the first place.
I phoned BT again as I now want to scream. The next advisor was as useless as the first.He could do nothing about my email, or my domain names - phone another number which had closed for the night.......
I eventually lost my temper with him. And he eventually, very kindly, cut me off. Prick. This is our livelihood, not some game.
Anyway, for those of you stupid enough to entrust your email with BT (or actually it will be with those thieving, out sourced, bastards Microsoft) your new server settings that you should have been given are as follows :
incoming POP server: pop.outlook.com
port: 995
user name: yourname@btconnect.com
Connection security: SSL/TLS
Authentication: Normal password
Outgoing server: smtp.outlook.com
port: 587 (or, possibly 25)
Connection security: STARTTLS
Authentication: Normal password
user name: yourname
You may need to delete the old password in Tools/Options/Security/Passwords/Saved Passwords, restart TB, and enter the correct one when prompted at the next connection.
And another bit regarding possible mailbox limits. I could easily break this limit on our newsletter account.....
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/small-businesses-beware-the-office-365-fine-print/4151
As I don't want Microsoft looking though all my emails, I am now going to do what I should have a long time ago which is to get the lot sent straight to my server and have a fallover/backup MX server in case it goes offline.
That is if I can ever get control of my own friggin domains.
BT I fucking HATE YOU ..........
At about 2pm we stopped receiving any email.
After sitting like a pillock for a while, I started to have a look around and realised that lots of people seemed to be having problems.
I contacted BT on their upgrade line, but the people there are CLUELESS about what is going on, and can't do anything to help.
Apparently I should have received an email about the upgrade. Nope. I had one originally advising me that it was going to happen, but nothing subsequent to that. Apparently it would give me the new server details. Nope. More advice about that email. "BUT I DIDN'T FUCKING GET IT. GET IT ???????"
I had logged into my account a week or so back to see what was happening and there were a load of Office 365 upgrade 'problems' e.g. short passwords - that needed 'resolving'. I did that (wonder what would have happened if I hadn't ?) and all seemed well. Until today that is.
I figured that the quickest route to solving this would be to change the DNS settings and push all mail for my domain to my own server and cut BT out of the loop entirely. Except. BT, of course.
My web server is already pointed elsewhere so I should be able to do the same with my mail server. Nope. Seems that they have forgotten that they manage this domain as there is nothing in the domain control panel. Pricks. Probably disabled as they change all their DNS stuff for their mail servers which is probably where all the fuck ups are in the first place.
I phoned BT again as I now want to scream. The next advisor was as useless as the first.He could do nothing about my email, or my domain names - phone another number which had closed for the night.......
I eventually lost my temper with him. And he eventually, very kindly, cut me off. Prick. This is our livelihood, not some game.
Anyway, for those of you stupid enough to entrust your email with BT (or actually it will be with those thieving, out sourced, bastards Microsoft) your new server settings that you should have been given are as follows :
incoming POP server: pop.outlook.com
port: 995
user name: yourname@btconnect.com
Connection security: SSL/TLS
Authentication: Normal password
Outgoing server: smtp.outlook.com
port: 587 (or, possibly 25)
Connection security: STARTTLS
Authentication: Normal password
user name: yourname
You may need to delete the old password in Tools/Options/Security/Passwords/Saved Passwords, restart TB, and enter the correct one when prompted at the next connection.
And another bit regarding possible mailbox limits. I could easily break this limit on our newsletter account.....
http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/small-businesses-beware-the-office-365-fine-print/4151
As I don't want Microsoft looking though all my emails, I am now going to do what I should have a long time ago which is to get the lot sent straight to my server and have a fallover/backup MX server in case it goes offline.
That is if I can ever get control of my own friggin domains.
BT I fucking HATE YOU ..........
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)