[ Clarified ] Few doubts on zentyal softwares

[Zent User]

 In zentyal 3.0 I've few doubts ,I've searched for answers in google but not found effective answers ( might be my searching strategies not that much effective  ) So, raised question here,

   1) What is the main difference between RADIUS server and Captive Portal,how can I use both.

   2) Zentyal providing Zarafa & Web mail, what is the main reason providing two similar ( because we can replace web mail completely with Zarafa,I think    ) softwares . If I enable these two softwares will it leads to any configuration issues ?

        Thanks

   

[christian]

Radius has nothing to do with captive portal. This is a protocol used for authentication, authorization and accounting (also known as AAA) while captive portal is rather application and infrastructure component used to redirect web access to this portal in order to implement either access control or payment or whatever you may need.

I'm indeed surprised you didn't find in on internet 

Difference between Zarafa and web mail is less obvious from end-user standpoint. Both are providing web based access to mailbox but Zarafa is offering addition features to emulate Microsoft Exchange server, including MAPI protocol.
However, you have to keep in mind that you can't deploy both because Zarafa uses proprietary mail store.

My personal standpoint is that is you don't need to emulate Exchange and don't need the calendar and pseudo groupware stuff Zarafa offers, you should not go in this direction because of its proprietary approach.

[half_life]

My personal standpoint is that is you don't need to emulate Exchange and don't need the calendar and pseudo groupware stuff Zarafa offers, you should not go in this direction because of its proprietary approach.

+1 to this.  Depending on your email retention policies you might find yourself managing a rather large mysql database in a few years.  The State of Virginia in the US requires government bodies to hold on to most documents (email included) for three years.

[christian]

Well, I made a typo and meant:

My personal standpoint is that if you don't need to emulate Exchange and don't need the calendar and pseudo groupware stuff Zarafa offers, you should not go in this direction because of its proprietary approach.

[half_life]

No need to correct it Christian.  It stood well enough on its own to an english speaker. Maintenant, si je devais passer au français, je ne suis pas sûr que je pourrais être compris du tout. <--- Now if I was to switch to french, I am not sure that I could be understood at all.

[ichat]

well, on the dev mailing list i read some  technical bla bla (ya i know im not a coder so even   "hello world" is bla bla to me ), from witch i understand some contributions are made that would grately simplify  intergrating  intergrating an aditional groupware.

(sogo was named as an example), meaning  the advanteges of  groupware without the disadvanges of  mapi (for us non-windows users that is)... 

[Zent User]

@ Christian,

      You have given example where we can use "Captive Portal" exactly, but I'm not getting thought "where we can implement RADIUS" effectively.

[christian]

What do you mean?
Radius in Zentyal or Radius in IT infrastructure?

Do you need Radius or is it for your own knowledge?

[Zent User]

As you said "Captive Portal" is for "in order to implement either access control or payment " , exactly "how can I use RADIUS", I've enabled RADIUS server in zentyal and added a client (which is connect to LAN) also but it found any effect of "AAA" . Is RADIUS server is for wireless networks ?

       If this question is not appropriate question in zentyal forum,please excuse me .

[christian]

You could use Radius to authenticate from e.g. your Wifi access point or remote access.
If you do your homework (meaning e.g. use Google to find examples of Radius implementation) you will quickly see whenever equipment or application you run in your location could benefit from Zentyal Radius 

Notice that current Zentyal Radius does not implement (well I should say expose) the third "A", meaning accounting.
So you can use it for authentication, basic authorization but there is no (yet) accounting.

[half_life]

Radius is an authentication protocol.  For instance I use Radius at work and home to control who not what can connect to my wireless network.  Access points can filter by mac address and/or require a generic key to allow access.  Radius requires each user requesting access to provide credentials before allowing them access to the network. That way if you have one user compromised (someone else gained access to their password) you only need to change one users credentials not change every device that accesses the network.  Captive portal on the other hand controls who can access the internet via the network.  You have seen it at hotels.  When you first open a browser, it is redirected to a login page.  Once you have logged in it will allow you to access the internet.

[Zent User]

Thanks half_life for clarifying my doubt.