Yes, I agree with you poundjd. If eBox is really moving in the direction of multiple-eBox infrastructure, you'll wanna organize it in a way where the packages always have what you'd install.
Oh yeah, that's what I was going to note, there should be two sections, client and server rather than each grouping having its own.
Currently some services have their own client or server area (Network > DNS and then DNS), then there are some with both (VPN > Server or VPN > Client). It should be more specific to the service you wanna host. Instead of looking for VPN, you should look for what you wanna do. I want to setup a VPN server with DHCP and DNS right? Then it should be all one package you look at on the screen in the browser rather than a bunch of separate entities.
I would like to see some examples of this in action so we can kind of decide on (as users) what we prefer.
I made an example, but I don't know if this quite captures the idea I'm trying to get across:
http://badmarkup.com/ebox/eBox-Interface-Mod-02.png.
I'm really showing off one screen here, but you should be able to click on the numbers and just change them. That tones down the amount of screens you need to go to or click on. Think about all your are seeing here. It's the dashboard, a way to edit network interfaces, VPN, anything just by a single click. You should be able to click on a hyperlink of the network name edit icon and edit all the options of that network including DNS, DHCP, VPN, and others. There needs to be another section for certs obviously. I would really like to see a way to make multiple certificate authorities so each VPN can use a different set of select certs. I wanna see what other people think of this first before I move on and do more examples.
I really think more screens need to be condensed. The interface as it is works, but it's slow and messy and leaves much to be desired. I would really like to have a more stream-lined interface which lets you manage a bunch of related features all on one screen rather than tons of different screens. When setting aliases for example, I'd rather edit a table of aliases so I might be able to copy/paste rather than editing each one individually. eBox should definitely not resemble the click-fest of SOHO routers.
Oo, even better! Manage and modify other eBoxes from your main eBox. I guess, because of business reasons, you could make this for local boxes only. It would be neat to have a way to see not only this machine's server/client networks, but also those of other eBoxes in the home network and modify those from this one screen.