Poll

Please, choose the most critical environment where you have installed eBox Platform so far:

1. Home Server
2. Non-profit service
3. Own organization - test environment
4. Own organization - production environment
5. Customer's premises
6. Other (please specify below)

Author Topic: Usage of eBox Platform  (Read 12903 times)

nachico

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Usage of eBox Platform
« on: August 24, 2009, 05:24:21 pm »
Hi dear eBox community members,

We are starting a series of polls regarding the use of eBox Platform in order to better know who uses eBox, for what, how to improve it, which features are the most useful, which ones are missing, etc.

We would really appreciate anyone spending some 30 seconds to answer the poll and help us gathering this information. Needless to say, the information gathered will be public for all those who voted. If you have suggestions for more polls please just leave a message below.

Thanks!  :)
CEO at Zentyal

arrioja

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Re: Usage of eBox Platform
« Reply #1 on: August 24, 2009, 05:28:59 pm »
I was the first one on answering the poll LOL !!!; i use it at the office with several web applications; mail server, file server and print server. It Works great. Thanks a lot!.
« Last Edit: August 24, 2009, 05:37:52 pm by arrioja »

Elliott

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Re: Usage of eBox Platform
« Reply #2 on: August 24, 2009, 05:30:42 pm »
It's nearly there... I'm getting ready to test 1.3 to see how the master/slave stuff is working.

thewordofaking

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Re: Usage of eBox Platform
« Reply #3 on: August 24, 2009, 05:35:23 pm »
Using for File Server and Jabber at 12 person office.  Works like a champ!  Webmin doesn't even compare in ease of setup.  Thanks EBOX!

dmeireles

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Re: Usage of eBox Platform
« Reply #4 on: August 24, 2009, 06:02:46 pm »
I used eBox mainly to replace AD small office infrastructures. So far, it has been great! I do not use it at home because I am trying to figure out for myself how to create an eBox-like setup, so I am doing it all by hand. Thank you to Warp and all the team that made this wonderfull framework what it is today, it really is some sort of swiss-knife of IT!

David, a happy eBox customer since 0.8 :)

Josir

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Re: Usage of eBox Platform
« Reply #5 on: August 24, 2009, 06:04:21 pm »
Another useful pool would be:

Which services do you use (with multiple-choice option):
- Samba
- DNS
- Email
- Groupware
...

With that you could direct future development.

I am an eBox fan and I am reviewing it to several Linux userlists in Brasil.
Keep your great work!

Thanks!
Josir

gregmac

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Re: Usage of eBox Platform
« Reply #6 on: August 24, 2009, 06:45:21 pm »
Using as a GUI for a firewall in a datacenter (right now only used for a couple specific production servers, as a pilot, more or less) and as an openvpn server (again, for the GUI). Our organization is mostly windows-centric, so having the GUI so I don't have to either train other users or do routine operations myself is a necessity.

A side note, at least when I looked a year ago or so when I set this up, ebox is by far the simplest/nicest platform for certificate management, a key for openvpn. All the other web-based GUIs for PKI I've looked at are huge and extremely involved to get set up. When all you need is a single CA, this is nice, simple, and effective.

jzimmerman

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Re: Usage of eBox Platform
« Reply #7 on: August 24, 2009, 06:46:47 pm »
I voted "Other".

I was not able to deploy eBox outside of a testing environment.  It wasn't quite as flexible as I needed it to be regarding DNS, DHCP, and Window Shares.  There were a few other hiccups, but in the end it was easier to deploy the services on a non-ebox debian server.  This was 3 or 4 months ago.

I did use the latest packages from the eBox website as well.  It is something that would be really cool for some of our isolated labs, but just wasn't the right fit at this time.

pixeldrift

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Re: Usage of eBox Platform
« Reply #8 on: August 24, 2009, 07:18:32 pm »
I'm the "campus geek" for a small non-profit self supporting school. I've over to eBox as my main router and hope to be using it as my domain controller with network shares. I also have it handling content filtering, which is very important, and would like to have that integrate into a captive portal for wifi as well.

Blinkiz

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Re: Usage of eBox Platform
« Reply #9 on: August 24, 2009, 08:03:37 pm »
Current usage
  • Am using eBox as a router/firewall/VPN mainly.

Future vision
  • Am interested in replacing my Active Directory structure with eBox in the future. That means replicating ldap between ebox'es, distribute rules and making it easy to join the domain for both Linux and Windows clients.
  • Optimizing ldap more is a good thing. I want to integrate services (Zimbra for example) with a central ldap catalog.

    Things I don't use
    • Things like eGroupware, Asterisk and mail. I use dedicated boxes for these kinds of features. (Zimbra, Asterisk + FreePBX)

      eBox is not user friendly
      • That I really miss is that ebox is not user friendly. When helping friends with eBox, they simple not getting it. For example, Module Status module, why does it say "Status" and not "Enabled" in the last column?
      • One killer for new users is that they can't surf on the Internet after they have installed eBox as a router. Yeah, outgoing connections are disabled by default. And how do new users find this out? They don't. They uninstall ebox and takes something else. No help button exist.
      • When adding new rules to firewall port forwarding feature, the interface marked as External is not used by default. Why?

        Features am missing
        • A feature am missing is traffic shaping. "What" you say? Yes, a lot of us has our external interface as DHCP and then we can't use this kind of feature. What's up with that? (requested here)
        • And why can't I add my machines in the network as objects and then bind that object to dns, dhcp static, whatever? Much simpler. (requested here)

        kingmilo

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        Re: Usage of eBox Platform
        « Reply #10 on: August 24, 2009, 08:29:26 pm »
        I was taken back by eBox when I first came across it, such a good idea and a lot of effort spent into making it look smart.
        The install was straight forward and the setup relatively easy. But as soon as I moved the setup from a test to production the small problems started to surface and it would have taken too much time to troubleshoot all of them at the risk of losing a client.

        My primary use for eBox was as a mail server with spam/virus filtering so I was not making use of most of the modules, I had them disabled but just couldn't get a smooth email server with authentication and filtering to play nicely. Eventually I reverted back to my trusty Exim/Dovecot setup which was far simpler to manage/troubleshoot.

        It's great having a pretty/functioning front-end like eBox but when something doesn't work properly we have to wait for a fix or hack the back-end which leaves eBox confused because the file was tampered without eBox having knowledge of it so you lose track of how your installation was configured and it all gets a bit messy there.

        I am really grateful though for eBox and the people who take time out of their day to develop such dynamic software, so this is in no way a flame, just an honest opinion that will hopefully contribute to making eBox a better product in the future.

        Kingmilo

        pocetrus

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        Re: Usage of eBox Platform
        « Reply #11 on: August 24, 2009, 08:41:59 pm »
        I use it on different locations.
        One feature I really miss is to show the servers name in big letters in the headline
        or easy change the background or bar-color.
        It will help prevent from changing settings on the wrong server when they are
        all together open in several tabs in the browser.

        Thanks
        Karl

        Elliott

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        Re: Usage of eBox Platform
        « Reply #12 on: August 24, 2009, 08:55:07 pm »
        Check out: http://forum.ebox-platform.com/index.php?topic=1781.0

        Another useful pool would be:

        Which services do you use (with multiple-choice option):
        - Samba
        - DNS
        - Email
        - Groupware
        ...

        With that you could direct future development.

        Thanks!
        Josir

        VaineDragon

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        Re: Usage of eBox Platform
        « Reply #13 on: August 24, 2009, 09:02:35 pm »
        I have setup eBox 1.2 for a customer with 2 employees, and so far everything work except print server. I have posted this issue some 14 days ago and have had no reply's, also have tried to get help from the guys on IRC and still not luck.

        All that aside this is a great box as far as ease of use and setup, Webmin does more put it's a pain to setup.


        Good Job  ;D

        Dragon
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        dexter1983

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        Re: Usage of eBox Platform
        « Reply #14 on: August 24, 2009, 09:14:47 pm »
         ;) I use ebox on a non-profite organization, production envoirement, since november 2008.
        I replaced the windows 2003 server, it's working and doing his primary jobs: as PDC.

        I like to have on ebox, more control of users rights.
        Now I am looking how to implement a users-allow internet schema, combined with a wireless linux router pc.

        Thank you for the wonderfull work!