ClearFoundation

Hi there everyone.

I hope everyone had a good 2012 New Year's bash. However, it's back to work again. We get to sleep when we're dead.

I have been looking for a replacement for MS Small Business Server and after some research on the Internet it came down to Zentyal and ClearOS.

Basically I am looking for something that acts as an Internet gateway and server with simple file sharing facility. I don't need an e-mail solution because my customers are on hosted exchange at one of our ISPs.

I have found that MS SBS has become too bloated and cumbersome and expensive as a solution especially since version 2008 onwards for small businesses. SBS 2011 is already a nightmare and I don't know what the next versions are going to be like. It is just too expensive. The HW requirements pushes up the price even further not to mention the actual SBS software.

I have an architectural firm whose SBS 2003 has finally died. It has been running since 2005. I don't want to spend money on expensive software and hardware since the bad economic times has brought about severe monetary constraints. They are only a small company of about 8 people. I have an HP Core 2 Duo, 4GB RAM workstation I would like to use with ClearOS installed. I'll just want to add some 1TB SATA hard drives for storage space for their AutoCAD drawings etc. and configure it the same way as their SBS 2003 was with ClearOS acting as PDC, DHCP, Gateway and VPN as they have a Cisco ADSL router with a static IP.

I would appreciate anyone's suggestions, tips, heads-up issues please. I have to have this up and running by next week Monday when everyone returns to work from the holiday.

Many thanks,

Paul.

Welcome Paul Bos to the Clearfoundation forum.


The hardware specifications of your workstation are oke. Have a look here:

www.clearcenter.com/support/documentatio.../system_requirements


Maybe it's wise to have look to the user guide

www.clearcenter.com/support/documentatio...5.2/user_guide/start


ClearOS can do all the services you asked for. With the Primary domain controller where some issues (joining a domain). You have to edit the registry of your client machines. Check this:

www.clearfoundation.com/component/option...8/func,view/id,2339/

Just thinking .... Are you going to put those 1 TB drives in a RAID? Say RAID 1? If so, make sure and spend the few extra dollars and buy drives worthy of being in a server AND capable of being in a RAID -- drives like Western Digital Black RE are the one's I'd recommend. Also, I'd recommend the few extra bucks and make sure its a HARDWARE RAID.

I just finished reviving a dead MS server 2003 that someone built using a software RAID and two Western Digital Blues. YUCK! WD Blues (0 failed while 1 was good), software RAID, and MS server = trouble

Hope this helps!

Thanks Marcel,

I went through the user guide a week ago before Christmas so I hope to have the basics down.

Just one question though; when I add the 2 extra 1TB drives for storage purposes, should I format them to NTFS or ext3 ? The reason I ask is because most workstations are Win7 Pro and a few Win XP Pro.

Many thanks,

Paul.

Hi Keith,

No, no RAID required at all. I am of the firm believe that a system should be kept as simple as possible. Their previous system was an older HP ML350 with hot-pluggable drives. It came with a standard 146GB drive and we later added another 300GB drive and then later 2 external USB 500GB drives mainly used for storing their retired projects as the hot-pluggable drives were too expensive.

I see a lot of guys out there trying to be very fancy to impress their customers with all sorts of hardware and software solutions they install. Inevitably when something goes wrong, troubleshooting is a nightmare and so is the repair. Keeping it as simple as possible for that specific customer's needs means also less can go wrong and if it does, less troubleshooting to do.

There are only 8 people in the company and the main issue is storage space for their AutoCAD drawings and PowerPoint presentations and site photos. What they had previously was necessary in 2005 but now I can set up smaller companies with lower hardware and software specs because I can move them onto hosted Exchange at a major ISP which takes the whole e-mail burden also off my shoulders AND they get the latest version of Exchange when the ISP upgrades as well.

I helped a friend of mine install SBS 2011 last year for a small company. What a nightmare. Installation went ok but the updates and configuration afterwards took forever. Everything is so integrated now that if something goes wrong it will affect so many other parts of the system. Administrator's nightmare.

Kind regards,

Paul.

Hi Paul,

I agree, I like your idea of keeping things simple

David

Paul Bos wrote:
Just one question though; when I add the 2 extra 1TB drives for storage purposes, should I format them to NTFS or ext3 ? The reason I ask is because most workstations are Win7 Pro and a few Win XP Pro.


If you want to keep it simple just create two Linux partitions on those drives and format the drives with ext3. Add this in "etc/fstab" to mount the drives. Example:



note: change sdx to the correct drive. Also you can change storagedisk1 and 2 in something else.

Then you make flexshares via the ClearOS webconfig with the name storeagedisk1 and storagedisk2. Now are the drives storagedisk1 and storagedisk2 accessible from a Windows machine.

You can also make LVM partitions. You can create volume groups and then create logical volumes. So resizing, adding, deleting logical volumes becomes easy but this is harder to setup and not a "keep it simple" thing.

Hi Marcel,

Thanks for all your tips. They really helped but because I'm a 1st time user of ClearOS I have many more questions and would appreciate your help again please.

1. My screen resolution seems to be stuck on 800x600. that means I have scroll left and right and up and down all the time.
Very frustrating. Screen card is on-board Intel 82G33/G31. Monitor old Samsung 17" square LCD.

2. Why can I not create folders the same way as using Windows Explorer ? I am using the UBCD's Magic Parted to boot up,
mount the drives and then create the folders I want ?

3. I have 3 physical drives. sda = boot drive. sdb = company data drive. Here I have created 2 folders called Projects and
User.
Projects folder to save all their current work, User folder to have individual storage space per user. This was done on the
sdb drive.
On the sdc drive I created a folder called Dump. There they will save their completed work as well as temporary work they
are working on.
I created 3 Flexshares called Projects, User and Dump. When the users connect to the server will they be redirect to that
folder on the sdx drive or when they save information or will it be saved under sda.../var/flexshare/shares/..... ? BTW, I have
decided to use the simple file sharing option instead of the PDC option. The drives mount at start-up with the shares as per
your tip on adding code to the fstab file.

/dev/sdb1 /var/flexshare/shares/user ext3 defaults 1 1
/dev/sdb1 /var/flexshare/shares/projects.....
/dev/sdc1 /var/flexshare/shares/dump.....

4. The pptp vpn internal IP is 192.168.1.xx-xx My Cisco router's internal IP is the same range. Will they clash and if so can I safely
change the internal IP range of the vpn setup ?

5. Where are the home directories stored and can I re-direct them say to the sdb drive's /user/... folder ?

Many thanks for your help.

Paul.

1 - You would do better to administer ClearOS remotely from your LAN with a browser by https://Your_ClearOS_LAN_IP:81 rather than use the console directly.
2 - Again remotely, if you're using Windoze, grab yourself a copy of WinSCP with PuTTY. WinSCP gives you a graphical file manager and decent file editor and PuTTY gives you a console.
3 - I would have to check but it should almost work with Dump but I think you'll see an extra Dump folder in the menu tree because you are mounting sdc into /var/flexshare/shares/dump so folder sdc1/Dump will appear underneath this. It will look more confusing under the other two flexshares as they will both see folders User and Projects underneath /var/flexshare/shares/projects and /var/flexshare/shares/user. You may need to check out the "mount bind" command but I have little knowledge of it.
4 - The main reason for me jumping into this thread. If you have the subnet 192.168.1.x on both LAN and WAN you will not be able to contact your router from your LAN as the LAN will think all 192.168.1.x addresses are on its LAN. You should change your LAN subnet. Also another generally fundamental rule of these VPN's (there are exceptions) are that each end of the VPN is on a different LAN subnet. 192.168.1.x is very common in domestic routers so if you also have the same LAN subnet you will be able to connect the VPN bot no traffic will pass (possibly except if you do not allow split tunnelling and force all traffic through the VPN). They are both good reasons to change your LAN subnet to something different. Then the easiest thing to do is to set up the PPTP VPN to use a LAN range on the same subnet but outside the DHCP range.
5 - Under /home and why bother redirecting them. Just allow the user to map them unless you specifically want to use a different disk. Even then you could mount a disk into /home (but move all the user folders first).

Hi Nick,

Thanks for your help. I will be going to the office tomorrow to connect everything up to replace the SBS 2003 server. Will be there for hours copying their data across.

1. I will logon to the console via a browser and see how that goes. I have not been able to do that as I was installing it all at
home. I have d/loaded WinSCP & PuTTY and will give that a try as well.

3. It seems all very confusing just to create a few shareable folders on different physical hard drives. It's so much easier in
Windows to create, share and set permissions.

4. Sorry I forgot to mention my internal LAN IP range is 192.168.16.x I kept it the same as with SBS 2003. The IP of the Cisco
router is 192.168.1.x When you look at the IP range that ClearOS has set up for the VPN it is the same as the Cisco router's. I
guess that's because the current home router I am using is on the 10.0.0.x range. that will change when I connect tomorrow
to the Cisco router. I think I will then just change the VPN range to 192.168.10.x.

5. Actually I want the /home to be on the sdb drive because the sda drive is only 160GB with 135GB available. How would I
mount the /home onto the sdb drive after I have moved all the users there ?