[Debian-uk] OT: What's required for a debian based small business server?

[Isaac Clerencia]

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On Wed, Apr 04, 2007 at 03:59:57PM +0100, Joel Merrick wrote:
> > On 4/4/07, Sam Bashton <sam@bashton.com> wrote:
> >=20
> > >http://ebox-platform.com/
Hi there, and sorry for breaking the thread. I am not subscribed to the lis=
t,=20
so please CC me on answers.

My name is Isaac Clerencia and I am one of the eBox developers.

> note:
>=20
> "eBox is meant to be installed on a dedicated machine, all configuration
> tasks are performed through the eBox web interface. This means that the
> configuration of the underlying services is one-way: eBox modules
> generate configuration files, overwriting system files in some cases
> (although that tends to be avoided if possible) and manual changes to
> those files are not detected by eBox."
>=20
> I was very interested up until that point.
Well, the main point of eBox is providing an *integrated* way of configurin=
g=20
services. By integrated I mean that if you change something in the=20
configuration of a service that may affect other services, eBox always do=20
whatever is needed to keep the whole thing working correctly and in the way=
=20
you would expect, i.e., if you change the IP of a network interface which i=
s=20
configured to serve DHCP, it will warn you about that and if you go on with=
=20
the changes it will remove the required lines from dhcpd.conf so everything=
=20
keeps working as intended. Of course we could try to parse every=20
configuration file out there, but that's a lot of work. We thought about=20
doing it in the beginning and checked if webmin parsing functions could be=
=20
useful, but webmin code was in quite a bad shape and the effort to either u=
se=20
it or write parsers wasn't worth.

> Actually, it's still interesting enough that I will boot one up for a
> look-see, but past experience suggests that the above is a show-stopper
> for me.
eBox generates the configuration files for services using templates, where =
it=20
substitutes some values generated from the data gathered through the web=20
interface. If you want to change some configuration you can do it in the=20
template, as long as that changes don't interfere with the values feeded by=
=20
eBox (which are quite clearly marked). The only caveat is that this changes=
=20
will be overwritten on upgrades, so you would need to do them again. The=20
templates are located at /usr/share/ebox/templates/<service>/

> Contrast webmin which, whatever faults it may have, tries to =20
> get this right.
I would say that it tries to do it in other way. webmin allows you to=20
configure stuff without knowing the exact file syntax, but you still need t=
o=20
know most details about the underlying service, while eBox offers a really=
=20
easy to use interface.

Best regards and thank you for your interest in eBox :)
=2D-=20
Isaac Clerencia at Warp Networks, http://www.warp.es
Work: <isaac@warp.es>   | Debian: <isaac@debian.org>

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