Have any of you guys wanted to setup a server where you could have everything included? Well, sure if it goes down, everything goes down but it’s going to be very convenient to administrate that server right? You have everything on one interface and it is going to save you lots of time and effort, rather than hoping around different servers and trying to remember which password is for which server. Sure you have. We are all lazy at heart.
So now I would introduce to you eBox! This open source beauty has features like NAT, Firewall, Transparent Proxy, Content Filter, Domain Controller, File Sharing, Printer Server, Mail Server, Jabber Server, DNS Server, Date and Time Server among others. Yes, it is a really full-fledged small business server with all the bells and whistles. And you get to administrate everything on a easy to use web interface. So just key in the URL in your browser and you are in control. What you need to do is to download the image file and burn to a CD. Then you just need to install the distro to a pretty high end PC. Everything comes with a easy to use interface, so if you have some experience with networking, it should be no problem. Oh, this distro is based on Debian so it should feel very familiar with Debian users. And if you already have Debian setup on your PC, you can just use their debian installer to install eBox. And if you are using Windows-based servers, it’s perhaps time for you to look at other alternatives. And eBox is a very decent competitor to Microsoft’s Small Business Server.
From the looks of the eBox community, this distro is very active and the eBox software is constantly being updated and developed. And the latest version v0.9.99 is out, perhaps this is just one more step to the final build? I can’t wait to download the image file and start playing around with eBox. I hope I will be impressed. Just that I downloading the image file takes very long. It’s downloading at 10kps from my side. Probably will take several hours to complete downloading.
If you are looking for other distros with around the same features, I would recommend you SME Server and Clarkconnect. I have been using SME Server for my webserver and my spare email server, it certainly looks very stable. The latest version adds a number of features and has increased support for RAID devices.