Re: [tlug] Linux-based groupware

["Jim O'Connell" <oconnell@example.com>]

SuSE is about to release a supposed 'Exchange Killer' (http://www.suse.com/us/business/products/suse_business/openexchange/) but beyond that, I have no idea...

For groupware, at my office, we've been using Cyboze Office, which, though it can run on Linux, is closed source.  It's very mature, so there's not a lot of tweaking that needs to be done, but then again, since it's closed source, you *can't* tweak when needed.  Being a Japanese product, there are no mojibake issues.  We just switched to the English version here and there haven't been any issues using both languages for content either.  Seems to be only web-based, but nobody seems to mind that here, except me... 

I looked at tutos (www.tutos.org), which is a PHP (LAMP) solution that looks pretty promising, but it has that "90% done" feel.  Easy to download and test though... 

What I wish there was was a decent web-based setup that used IMAP/POP for mail and private NNTP for discussions/notices as a backend, so you're not restricted to using proprietary clients or a web interface.  Of course, scheduling/calendaring then becomes the weak link, though there are some WebDAV solutions that seem to be the direction that things are going for calendars and address books.  (Do take a look at Mozilla's calendar plugin though - pretty nice and quite compatable with iCal from Apple.)  

All-in-all, users seem to love Exchange (though admins often hate it), so whatever you come up with is going to potentially face a lot of resistance.

---------------

The most hassle-free IDS implementation I've seen is the one (Snort) that comes as a component of the IPCop firewall/router distro.  Take a look at it - this 20MB distro and an obsolete Pentium box may let you kill several birds with one stone. (FW, routing, NAT, VPN, IDS, PPPoE, DynDNS, etc.)  Everything is accessible through a web-based interface and by SSH and the false positives are relatively low by default.
Since it's snort, you can tweak the rules to your heart's content, too.  (Though if your primary need is for Snort, you may want a beefier bit of hardware and lots of RAM.)  As for the SMS alerts, I'm sure a small shell script could be written.

I do think Snort has a version for Windows, though I tend to think that having any windows machine facing the net is just something best avoided...

Cheers, 
Jim


On Tue, 5 Nov 2002 12:16:21 +0700
"Jonathan Q" <jq@example.com> wrote:

> I need to do a short proposal on replacing an Exchange server with a Linux-based groupware solution which will be accessible both from the LAN and the WAN.  I know there are a lot of them out there in various stages of readiness, but I haven't used any of them myself.  If any TLUGgers have tried and/or implemented one, please tell me which one(s) you liked and why.
> 
> This potential client would prefer to keep the Exchange server b/c they are already using it, but they are very concerned about security, so that is a potential selling point for a Linux-based solution.  They will probably also be interested in an IDS, so I will propose putting a Linux box runing Snort on their LAN.  If anybody has anything they personally like better than Snort, what/why? They want something that will send an SMS email to their sysadmin's phone for at least some attacks.  I'm sure s/he won't want to be notified about every port scan that comes down the whopping 64k pipe, will be interested in some stuff.
> 
> <OT>
> Also, does anybody know any Free IDS software for Windows?  If they don't go with a Linux-based replacement, it would be nice to get some Free or Open Source software on their Windows box anyway and show them the benefits of it.
> 
> There's so much Windows software in VN that I've got this horrible feeling I'm going to have to become an NT admin, too.
> </OT>
> 
> TIA,
> 
> Jonathan
> 
> 
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-- 

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Jim O'Connell
Global Dining System Support
jim at global-dining dot co dot jp
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