Doubts about NS8

Feature
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It’s more than 20 years ago, we need to move forward. Don’t you think?

I confirm that NS is not a classical SME distro. It’s an application server platform built upon a distro.

We’re not going too far away from SME, because most of our clients and users are SME, for Nethesis and the NS project wouldn’t be a smart move :slight_smile:
We’re just giving a new tool container-based to SMEs market, cloud-ready, and fully compatible with a hybrid scenario.

No, we’re not going on public cloud. With NethServer 8 you can create your private cloud, your own data and users. It’s the opposite. BTW Ns8 will work pretty well on bare metal and hypervisor, so… what are we talking about here?

I hope you will change your mind

That’s a great comparison Andy thank you :smiley:

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Charlie has left the boat of SME Server when the project was not able to make SME 10 and he pushed Mitel to go his way with Mitel server on centos7, sure it has been a heartbreak for him

Ian Wells with all my respect because he pushed me to be a developer is working for Microsoft mswellsi (Ian Wells) · GitHub https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianawells/

I think he will positively see code is moving on the NethServer project with cloud minded

35

Man, we’ve been developing this project with this community since 2015 and all our code is on github. It looks far away from an ivory tower :slight_smile:

That discussion is another example that it won’t happen

We have tons of discussion on that. Please take a look, it’s not just a poll

@schulzstefan thanks for your point of view but please we can’t stay here to discuss again the NS8 direction but test and improve it along the way.
We tried to explain the core values of the project over and over again, I hope it’s clearer now.

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With that approach, you are bypassing the whole backup concept within NS8 by a solution from your hypervisor. That seems like a valid workaround. But if that is the solution, why does the backup function in NS8 exist in the first place?

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@jaywalker

The “suggested” work-around is just that.
Even if I rely on Proxmox PBS, I still use the built-in Backup of NthServer (Or whatever platform).

I even do a Proxmox Backup to NAS in addition.
All also Offsite, daily synched.

Always better to have a backup too many, than one to little!

I’m also well covered for a Cryptolocker attack!

My 2 cents
Andy

38

May I iron some kinks here?
Cloud for NethServer8 is… wrong. Simply wrong.
Because if any adopter is wishing to use NS8 also outside from the network, in a public accessible space needs to buy hosting or housing if it’s wishing to be picking on hardware. Just like NS7.
Please Alessio, cloud is a incorrect word as environment because any sysadmin can know exactly where the metal (virtual or physical do not matter) is and who’s mantaining it. That’s what the company is paying for.

Ball is in Nethesis court, Alessio. As community manager you can collect the feelings of the adopter, refine that and polish, then forward to the developers who are not here to feel the vibe. The structure of NS8 has been decided from development team, a lot of feedbacks and critics/doubts/analysis came here, but the ship had already left the pier.

Now IMVHO two things could be done (not mutually exclusive)

  1. listen to the critics. This do not automatically mean that project must steer for every doubt and dissatisfactory feedback, but if any detailed complain is dismissed as “it’s not like that”… the feedback will be harsher and less understanding
  2. go for the route that Nethesis and Nethesis customers set. Consider that if not pleasant or fit enough for the adopters, the open source/access version of NethServer could lose a lot of the traction

For the Ivory tower… Alessio it’s quite tough evaluation, and you can feel that unfair. However someone felt like it, when decisions are taken while feedback has been provided. It’s not the same size, height, sturdiness of IBM/RH. However… someone felt like that.

For anyone unsatisfied about the current status of the project:

  1. It’s no eSmith/SMEserver/Shorewall anymore. Deal with it.
    It’s sad, I would love to have both roles like NS7 but now it’s not.
  2. Project is not in final state
    I stopped considering NS as viable platform several months ago, because the project is different and both roles (firewall and server) currently are note satisfactory to me. I was not comfortable starting on both roles for new projects because of the short support time for NS7 and not mature enough status of NS8.
    This will be still unsatisfactory to me when final? I don’t know, yet. However I won’t go full NS8 at release date, not willing to be a beta tester for at least 6 months. Probably “beta tester” will feel bitter for developers, however the paradigm shift from Module/service to Module/containter is not a version upgrade, is a new product. It’s understandable that will take more time to rewire, solve, fix issues and missing pieces.

Last but not least: if file server will be a module granular recover for single file is mandatory. And not only for file server module. Otherwise, if the developers cannot provide the right interface, drop the module and take the blame for not providing a upgrade path.

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39

When doubts are expressed and they are interpreted as fears or a desire to jump the boat, it sounds like the response of a cult guru.

My reply would be the same as the one from Stefan M. Schulz:

Michel-André

40

E-smith, Server & Gateway. Install and forget. That is where we came from and indeed for East Timor and area’s alike. To help the lesser admin skilled organisations/people to enter the digital world.

NS8 in its current state is nothing like that anymore today. And yes NS8 was announced and plans were made. But there was no public decision making process, for after all Nethesis is the ‘owner’ and very important the sponsor.

Indeed things change but in what direction? We have the RH debacles, we had SME Server debacles and we will encounter other challenges in the future. SO what is the future stable path. I don’t know.

What I do know for myself is that I would like to see NS8 have the core capabilities of a ‘Server and gateway and install and forget’. Meaning including manageable strict firewall capabilities, for many will only use 1 node for every functionality. That NS8 has the capabilities to grow to many nodes would/is fantastic, but, in my view’ should not leave out the lesser admin gods and core functionality of being a gateway and server.

E-smith, SME Server and NS7 were pure love, NS8 is a nice tool.

Then again, I could not decide on the roadmap, it was presented to me as a fixed path. But MAYBE the DMU’s can lean towards the philosophy whilst adopting, maintaining and adhering to new technologies. 2 different things…

Nevertheless, I think this thread is a very healthy discussion and brings a lot of POV’s, visions and idea’s. It shows respect, maturity and professionalism. I thank you all for that!

My2C

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41

I’ve used NS7 for my small business for several years. I never understood why it had a built in firewall. My understanding is you have to have two Ethernet interfaces for it to work, I wouldn’t want to explain that to another small business owner that sells flowers or something.
I service a lot of apartment management companies and by the time I walk in the front door they usually already have two firewalls/Gateways running. The Comcast gateway and usually a Meraki one. I’m no expert but maybe triple Nat is better than double Nat. :grinning:
I use NS7 for email, next-cloud, and Deck to keep my small crew organized and working remotely.

Just fired up NS8 on my proxmox server and it looks like a simple way to provide a choice of remotely accessible services for running a small business.
I’d like to see GitHub - Leantime/leantime: Leantime is a strategic project management system for non-project managers. in the software area as it looks interesting, how hard would it be to add a docker container for that?
And yes please on wild card certs or dns-01 or whatever it’s called. Simple is better, we aren’t all running computer programming companies.
Just my opinion.

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42

Hello,
Ns7 has built in gateway features. You can use as firewall, as a server or both at the same time, on the same installation. I can install third party services and repos without breaking anything. No problems on bare metal or virtualized.
This flexibility Is missing on NS8 and some people is suffering about this.
Especially when ns7 in installed on crappy old hardware on P4 single core and 3GB of RAM, but never stop.
Moving to virtualizzation and split services on 2 products could be a problem for old existing hardware.
I moved my ns7 (gateway + file server) from bare metal to proxmox, preparing final migration.
NS7 can run on a toaster.
NS8 requires more RAM, modern CPU to prevent container issues, should be installed on virtual enviroment.

The product changed.
We should wait for the NS8 final release, and wait for nethsecurity gateway too… the most wanted firewall ever.
This Is my opinion.

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44

I’d suggest, if I may, migrate a copy to NS8.

To the devs and nethesis: I know NS8 is still in beta.

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Hi @schulzstefan

I’ve also worked for clients using a 10 year old server for Proxmox - SME is not a uniform thing.
The only more or less universal criteria is between 1 and 500 employees… :slight_smile:

Some companies have regular budgets, some have very opulent budgets, others have to turn every cent twice!

But the above example was among the better ones!

But not yet the top liga!

My 2 cents
Andy

46

That’s why I’m here, to try NS8.

To the devs and nethesis: I know NS8 is still in beta.

47

@sarz4fun

Hope you don’t get the following wrong.

@Andy_Wismer

Of course. Not.

Lot of customers we have (DAX, MDAX, DOW, …), do work with SAP, oracle, salesforce, or any kind of “TOP LIGA” ERP and BIG IT infrastructure. I cannot compete. I really try hard to match their standards. Not only in IT. I’m only a very little supplier.

As I already stated: things you can’t do for your own, you have to pay for.

In this very moment, I’m still able to do my IT for my own companies. Besides other things in the administration and production. Over 20 years with NO serious break in production. Did I miss an argument of a security point of new NS8 vs. NS7 structure? What coming up security dangers for NS7 do you see? Could you please be precise. Of course right now, for NS8 you need a (hardware) firewall. Easy to configure. Ehh?

Even before. Anybody remember DEC? I was dealing with NOVELL, yellow cable, with fibre lines, opto electronics and interfaces (inside different branches of a company, in different countries, with MODEMS) and PC’s in a time, and CODING, that I don’t want to miss for learning.

To be clear - I’m happy that this is the past. Beside the SPEED of connections (time is money), the NEEDS of a SME are nearly the same. The bottom line for a company seems to be: less money more profit. To translate in IT - less efforts (by matching the needs) means more time for core business. Whatever this might be. Did I miss the point? Does NS8 give me more time to take care for my core business, i.e. for a SME to make money?

I KNOW ABOUT THE GOLD STANDARD. Sorry for being loud.

In this very moment - as a company producing goods in Germany for over 70% export - our products do not allow the overhead for an IT department. If I’d have a choice I’d really like to have it in another way. I’m not doing IT for my personal fun. No, really not. That’s why I stated “never touch a running system”.

Again and again - I’m talking about SMALL MEDIUM ENTERPRISE and ONLY for myself. MITEL, SME, KOOZALI or NS7 is why I’ve chosen SME software a long time ago. BUT STILL VALID for me.

Mhmm, I got it: move, move, move. Click, click, click. “SME over 20 years in nearly the same way - don’t you think it’s time to MOVE?” Come on, let’s do something NEW.

I’m old enough to realize if things have no benefit to my needs and are trying to drive me in a direction I don’t want. In other words - as long as I don’t see any improvements from the standard and needs we now have, I’ll not follow.

No - please don’t tell me again - I really like to test new products. In fact it’s a part of my job. And not only in IT. I don’t want to live in the past. But I’m old enough to judge careful.

There’s always a choice. Again - this is my very personal opinion as being responsible for a SME.

Period. No more post from me.

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48

Echoes from the Ivory Tower :slight_smile:

  • Is it for SME? – Yes, absolutely otherwise I loose my job and I’m still far from retirement! There are many platforms to run containers out there. I’m sorry if we reinvent some wheels, but they not fit SMEs as we have in Italy.

  • Community vs Enterprise – Is it still worth to mention this FAQ: What is the NethServer Business Model? We do not deliver a finished product to the community, everybody has their part to play to do it.

  • Containers effective portability – With containers, data is in another directory and has a different owner than what you expect. Porting a container volume to another node is something new to learn and still possible: I already recovered Nextcloud and Mattermost from a crashed NS8 node starting from bare disk image. See Trello card.

  • Containers not maintainers – The software supply-chain has changed in the last 20 years. Distro-level package maintainers have retired or changed their job. Software comes directly from its creators and is quickly shipped in containers. We need more RAM to run them: we pay RAM vendors instead of paying distro package maintainers. RAM vendors are happy, maintainers… I don’t know.

  • Containers bandwidth – Containers are bigger than packages. They require less metadata than package repositories for update checks. If we run update checks every day the monthly bandwidth usage might surprise you.

  • Containers and opportunities – With containers we can quickly integrate more software, like DNS servers, single-sign-on and many other applications. I understand this looks far from now, because priority is on NS7 feature parity and migration.

  • Complete firewall – Do not build a battle cruiser that is also a container ship. Firewall was moved to another nice, free and open source project: NethSecurity. It has NS8 integration too!

  • Single file restore – Not a general need. In practice it is useful only for some applications, as explained in another thread.

  • Fancy old times template system – In the sense of “configuration override”, not a general need. In practice it is useful only for some applications, as explained in another thread.

  • Protocols for LAN backups – You are right and… luckily, we have a fantastic forum and community! We need it and we are working on it, as explained in another thread.

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49

Surely it would be very valuable for a file server–that’s still in the plans for NS8, right? And if it’s implemented for that application, what prevents it from being used elsewhere? I don’t see any real value in it for, e.g., MariaDB or Mattermost, but if the feature is needed for some apps–and it is–why not make it available for all?

I think this is a case where people confuse a feature with its purpose. Surely there’s going to be some nostalgia–the e-smith template system has been around for 25 years, a practical eternity in computer terms–and there will be some who are thoroughly familiar with it and will need to learn something else. But the purpose of that system is to provide a means to configure a server in a certain way, and to generate the configurations for any pieces of software accordingly. If NS8 still does that, from a mostly-end-user perspective, I’m fine. I won’t claim to understand why you’ve made the change, but I know it’s made a great deal of work for you all, so I’m willing to assume you believe you have good reasons for it.

LAN backups could be improved–NFS and/or SMB really should be supported, IMO–but the complaint raised earlier was regarding local backups. As in, plug in a USB disk and back up to it.

As a complete side issue, why is the cluster-admin login page the way it is? Username on one screen, next, enter password on the next screen? It’s awkward and a waste of clicks, and I don’t see that it adds one iota of security. I know it’s getting popular lately, but it really seems like a waste.

50

Who’s gonna install a file server that could overwrite a whole day (or more) of work for retrieve a single file deleted?

Without granularity is not backup/restore, “simply” something equivalent to snapshotting or bare metal restore. Which is valuable, but don’t feel backup enough.

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3 posts were split to a new topic: NS8 - virtual hosts disappearing

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Hi friends,

i really understand every argument presented here. But I increasingly have the feeling that something is being talked up here that, on closer inspection, is real progress. Apart from the lack of a local backup option. That bothers me as well.

Regards…

Uwe

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A post was merged into an existing topic: NS8 - virtual hosts disappearing