How a newcomer could be involved in our Community

Community
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This discussion was born as private and now is made public thanks to @StreetGuru agreement

Thanks @alefattorini for your message and for pointing out the introductions page, I only started learning sysadmin a few months ago.

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Sorry if I ask, how would you like be involved? Do you get something on you mind?

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I’m not very knowledgeable and/or comfortable yet with many of the technical aspects of the project - I’m learning myself from scratch as I go along. Just spent an all week setting up a personal mail server and a few days of reading trying to figure out why my mail was going to spam folder after correctly setting up DNS and rDNS, SPV, DKIM and even DMARK - in the end, it turned out that it was because I didn’t had a DNS A record for the main domain i use to create subdomains for the servers! argh!!!

This is all fascinating for me and I’m spending sometimes 14 hours a day obsessively setting up servers and reformatting them - I currently have 14 VPS’s all sourced from lowendbox and lowendtalk :slight_smile:

I guess the best help I can give to the project is testing it from a newbie point of view - I guess the “bug” I helped find was the most obvious thing from anyone else a bit more experienced than me - just a firewall configuration problem. I almost feel embarrassed for not having thought about it before posting in the forum! But I feel my knowledge at the moment does not allow me to be of great help.Some conversations in the forum are completely beyond my understanding!

But of course, I would be more than willing to help in any way I can - just let me know if you think I can contribute in some way to the project.

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NethServer is mainly for not-expert linux sysadmins so “newbie point of view” is extremely important for us.
Please share your thoughts wherever you like, be safe.
If you feel something not “easy” or “handy” please give your feedback, we need it more than any other

Even for me :slight_smile: Don’t worry be happy!

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Thanks for the support, it’s great to feel comfortable to discuss the issues and that you guys are here to listen. The sense of community in the project is truly great and I look forward to contribute in any way I can.

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Hi,

@StreetGuru, your point of view can be very usefull for us.

As your as a newcomer and a new sysadmin, from scrach as you said…
I have few questions:

  • Why did you choose NethServer?
  • What do you think about our wiki? ( I know it lack lot of things, I don’t want an answer like " It’s good, but a honest answer (1))
  • Did you learn more about NethServer digging the forum, or digging the wiki.

(1) would you preffer a more affordables User’s guides, or more technicals User’s guides? a sort of datasheet for each setup ( proxy, VPN, AD…)

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Hey @StreetGuru

Good to see your mood to emancipate as sysadmin with the support of this great community. For us it is a tribe where we do not compete but if we complement each other.

You’ve come to the right place and there is a space where you can, with more freedom and comfort, feel good. The village: Portuguese people?

And to learn, translate the wiki, read the threads and ask without shame. I started in a similar way to you. And there I go … persevering.

Rest initiatives we can add to this list

Mais uma vez, bem-vindo Ă  tribo, irmĂŁo

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Hi guys,

Thanks for the messages and incentive, its great to feel part of the community.

@Jim,

  • I came across NS while looking for exchange/Active Sync server. At the time I had a couple of Windows VPS and I was trying to install MS exchange on it; I thought the 2 GB RAM VPS was crap, exchange would not even crawl, it would drag… (only later I found out the beast needed at least 16GB RAM to work properly, lol!) It took me ages to get it installed (had never done it before or even worked with Windows server) and half way through it I found out I need it a Domain Controller… that took me to Zentyal, and eventually to NS. In the end I gave up completely on the Windows VPS and instead started using SOGo in NS to replace the few functionalities I needed from exchange.

  • I confess I wish the wiki was a bit less technical at times; I’m more comfortable with Debian, and the NS specific controls makes it even more difficult to drop to shell. I wish there were more detailed guides and tutorials on how to use and configure NS in the specific cases of hosting it on a public VPS. For example, I’ve struggled to find specific information on the type of rules and/or configuration for a firewall that only has a green interface; I find NS an ideal server to set up on a VPS and as more and more people turn to self-hosting, due to the incredible drop in prices of the past couple years and privacy concerns, this will be an important target to the project but the documentation is more focused on the home/office configuration.

  • I’ve been using both forums and wiki to troubleshoot and I would say I find them equally helpful. I would like to have some step-by-step tutorials, at least on some important things like security (setting up firewall rules and intrusion detection); The tutorial to install letsencrypt - http://wiki.nethserver.org/doku.php?id=developer:letsencrypt - or the one to install Alfresco - Alfresco Share 5.0 - are two examples of simple and straightforward guides that work and deliver.

@apradoc,

Thanks for the welcoming, let me know if I can be of help with the group in any way - though I have to confess I’m neither nationalistic nor tribal :wink:

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2 posts were split to a new topic: How to make NethServer an ideal server to set up on a VPS?

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@Fred I’m curious about your journey. What’s up? How the community helped you?
I still struggle to help new people to find their own path into the community in order to be successful with NethServer.
Any advice? What did you learn so far?

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Just collected some #starter discussions for newcomers, would you like to help me to collect more?