NethServer 7.8 Released (Corona Edition)

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We’re happy to announce that NethServer 7.8 “Corona Edition” is publicly available.

What’s new?

This release marks a big step forward for communication, collaboration and security, introducing:

  • Cockpit is now the default administration interface
  • New user preference panel
  • Two-factor authentication
  • SSH/SFTP access policy
  • Disaster recovery without network restore
  • Threat shield
  • Many updates on OpenVPN
  • Enhancements for the Email Server module
  • Updates for WebTop, Nextcloud and Mattermost

We’re confident that it will be as always a great release and it will achieve our mission: making sysadmin’s life easier. This is thanks to the most vibrant, supportive and friendly community in the Open Source space (and not only Open Source).

About NethServer

NethServer is an Open Source operating system designed for small offices, medium enterprises and home server. It’s simple, secure and flexible.

NethServer is ready to deliver your messages, to protect your network with the built-in firewall, share your files and much more, everything on one system.

Release highlights

Many new features were added since the last NethServer ISO was released, they are all available within NethServer 7.8. Let’s see the most important improvements.

New security improvements

We added many features such as:

  • new user settings page with 2FA and password change
  • improved SSH/SFTP policy
  • threat shield

More info here :point_down:

VPN updates and new features

Subnet topology for OpenVPN RoadWarrior

With this new option you can use all IPs into the subnet without limitations
There is a new field in the advanced options:

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Traffic management Inter-VPN

We added a new checkbox to allow traffic between OpenVPN roadwarrior, OpenVPN and IPsec tunnels. Now a Roadwarrior client can reach a remote network connected with a VPN tunnel.

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OTP authentication for OpenVPN RoadWarrior

We have enhanced VPN security adding a new OTP authentication. Users can use an OTP code to replace the VPN password. The OTP can be found in the new user settings panel.
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RoadWarrior account certificate with customizable expire date

We added accounts with a customizable expiration date, very useful if you need to create a temporary VPN for an external collaborator.

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Export VPN connection history

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Improved DHCP parameters for VPN Roadwarrior

NethServer can automatically push DHCP parameters and they are now visible into the panel

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Last versions of our applications

  • Webtop 5.8.4
  • Mattermost 5.22
  • NextCloud 18.0.4

Mailserver updates

  • All IMAP actions will be logged by default into /var/log/imap
  • Mail server connection limit for each user has been increased to avoid errors on web mail clients
  • Shared seen flag is enabled by default for shared mail folders

Disaster recovery without network

How many times did you need to move a machine from a VPS provider to another? Well, you may have faced the problem: after restoring, the machine has a wrong network configuration and can’t be reached any longer.

You can now restore a configuration backup while preserving current network configuration:

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Basic network configuration recovery tool

The network-recovery command is now available immediately after installing the 7.8 ISO. If you want to wipe out your running IP configuration and assign a temporary IP address on every network card, run on the system console

# network-recovery

The goal is to make the Server Manager reachable again without knowing the right commands

Other improvements

  • Group-based access restrictions for SSH and SFTP
  • Default maximum PHP memory size has been increased from 128MB to 512MB
  • Nextcloud now uses PHP 7.3 stack to improve performance and support widely used plugins
  • Ejabberd has been upgraded to 20.03
  • POP3 proxy (P3Scan) has been deprecated and can’t be installed anymore from Software Center
  • PHP 7.1 is now obsolete and has been removed from upstream repositories: restored machines will need to migrate custom applications to PHP 7.2 or higher

Download and install

Who wouldn’t desire all these fantastic new features?

  • You can install NethServer on a virtual machine or on a bare-metal server using a DVD or USB stick
  • Upgrade from 7 is supported through the Software Center
  • Automatic upgrades to 7.8 for Subscription have been already rolled out

Ready to check it out? Then head to the docs and download:

https://www.nethserver.org/getting-started-with-nethserver/

Subscription

Get exclusive access to the Stable Updates repository, monitoring tools and immediate professional support services for your NethServer deployments

:point_down: :point_down: Take a look at our plans
https://my.nethserver.com/

Documentation

Did you find a bug? Please report it here – every bug you uncover is a chance to improve the experience for thousands of NethServer users worldwide, also our amazing beta testers team will be called upon to give its support on that!

14 Likes

The old one is still available?
Some features are only accessible from the old interface, unless they are already migrated to Cockpit, as:
…:980/en-US/SambaStatus#!SambaStatus_LastLogin

Wow! Collectd Charts is in Cockpi!

Regards!

In which case, is there any way LAN users can use the POP3 connector (to take advantage of rspamd, etc.) but without having to have an account created for every client or worse, every e-mail address

Cheers.

Update done with subscrition. Everything is o.k.!! Perfect job!!
Thank you very much!

But FYI:
Tried to download the iso from sourceforge and wasn’t able to do.
I had to install a torrent client and than download via torrrent.

3 Likes

Thank you for such a wonderful release… Good Work, Well Done,…

The Download latest stable release link from that page let you download the nethserver-7.7.1908-x86_64.iso yet. Is that on purpose?

1 Like

Sorry it should be correct now

2 Likes

Are we sure on checksum on the page? sha1sum signature of my copy is the same indicated as MD5. MD5sum does not match either, and it seems is longer than needed…

@alefattorini could you please check?

Sorry for the silly question/post.

Is there a page that can be consulted to find out the latest version for subscribers?
In this announcement, you don’t really see the full version number.

I forgot to write down the version I had and after I updated; a couple of days ago, I didn’t notice if it changed.
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I was expecting the code name “Corona” in the Dashboard (I even wore a mask during the upgrade :rofl:)

The part 7.8.2003 make wonder if it means 2020/March.
And then, this two announcements make me think that they are two versions now. Of course both are from May, but on a different day, 26 and 6 respectively.
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Regards!

If you have a subscription you get the same version, just delayed to be more stable.

Yes, it does, see CentOS Wiki

No, there are just two announcements of the same version and the earlier one is closed already.

1 Like

Thank you,
I see it more clearly now.

So, as long as no update notices arrive, I’m on the latest version.

+1

Well, it’s just that the “corona edition” part made me think of a new version and I couldn’t locate any of it.

(Taking notes to document for my colleagues.)

Regards!

1 Like

Sorry I inverted SHA with torrent hash.
Could you check again?

1 Like