Yesterday @nethcamp15 we talked briefly about our next development priorities.
I’d like to share our ideas with you and receive comments.
It’s a bird’s eye view of our ideas, we will go into details as soon as the projects will start.
NethServer 7
Samba 4
Multi-site
We will try to release 7 with the same functions of 6 asap, then we will work on samba4 and using more than one nethserver sharing the user accounts (multi-site).
I hope to find time to make small adjustments to the server-manager interface before the final release of 7 (read: re-organize the left menu).
Some small features will be worked on in parallel, pull request or new features developed by the community will be merged asap.
Multi site means multi server, right? Will it be possible to install just 1 module on a server and other modules on another server(s), or have multiple servers with (for instance) file sharing, so load can be spread across multiple servers?
Multi-site means one server hold all users, other server uses the master server for authentication.
For example: a firewall uses the users from mail server to configure profiles for the content filter.
Probably, the multi-site feature will also include Samba 4.
I’m a bit confused now. Assuming having Samba4, all (DC)servers will be able to add/change/delete user accounts… right?
What I am more interested in is to be able to have multiple servers that can have the same module so load for, for instance, fileserver can be taken by multiple servers.
In multi site there’s the PDC, the Primary Domaine Controller and SDC, Secondary(ries) Domaine Controller.
If I’m well remember, all Windows Clients sollicitations to the DC are limited to the subnet…I mean can go through switches, but not go thought route.
I can’t remember if it’s a WINS limitation or a Netbios limitation…
I was just thinking in this feature and I would like to aks few things:
what about resilience?
For exemple, the mailserver fonction is critical, to have the absolute certainty to not loose a mail,
It’s recommended to have a Primary MX connector and a Secondary MX connector.
How this fonction will work?
On one Nethserver: @siteone with the Primary MX connector and @sitetwo the secondary Mx Connector.
On a second Nethserver @siteone with the secondary MX connector and @sitetwo with the primary site connector.
Like this, one Nethserver is the MX connector backup of the second Netserver.
It’s a way to make a good mailserver system with resilience.
I prefer to have a single MX with two uplinks.
Nowadays, email are treated as instant messages (but they’re not) and if a single mx is down and a sender receives a delayed delivery notifications is better than make him think that the email as been delivered to a secondary mx where it can’t be read.
The burden of not loosing emails is on the sender.
The primary function of multi-site is to share a list of user for different services on different servers.
I agree on this. The main aim should be on spreading the load so you can have multiple instances to host users. In larger environments and/or mutli sites (with WAN connections) this feature is absolutely a must.
You are thinking to duplicate the link but not the server!
The email is not a trivial fonctiom, it’s steel important.
For me, it’s the way I make the facturation for client.
It the way my enterprise comunicate with advogates, with administrations, to send bills…
It 's for work.
For home, the MX backup is the main dificulty to self-host the email…when the server is down for few days when the owner is in hollidays.
Think in countries where there’s lot of electrical failures, lot of electrical outages, and where it’s better to have already a backup server ready to work in bad event…
It’s crazy to me to think to backup the link and not backup ( phisicaly ) the server.
Edit: I was an admin of a company wich have two sites with 1 km of distance.
It was in the strategy to take advantage of the multi-site to backup one site on the over in case of disaster ( main fire disaster ).
For these reasons, I made proposal about OSPF, infrastucture resilience, MX backup, and so on
MX backup is nowadays almost useless or deprecated, see Filippo’s comment…
I self host my emails since epoch, just like my customers… I had a small office (2 pcs) with a virtual machine in one of them… MX record pointed to that VM… in 5 years, email service was down maibe for… 10 hours…
MX backup is not a solution, it’s likely part of the problem
so, you don’t need a mx backup but a cluster or an HA solution… in any case, good hw, a good UPS, ands a rock solid backup strategy is what you really need, nothing more, nothing less
We must know better our members, and what they use.
The Roadmap for Q1 2016 is Nethserver7 and Samba4.
Samba4 for AD directory. It’s good, I think an enterprise need this feature. But what kind of Enterprise?
For me, such feature is for a medium or big enterprise, not for a small enterprise.
And for an entreprise already equiped with Windows station.
What for small enterprise, which don’t need AD? What for MAc users ( Apple is the best computer seller in the world ? And What for others *nix users ( lot of small enterprise, small activities, use Linux on a small number of station.
I subscribed this past week on a mailinglist about Self-Hosting, I talk a lot about Nethserver because I think NS can do perfectly the job.
We must take advantages with the NS modularity to discover what type of application NS is already acting, and what NS could act ( I thinking about NS at school ), about Ns in a small shop ( any kind of shop… Photography, Bakery…who know )
And of course NethServer at home, self-hosting, simply a firewall/gateway, and so on…
Where Nethserver could interact with an Linux ecosystem, an IOS ecosystem and an Android ecosystem.
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