Point Clark Networks ha annunciato la disponibilità della seconda beta release di ClarkConnect 5.0,  specializzata in  distribuzione per server e gateway basata su CentOS: “ClarkConnect 5.0 Beta 2 è ora disponibile. Cosa c’è di nuovo?La Beta 2 è sicuramente più stabile, ma c’è ancora del lavoro da fare  con i soliti bug fix. La release beta 2 ha le seguenti modifiche significative: un aggiornamento per CentOS 5.3; un cambiamento nella nomenclatura dei pacchetti  – da cc-app-XYZ a XYZ, una prima versione  di banda del gestore;  modifiche nel filtro dei contenuti (motore anti-virus aggiornato), una funzionale soluzione su server di stampa . generale pulizia dell’interfaccia web, comprese le forme di convalida, sarà completato in una fase successiva. Inoltre, potrete trovare l’interfaccia web  lenta in alcuni  luoghi , questo sarà ottimizzato in una futura versione beta.

Leggi il resto delle note di rilascio per ulteriori dettagli. Download: community-5.0-beta2.iso (617MB, MD5 ). Download: comunità-5,0-beta2.iso (617MB, MD5).

Im really excited about this. ClarkConnect has announced their target new features to be included with Clark Connect 5.0.

Some of the new features are things we badly need to improve our office network infrastructure.

ClarkConnect – Feature Overview for ClarkConnect 5.0

ClarkConnect 5.0 Feature Overview

ClarkConnect 5.0 is coming in early 2009 (schedule). Along with the upgrade to CentOS 5.x, here are some of the highlights…

Complete LDAP Integration

To an end user, having user information stored in LDAP instead of the usual Unix locations is not very exciting. In fact, you won’t see much difference in the web-based interface. Under the hood, we have put together a tightly integrated LDAP system.

One of the nice side effects of this change will be the ability to have a master server with username/password information along with multiple client servers using the same LDAP information. For example, you can have three different ClarkConnect systems on your network with different roles:

* A firewall/gateway with VPN capabilities
* A dedicated mail server
* A dedicated file server

Windows File Sharing / Samba

Thanks to some outside help from a Samba expert, the Windows Networking features in ClarkConnect 5.0 will really shine:

* Roaming profiles
* Recycle bin support
* File auditing
* Improved performance

Network Management / Peer-to-Peer

We will be introducing the protocol filtering in version 5.0. This new tool will help you manage what can and cannot be used on your network. Whether it is instant messaging, peer-to-peer, or other unwanted protocols, this new feature will help with network administration.
Mail Quarantine

The mail quarantine is back! A variation of the MailZu software has been integrated into ClarkConnect.

I wonder why their previously announced Online Backup Service was not highlighted?

We use ClarkConnect extensively as a key component of our office infrastructure (we are also a partner). We chose it over other Linux-based solutions as it integrates many of the best community-supported applications out there for Linux network services such as Squid, Dan’s Guardian, Samba, OpenVPN, ClamAV, SpamAssasin, and many others and provides a nice, easy to understand administration frontend plus a support/update service delivered over the Internet.

Their support/update service which they call SDN is a bit like Red Hat’s RHN but it adds some really useful network gateway services such as hosted antispam, antivirus, DNS, Dynamic DNS, bandwidth monitoring, intrusion detection and prevention, content filtering updates, and many others.

ClarkConnect is also not a black box solution, unlike other all-in-one Linux-based small business server solutions like Collax or Nitix (now Lotus Foundation Server). The source code is still open, the platform is still extensible (you can apt-get from third party repositories, and is based on CentOS so you can use the same packages available for Red Hat or CentOS).

It compares favorably to Microsoft Small Busines Server, in that you get a file (supports major protocols such as CIFS/WebDAV/NFS, FTP) server, database (MySQL) server, web (Apache) server, FTP server, e-mail, collaboration, centralized identity management, DNS, VPN, router, firewall, content filtering, intrusion detection/prevention, backup, antispam, antivirus solution–basically everything a small office would need for basic network services (for more elaborate or advanced network services such as unified threat management, network perimeter security and others, perhaps pfSense, IPCop, Smoothwall or Untangle would be a better choice).

They have been doing hybrid-hosted services or software+services before some marketing-savvy CEO coined the term. Too bad they are not as good with marketing–it seems another company is doing it for them (I wonder if its an OEM deal? Its clear they use the same platform, but with addons to connect to SaaS providers such as Google and Salesforce.com).

Anyway Im excited about the future of ClarkConnect. Three chears to Pointclark for their continued development of ClarkConnect!

After a little trial and error, I got TorrentFlux installed on my ClarkConnect box. Awesome. Now I don’t have to worry about leaving my main PC running when I want to download a torrent… you know, like maybe Fedora or something?

I really, really wanted to try Amahi, but I like having ClarkConnect as a gateway, and I’m not confident enough in my linux admin skills to turn a fedora installation into a gateway by adding a second NIC, as suggested on the amahi-users list. I’m definitely not feeling the suggestion that I go buy a wireless router, just so that I can plug it in and disable dhcp and stuff.

However, the Personal Backup Appliance, and running on a “newer” code base are still options that appeal to me. I may yet give Amahi a try. There was a recent review on Linux.com, but the reviewer didn’t even have broadband internet, so I’m somewhat skeptical that it told me anything that I didn’t already know from reading it.

I still haven’t given in to the urge to just wipe and try Windows Home Server (which also has no official gateway mode). So, I guess that’s something. Since I have a “real” web server running now, it might be time to put up that picture gallery running out of my house. Maybe that will spell the end for my sensless attatchment to flickr as well.

Regarding that HDA-ized Personal Backup Appliance, I really do need to look into automating some kind of solution with ClarkConnect, or Amahi or something. I imagine that I’ll get there eventually.

The other issue is wireless support. I wouldn’t mind using a wirless adapter on the server to serve up my wireless network. The only wireless clients in my house are our Windows Moblie T-Mobile Shadow phones, and the 802.11b adapter in the MythTV DVR downstairs, grabbing guide information. However, I’m serving it up now with an old D-Link DWL-900AP+ 802.11b access point. I don’t think there’s any wireless N adapters that work in Linux, but if there are, I need to find them, and then I’ll probably update the one in the DVR, add one to my ClarkConnect box, and sing their praises.

Time to start searching google, I guess.

Well, that gimp-print thing didn’t work. I couldn’t find a new printer in the admin tool. Oh well. maybe a reboot will fix it…

What’s that? one of the newtwork cards stopped working? Grr… the only thing worse than defective hardware is hardware that works intermittently. Sometimes I really miss my Apple hardware.

Fortunatly the box that has two 10/100 connections hasn’t been torn down… I take that, then set it up and re-copy my music to it, and my world of warcraft isntallation. I notice increased transfer speed. This box has a 2.8 GHz P4 a gig of DDR2 ram, and a 160 GB SATA hard drive. 10 MB/sec… Sigh, I’ll take it.

Then I move on to trying the same failure of gimp-print, and an internet search leads me to try gimp-print-cups.
[root@gateway ~]# apt-get install gimp-print-cups
Reading Package Lists…
Building Dependency Tree…
The following NEW packages will be installed:
gimp-print-cups
0 upgraded, 1 newly installed, 0 removed and 53 not upgraded.
Need to get 24.5MB of archives.
After unpacking 30.8MB of additional disk space will be used.
Get:1 ftp://rh.apt.clarkconnect.com System/os gimp-print-cups 4.2.7-2 [24.5MB]
Fetched 24.5MB in 45s (543kB/s)
Committing changes…
Preparing… ##################################################
gimp-print-cups ##################################################
Done.

Holy Cow! That works, but there’s a bunch of printers, none of which have any differentiation. They’re all Epson R300 something-or-other-gimp-print. But, I picked the first one, and the test page printed… but the sheet of paper fed through crooked .

Anyway. Looks like I’m good to go, other than needing for ClarkConnect to be based on a newer release of RHEL.

So, I fried a router… meh. I built a replacement. I also nabbed a gigabit switch for $20. Unfortunately, the hardware I tried to use for the router failed, and I had to use a “real machine” that only had 10/100 network bits in it.

I got the old hardware back up and running, and I also got some other parts together and ended up building a “home server” with ClarkConnect. Right now, it has two GigE cards (which is ridiculous, I know, since my incoming broadband is less than 10 Mbit) and a 30 GB laptop hard drive. Maybe some day, I’ll grab that little chenbro case and 4 terabyte drives that everyone is using for their custom WHS installs.

The machine is running off of the motherboard from a Compaq machine that I got from the Weldy’s 1.2 GHz Athlon and two sticks of 256 MB RAM. That combined with the laptop hard drive, and the gigabit nics being PCI probably contributed to the paltry backup speed of around 6.5 Megabytes per second. Oh well, I got my 11 GB of ripped CDs off of my comptuer, and I built a machine that can act as some sort of backup server.

Of course, I’ll need to add space, that 30 GB laptop drive is full, because I added the installer for World of Warcraft and some patches to it as well. That’ll be another adventure.

Also, I’ve never gotten the print server working on ClarkConnect. It is one of the few reasons I’m tempted to try out Amahi, just because I know Fedora better than RHEL, and that I know if I plug in my printer in Fedora, it will work. I posted a little help request on the ClarkConnect Forums:

http://www.clarkconnect.com/forums/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=111094&an=0&page=0#Post111094

I’m guessing I just need to get gutenprint installed, but I don’t really know how. Probably something easy like ssh-ing into the box and typing “apt-get install gutenprint”. Maybe I should just try that. LOL. I really don’t want to have to get out my usb print server. It is just one more thing that I need to plug into the wall.

I sold my PowerBook G4. Get this. I met the guy in front of the Apple Store. Heh. So, the really funny part is… now that I am “mac-less” I don’t want to use the Apple Airport Extreme. There’s not much reason for me to feel this way, since I can still use it.

However, there is one fundamental flaw witht the device, which is otherwise great. I can’t configure it with a web browser. I actually have to use a utility that comes with every Mac, and can be installed on Windows (thank goodness).

The device rocks, other than not having a gigabit hub built in. So, I’m torn. I love having a print server, and wireless access point, and router, and dhcp server in one device. But, I hate that I have to attach a hub to get more than one wired connection. This is fundamentally how I feel about apple devices, I love the simplicity, but I hate that I can’t tinker. I guess I could just buy a gigabit hub and stop whining…

What if the revolution comes, and all my machines are running Linux? I can even use the print server in Linux, but I can’t configure the router… and then there’s that whole I-can’t-turn-off-dhcp-without-some-hackish-trick thing. Yeah, it is silly…

I guess there’s one thing keeping me on it for now. I have a Linksys wired router with a 10/100 switch built-in, but no wireless. I need wireless so that the Media Center box can access the Internet for scheduling info. I do have a wireless-B device that can be an access point or wireless adapter or bridge. It can even do DHCP as well. Hmm… I could just use that… Oh, and I have a couple of USB print servers that I could attatch too.

Clearly, the Aiport should stay, rather than hooking up three devices to replace it… or… I could just use ClarkConnect, get the print server and wireless working on it, and not be so anal. Or, I could just buy a wireless router, and then run Amahi on a spare box. Again… this is a silly choice. It works now, I shouldn’t even be thinking about this.

All because I sold my PowerBook. Nice.

wah mumpung limit speedy gw lagi full dan bandwidth speedy lagi naik yang katanya 1Mbps
download ah… males skarang bgadang di warnet lelet…. bau… kreta ga aman… beeeeeeee enak dirumah sambil nonton EURO 2008

ah Prancis kalah telak ama Italy 0:2 untuk Italy. Ya yang penting Jerman tetap maju…

Rencananya sih mo make Community Edition 4.2 SP1 sebagai gateway dirumah, berhubung ada 3 kompi, jadi mo di sharing pake ClarkConnect, cuma blom tau nih setup modem and OS-nya…

Minggu, 1 Juni 2008 kemarin saya mendapatkan pengalaman baru dibidang jaringan komputer. Ceritanya, semester 6 ini saya ambil kuliah praktikum pemrograman jaringan, dan hari Senin (2/6) ujian akhir mata kuliah tersebut. Pada kuliah ini, para mahasiswa praktikum membuat Personal Computer (PC) Router untuk menghubungkan 2 jaringan yang berbeda kelas/segmen. Untuk memantapkan pemahaman mata kuliah tersebut dan biar ujiannya lancar, saya dan dua teman kuliah, Andi dan Agni melakukan praktikum sendiri membuat PC Router dengan ClarkConnect 4.1.

Apa sih ClarkConnect itu? ClarkConnect adalah perangkat lunak yang akan mengubah PC menjadi server, internet firewall, gateway atau dedicated router. ClarkConnect berbasis Red Hat Linux. Dibandingkan dengan Mikrotik yang juga perangkat lunak untuk PC Router, ClarkConnect kalah populer. Menurut survei yang saya lakukan dengan google, kata kunci Mikrotik akan menghasilkan sekitar 3,430,000 halaman web jauh lebih banyak dibanding kata kunci ClarkConnect yang hanya menghasilkan sekitar 428,000 halaman web.

Persiapan yang kami lakukan untuk praktikum tersebut yaitu:

• PC pentium III dengan hardisk 4 GB
• 2 buah LAN-CARD / NIC
• Kabel UTP dan konektor RJ-45
• Hub 8 port
• CD Installer ClarkConnect 4.1

Setelah itu, praktikum dimulai dengan menginstall ClarkConnect. Yang menurut saya langkah-langkahnya cukup mudah, tinggal mengikuti petunjuk yang muncul pada layar monitor tersebut. Hanya saja setelah ClarkConnect terinstall, saat mengatur nomor Internet Protocol (IP) untuk masing-masing NIC, kami ada sedikit kesulitan. Kesulitan tersebut yaitu kami tidak dapat membedakan NIC yang terdeteksi sebagai eth0 dan eth1. Untuk membedakannya, akhirnya kami mencabut salah satu kabel dari NIC tersebut, lalu restart ClarkConnect, dan dilayar monitor muncul eth0…[failed]. Nah, dengan demikian diketahui yang manakah NIC eth0 dan eth1.

Lalu, langkah selanjutnya mengatur nomor IP:

• eth0 : untuk jaringan eksternal, saya set 172.11.11.xxx. Dan dihubungkan ke internet dengan DNS 1 : 172.11.11.xxx, dan DNS 2: 202.155.0.xxx.
• eth1 : untuk jaringan lokal, saya set dengan 192.168.1.0.

Berikutnya mengatur IP untuk klien (menggunakan Windows XP):

• IP address: 192.168.1.xxx
• Subnet mask: 255.255.255.0
• Gateway: 192.168.1.0
• DNS 1: 172.11.11.xxx
• DNS 2: 202.155.0.xxx

Akhirnya percobaan berhasil dan semua klien dapat terhubung ke internet. Karena praktikum inilah, ujian mata kuliah pemrograman jaringan dapat saya lalui dengan baik. Alhamdulillah.:)

Download Langkah-langkah Installasi ClarkConnect.

Langsung saja (Smoothwall 3) dan pake tipe static

Edit file  vim /var/smoothwall/ethernet/settings tambahkan DNS telkom seperti ini:

………………..

DNS1=203.130.196.155
DNS2=202.134.1.10
DNS3=202.134.0.155
DNS4=203.130.196.5
…………………

Kalo mo nambahin tinggal diurutkan aja, misal DNS5, DNS6, dst

Setelah itu edit file vim /etc/rc.d/rc.updatered tambahkan juga baris seperti ini :

………………..

elif [ "$RED_TYPE" = "STATIC" ]; then
DNSMASQ_DNS1=$DNS1
DNSMASQ_DNS2=$DNS2
DNSMASQ_DNS3=$DNS3
DNSMASQ_DNS4=$DNS4
……………….

echo “$DNSMASQ_DNS1″ >/var/smoothwall/red/dns1
echo “$DNSMASQ_DNS2″ >/var/smoothwall/red/dns2
echo “$DNSMASQ_DNS3″ >/var/smoothwall/red/dns3
echo “$DNSMASQ_DNS4″ >/var/smoothwall/red/dns4

/usr/bin/smoothcom dnsproxyrestart $DNSMASQ_DNS1 $DNSMASQ_DNS2 $DNSMASQ_DNS3 $DNSMASQ_DNS4
…………………

Selesai, kemudian reboot dan hasilnya seperti ini

(root) ~ $ cat /etc/resolv.conf.dnsmasq
nameserver 203.130.196.155
nameserver 202.134.1.10
nameserver 202.134.0.155
nameserver 203.130.196.5