Amahi Forums

MAILSERVER:
Amahi should come with an mailserver,
easiest would be if it came with a mailserver that has some form of web administration,
this could then be packaged into a one-click app

WEBSERVER:
a more simplyfied way to add/remove virtual hosts.
right now amahi does this itself, but sometimes network admins may wish to add a virtual host outside what amahi does.

SAMBA ADMIN TOOL:
Since samba is installed for network shares, all thats missing is a way to administer samba through the web interface.
idally, SWAT could be adapted to use.

AUTOMATIC BACKUP TOOL:
Perhaps some basic scripts could be made into the current PBA image that loads when networkboot is activated.
the client could then use a simple tar script to backup the drive, and rsync it to the server.

WINDOWS UPDATES:
if some kind of script could be made to automaticly download the windows updates, clients could then
pull in the updates through a loginscript or network policy.
that removes the need to run a seccond server in company's just to run a windows update server.


NETWORK ACTIVBE DIRECTORY:
Samba can be used for this, all we need to find is a way to run the admin scripts from the dashboad.

MAIL LOGS:
personally, i have great advantages if syslog automatcly mails a daily log with whats going on on the server.
this simplyfies the search for problems and/or breakdowns of the server

SERVER BACKUP:
this can be done by running a simple tar command from the cronjobs i think.
if we could then make it save the tar to an external drive or something, we have a basic, crude but working backup
for the server itself.

ROUTER FUNCTIONALITY:
for SOHO it would be great if there was a way to allow hda to run as the central backbone of the network.
its a machine running 24/7 anyway, so why have the need for yet another power consuming device while linux basicly was buil for routing.
perhaps a strict firewall rules set could make hda more secure for router activity.

A PERSONAL DASHBOARD:
For me, ideally amahi would allow for a customized dashboard based on the user's network credentials.
i dont want to tempt fate, so why show the setup tab to a temporary co-worker who has limited rights on the network.
perhaps this could be done.

fair topics.

WEBSERVER:
a more simplyfied way to add/remove virtual hosts.
right now amahi does this itself, but sometimes network admins may wish to add a virtual host outside what amahi does.

this is exactly webapps does. it creates a virtual host that is empty and you have to fill it. can't get any easier!

SAMBA ADMIN TOOL:
Since samba is installed for network shares, all thats missing is a way to administer samba through the web interface.
idally, SWAT could be adapted to use.

the shares tab (setup -> shares) is the samba admin!

WINDOWS UPDATES:
if some kind of script could be made to automaticly download the windows updates, clients could then
pull in the updates through a loginscript or network policy.
that removes the need to run a seccond server in company's just to run a windows update server.

i heard of this before. this sounds like an app you can package

ROUTER FUNCTIONALITY:
for SOHO it would be great if there was a way to allow hda to run as the central backbone of the network.
its a machine running 24/7 anyway, so why have the need for yet another power consuming device while linux basicly was buil for routing.
perhaps a strict firewall rules set could make hda more secure for router activity.

we have the beginnings of that with the Router Control feature!
interested in writing a module?

A PERSONAL DASHBOARD:
For me, ideally amahi would allow for a customized dashboard based on the user's network credentials.
i dont want to tempt fate, so why show the setup tab to a temporary co-worker who has limited rights on the network.
perhaps this could be done.

this (in a simplified way) is coming for the next big release (fedora 11).

as for the rest:

mail is hard. one day will get there. the servers feature gets us one step closer.

active directory/single logon ... not sure ...

the rest are good ideas!

hello cpg,

i overlooked the empty webapp thing, thank you for clearing up
but perhaps there's a way to modify existing ones?
i prefer //www/ over //portalneo/ since my home users are used to certain adresses.
and i can imagine others who have the same thing.

as for the shares tab,
its a verry good idea for the home user who *only* has a pc and a laptop, maybe even a game pc..
as for me, and for some of the homes i manage, these networks all have more then 5 pc's,
ad usually a domain controller to keep them all in control, thats where the shares tab is too.. simple?
as said on irc, maybe an Amahi Business Server comes more close to what i mean hehehe

i like the way you're going with the server feautures, i hope they include more options then start/stop/restart?
i have not yet heard much of it.

As said earlier, i may be a bit too enthousiastic, but im used to seeing the bigger deal,
and as i said allredy, i think amahi has great potential!

i'm gonna search a bit, and come up with a solution to the backup thing,
i think i have enough expirience to make that one work

for the time beeing, i can install a mailserver without the interface,
but i imagine its easier for a simple home user with an interface.

That all said, i am verry fond of amahi, i consider my HDA as a worthy jewel in my home network,
and i can definatly see it grow into a serious concurrent for WHS.

Regards,
jhjacobs!

MAILSERVER:
Amahi should come with an mailserver,
easiest would be if it came with a mailserver that has some form of web administration,
this could then be packaged into a one-click app

Fedora comes with a mail server. I allows you to configure your own mail domain. Yes it would be nice to have a simple front-end, however MTA's are not simple beasts so simplifying that is hard. So far I've never seen an easy interface (that includes MS Exchange server with its 100 checkmarks & tabs for properties).

SAMBA ADMIN TOOL:
Since samba is installed for network shares, all thats missing is a way to administer samba through the web interface.
idally, SWAT could be adapted to use.

a more finegrained Samba admin tool may be nice for some people. I can see the need (although I don't have it myself).

AUTOMATIC BACKUP TOOL:
Perhaps some basic scripts could be made into the current PBA image that loads when networkboot is activated.
the client could then use a simple tar script to backup the drive, and rsync it to the server.

completely agree. I'm playing a bit with this but nothing is coming from it due to lack of time ATM. The easiest way (I think) is creating a PXE boot menu with the "full" client, the client with a restore script that autogenerates a backup name (derived from the MAC address + date comes to mind) and a restore script which ideally gives you a listing of all the existing backups that can be restored.

WINDOWS UPDATES:
if some kind of script could be made to automaticly download the windows updates, clients could then
pull in the updates through a loginscript or network policy.
that removes the need to run a seccond server in company's just to run a windows update server.

not sure if you want to roll out Amahi in such a large environment, or when bandwidth costs are very high

NETWORK ACTIVBE DIRECTORY:
Samba can be used for this, all we need to find is a way to run the admin scripts from the dashboad.

LDAP is being worked on but a very (_very_) complex service to get right

MAIL LOGS:
personally, i have great advantages if syslog automatcly mails a daily log with whats going on on the server.
this simplyfies the search for problems and/or breakdowns of the server

nothing a cronjob can't fix...

SERVER BACKUP:
this can be done by running a simple tar command from the cronjobs i think.
if we could then make it save the tar to an external drive or something, we have a basic, crude but working backup
for the server itself.

tar & cpio lend itself well for this kind of thing, it's what they're designed for. personally I'd use dd for a bit for bit diskcopy of the OS. If high availability is important: go raid 1 (mirroring). If it's for off-site backup: tar/cpio would be fine. I don't see the point of backing your data up to a USB drive if that drive is always on since the possibility of a failure is almost as great as the primary disk failing because it's on just as much.

ROUTER FUNCTIONALITY:
for SOHO it would be great if there was a way to allow hda to run as the central backbone of the network.
its a machine running 24/7 anyway, so why have the need for yet another power consuming device while linux basicly was buil for routing.
perhaps a strict firewall rules set could make hda more secure for router activity.

It wouldn't. Why? Security, single point of failure. I'll explain:
Security - if it's hacked, everything is open. EVERYTHING. Your mail, your backups (unless you save offsite), your files, your binaries, your OS, you name it. An extra layer between amahi and the big bad internet is a good idea. Corporates don't have that kind of dedicated stuff in place for nothing. It's a good idea. You should too.
Single point of failure - if it's hosed, your complete network is down. Perhaps longer than it would otherwise be. Sometimes more servers is good. Redundancy, failover etc. Unless you are running on very reliable hardware (real server class), but then the argument of 15W power consumption of a router is moot - your server is then drawing a good 300-400W continuously. currently my server draws around 60W, and my router (which serves Wifi as well, something my hda can't) draws 15W during the day and around 10 at night (it has a Wifi radio scheduler, I have it configured to turn Wifi off during the night.

A PERSONAL DASHBOARD:
For me, ideally amahi would allow for a customized dashboard based on the user's network credentials.
i dont want to tempt fate, so why show the setup tab to a temporary co-worker who has limited rights on the network.
perhaps this could be done.

Would be nice indeed. Currently the half workaround is using .htaccess files to block access to the setup webinterface completely.


However I do think lots of the points are valid.
So much so that I'm thinking even further - why not create 2 flavors of Amahi: 1 pro without torrents, media streaming, and things like that but with some more advanced user control scripts and 1 home version with all the bits and pieces a home user wants but more simplified. Of course you should be able to enable those options as well, but I think it would score equally well with the enthousiast crowd as the SOHO/"pro" crowd.

WINDOWS UPDATES:
if some kind of script could be made to automaticly download the windows updates, clients could then
pull in the updates through a loginscript or network policy.
that removes the need to run a seccond server in company's just to run a windows update server.

I have seen something that does this actually, UpdateAccelerator for ipcop. The way I understand it, it uses squid as a transparent proxy with some configuration changes to allow updates to be cached. You could do this potentially with squid on fedora, however you'd need your router to forward all http traffic through amahi, and you'd need to figure out what changes update-accelerator does to squid.. It's a worthy project though..

http://update-accelerator.advproxy.net/

if it's hosed, your complete network is down. Perhaps longer than it would otherwise be.

This is the way it is with amahi at present.. because it hosts the DNS and DHCP.