UbuntuEasyBusinessServer

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Comment by PaulKishimoto on 2007-03-20: I added UbuntuServerTasks and AdministerServerViaWebInterface to the related specs list. The former has already been approved, and the creator seems to know something about tasksel, which sounds like it would be useful.
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 * UbuntuServerTasks
 * AdministerServerViaWebInterface

Please check the status of this specification in Launchpad before editing it. If it is Approved, contact the Assignee or another knowledgeable person before making changes.

Summary

This spec describes Ubuntu's Easy Business Server, a configuration utility aimed at making it easy for non-technical businesses set up an Ubuntu based server for various things.

Rationale

The free software universe in general, and Ubuntu in particular, already provides most of the tools and infrastructure components needed to fulfill the needs of small businesses. What is needed is: Good integration between these components and easy configuration.

The current solutions like webmin are basically just a web enabled configuration file. The goal of this project is to provide something much more high level. E.g. instead of a postfix transport configuration dialog, I want an "Add mail domain" dialog. Which mail server provides the service and what terminology it uses is unimportant.

Scope

  • Groupware
    • Mail server (internal and external)
      • Multiple domains
      • Aliases
      • vacation integration
    • Calendar server
      • Sharing of free/busy schedule
    • Contact Management (Added by gQuigs 2007-3-15)
      • Optional: Storing telephone call information
    • File server
      • Sharing of files
      • Optional: Limitation of access to files
    • Print server

For the Google Summer of Code project, only the above will be prioritised.

For each of these tasks, a set of configuration files will be created based on best practices and a simple interface for setting it up will be provided.

Ultimately, the following services will be included, too:

  • Infrastructure
    • DHCP
    • DNS
    • Time
    • Firewall/Internet gateway
    • VPN
  • User management
    • Linux
    • Windows
  • Backup
    • Configuration
    • Files

Design

Unlike the current LAMP and DNS server options Ubuntu already provides, the EBS will not just be a metapackage depending on the right packages, but will also provide a clean, consistent, simple, Ubuntu branded configuration interface for adminstering all of this.

The Ubuntu Easy Business Server will provide only a limited amount of easily accessible configuration options. The target group is small businesses with little or no Linux experience, so only the bare minumum should be presented.

Configuration will be handled by a graceful version of configuration file hijacking: A hash of the hijacked configuration file will be saved along with the written configuration file. If a manual edit has been done, the user will be presented with a choice to overwrite his manual changes or a diff between the last known configuration and the newly generated one and he will have to implement those changes himself.

Each task or component handled by the EBS configuration system will be implemented as a plugin containing configuration file templates, and a set of key/value/type tuples with sane defaults and helpful explanations. These pairs will be presented by the configuration utility in a coherent fashion.

Implementation

UEBS will be implemented in Python, possibly using something like Django (which has a web server built in).

The actual todo list:

  • Configuration file handling system:
    • Templating system
    • The magic bit (noticing changes to configuration files and show a diff to the user instead of overwriting)
  • Create a slick looking web interface (see mock ups below)
  • Definition and implementation of plugin system.
  • Implementation of the groupware plugins
    • Mail
    • Calendar sharing
    • Address book sharing
    • File sharing
    • Printer sharing

Screenshots

I imagine it will look something like this (these are just mock ups): http://linux2go.dk/uebs-scrshots/mail.png http://linux2go.dk/uebs-scrshots/user.png http://linux2go.dk/uebs-scrshots/users.png http://linux2go.dk/uebs-scrshots/network.png

Data preservation and migration

Unresolved issues

BoF agenda and discussion

Comments

Comment by ArtCancro on 2007-03-15: may I suggest Citadel [http://www.citadel.org] as the groupware component? It would save an awful lot of work because it's got all of the mail and calendar stuff built in.

Comment by PaulKishimoto on 2007-03-20: I added UbuntuServerTasks and AdministerServerViaWebInterface to the related specs list. The former has already been approved, and the creator seems to know something about tasksel, which sounds like it would be useful.


CategorySpec

UbuntuEasyBusinessServer (last edited 2012-11-09 15:46:51 by 41)