[CentOS] Re: Bind Setup -- SME (fka E-Smith) Server based on CentOS 4?

[Les Mikesell]

On Wed, 2005-08-10 at 13:46, Bryan J. Smith wrote:

> > By the way, if you really don't want to know all this
> > stuff, you might like the SME server from www.contribs.org.
> > The next version is going to be based on Centos4 and there
> > is an alpha release available now.  There are things I
> don't
> > like about the system but for small networks where one
> > server does everything and you want 'fill-in-the-form'
> > administration it is a good fit.
> 
> In other words, it's great for deploying at companies when
> you can't be around -- like most small consultants are for at
> small companies.

Yes, it installs as an 'appliance' that does about everything
you'd want a single server to do.  I've used it in remote
offices where a local manager could take care of it
himself.

> The last time I checked out work on SME, a number of Debian
> users were complaining that it should be Debian based.  I
> have  like Debian (Murdock's attitudes, used to be a
> maintainer too, etc...), but I thought it was rather
> self-defeating to move away from all the work that had
> already been done for the Red Hat Linux / RPM lineage. 
> Especially since those people were not very into the existing
> codebase (or support).

I never liked debian until Knoppix and Ubuntu turned the
codebase into a very undebian-like product so those
complaints never made sense to me.  I have my own, though,
which basically boil down to the system being completely
configured by perl scripts and templates.  If you want
to make a change that the scripts don't handle (and I
always did...), you not only had to understand the config
files you were trying to avoid, but you also had to know
perl and how all the related variables in the database
are managed by the web forms.   And up until now, it has
been difficult to keep a system updated.  Of course if you
are a contractor selling support you don't want the
users doing that kind of stuff themselves anyway so
my complaints on their own development list were never
well received.  

> I think it's great that they are going to base it on CentOS
> 4!
> And I'm glad to hear there is an Alpha test available.

It looks like they are going to make it use stock rpms at
least to a certain extent - they still plan to use qmail
and some of the other djb stuff, but at least a normal
yum update will work.  But, the ways they simplify
administration combine some concepts in ways that are
sometimes handy and sometimes just wrong - for example
their DHCP server hands itself out as the DNS server and
the DNS server is automatically configured as the primary
for it's domain.  In a larger network you are likely to
already have a primary dns server for the domain but the
SME clients won't see it.  On the other hand, having a
single form where you can enter a mac address along with
the name/ip and have both the dhcpd.conf and dns zone file
entry built is nice where it works.

-- 
   Les Mikesell
    lesmikesell at gmail.com