A day to remember. Handed my report to my manger. Within seconds he was shouting and banging his fist on the desk. Obviously extremely angry as the preface stated the reason for the report was lack of security updates to the servers that protect our companies interlectual property. We all know when our manger is like this to excuse ourselves and leave his office. He later called me and requested I return to his office.

He apologized and thanked me for my findings. He indicated that he was in favor of option 4. In the companies foundation money was tight and hence the minimum spend on IT to get going. The company had done well and was now in a much better financial position. Although option4 was the most expensive, it was cheap insurance compared to the cost of loosing our reputation, present customers or their at least their confidence in our operation.

Option 4? To immediately buy a firewall appliance with support contract to place between our modem and existing servers. This would provide an immediate increase in our security and allow more time to consider what OS platform to replace ClearOS on the old servers. Looks like it will be either a Netgate or OPNsense appliance solution. Likely whoever can deliver the quickest. Obviously I did not include ClearBox with its out of date OS software in the list.

So it's goodbye from me, thanks for all the help from the several here that has taken their time to respond to my questions. Maybe see you again in some other cyberspace.

Alan said

Webmin could be a possibility

Thanks Alan, that's helpful. Wasn't ware of Webmin.
Will take a look tomorrow early and consider adding to my report being presented to my manager late morning.

@Bob, possibly not for you, but for a more versed Linux user, Webmin could be a possibility. It will run on top of all sorts of distros such as Debian/Ubuntu/Alma etc. One downside is that it exposes a huge amount of parameters, many of which you don't need (e.g in Postfix and Samba). On the other hand, these are all maintained distros and up to date with security fixes.

Incidentally, when I said you’re reliant on the developers to configure the server apps, I didn’t mean ‘for your particular use’, I meant the generic configuration, so for a directory server for example, you just fill the boxes (in the web admin page) for your particular organisation; you don’t need to worry about all the low level setup. And then, when you add users (again, on the relevant page), you just provide their details and the underlying configuration that’s been put in place when you selected that particular marketplace app (or plural..) is already connected and you don’t need to concern yourself with it. Do the same with Debian/Ubuntu/etc, and you’ve got to do all that interlinking up front yourself. So your question should really be about the longevity of ClearOS rather than anything else. That’s going to be your driver I think.

It’s arguable that if you’re happy that your network access is sufficiently secure to stop access from being hacked -either from inside or outside, ClearOS will do what you want. Just be aware that you’re not likely to get any further security updates. From a business point of view, that would be my decider. If we’re talking about a home system (which it sounds like we’re not …), then it’s probably worth the gamble. I’m a retired s/w engineer (embedded software), so I’m happy to tinker and learn Linux to build something I need; it sounds to me though, that you need to go another route long term.

Achieve? Just secure and easy to maintain servers with minimal work!
Wow! Thanks, wasn't expecting that at all. Looks like I had better get this documented come Monday and present to my manager.
He will not be happy.

You might find this page of interest ... https://documentation.clearos.com/content:en_us:kb_7_install_graphical_desktop_for_clearos

I guess though, the question is "what are you trying to achieve? What's your 'target'?"

The answer to that will dictate whether the current (final?) state of ClearOS 7 will do it for you. Just bear in mind that for the past year (more?) there's only been one individual providing maintenance - and his contract was terminated/reinstated .. and I've no idea what his current 'input' is (he'll probably reply to this). Plus Centos 7 (on which ClearOS 7 is based) is end-of-life next year (2024), and there's no 'CentOS 8' ... they're now pushing 'CentOS Stream'. If you hunt the forums, you'll find discussions on where ClearOS was going to move to .. none of which seemed to have any definitive answers ...

Me? I'm ditching ClearOS and putting my own servers together .. it's only in use until I've got everything ready to go. Left put it this way; I've got 3 ClearOS servers - a file server, a mail server, and a reverse proxy server. The last updates were so long ago that they don't even show up in the logs anymore. The only installs that show up are the VirtualBox installation I put in place a couple of days ago in preparation of freeing the more powerful server to be wiped and rebuilt. I've also discovered that Kopano - which I purchased for the mail server, whilst the latest version from the developers is significantly later than the version available on ClearOS, is also end of life and all development has stopped and the forums have been closed (except for reference). That means I'm ditching that too. No point in using something where if I get a question, I can't get an answer.

Thanks for the clarification. No Windows server. Until recently I was just maintaining the windows workstations. I had previously discovered a popular Linux GUI is Gnome. Using that to search this site found a person called Dirk had installed it. Thanks. I am just talking about using a GUI during installation or configuration changes. There is a web-page showing the GUI in Fedora to configure ethernet connections. Has more options than those in Webconfig and you don't need to know arcane commands. Hope this clears things up.

These statements of yours has me worrried :-

"like ClearOS relies on developers configuring the various marketplace apps for you" and "may be now a dead-duck"

I started going back in time on this site looking for what you were talking about. Found some appends about "Domoticz". Assume that is an example of what you meant. domotiz Anyway searching on domotiz and fedora/ubuntu found domoticz-2022.1-5.fc37 for Fedora and ubuntu "snap install domoticz". Just part of their available apps. Seems something is wrong that ClearOS developers are struggling to do the same, or have given up and quit.

I think you've misunderstood - I didn't say it was unique, merely that it's pre-disposed to a server - semi-preconfigured (cf the marketplace). The others are bare bone servers where you install the applications you want, and you configure them. The problem (if you want to call it that), is that something like ClearOS relies on developers configuring the various marketplace apps for you - and to provide updates on a regular basis. That used to be the case, but you'll note from many recent posts that the general feeling is that ClearOS -certainly the community edition (and maybe the paid-for versions judging from the lack of updates) may be now a dead-duck. I for one, am in the process of creating 2/3 VMs specifically for the applications I want, on the latest stable/LTS debian/ubuntu servers.

On the desktop front, I'm not sure what your point is; I did say there's a ClearOS desktop that can be added so you can use the box as a desktop machine as well - you just then install the applications you want as a desktop (like spreadsheet/word processor/etc) exactly as you would need to do on a Fedora/Ubuntu/Debian/etc server installation (as opposed to a desktop installation where those applications get installed by default). ClearOS on the other hand is NOT predisposed to be a desktop environment, nor are desktop applications installed by default; if you want that capability it's available, just not by default. As an example, I've a ClearOS server that's configured to be a VirtualBox host environment - and I installed the desktop to be able to manage the VMs easily rather than resorting to the command line. The server also act as a reverse proxy (using the marketplace app) to the VMs and (hardware) server that handle websites/mail/nextcloud facilities. Keeps the actual servers isolated from the big, bad, wide world outside my 4 walls.

Or have I misunderstood your thoughts?

You said you're a Windoz man .. let me pose a question ... would you install M$ Office and use a Windows Server machine as a desktop or would you use a Windows 10/11 machine to do WP/spreadsheet/etc work? I'll lay odds you wouldn't; so why are you concerned that a linux SERVER doesn't by default have a desktop environment and applications? The fact that you can install them if you want is just a bonus .. I'm not sure if you could easily do the same on a Windows Server ... (although maybe you can - I don't have the funds to pay M$ for a server licence to find out!) - personally, I use a Windows 10 machine for that.

Thanks Richard, However, what you said doesn't make ClearOS unique from what little I have found and understood so far. One of the distributions I found in my attempt to learn Linux was Fedora, as there are thousands of hits for it on the web, unlike ClearOS. It seems there are two distinct versions - a Workstation and Server. From the stuff I saw it seems that Fedora Server has an admin web console on port 9090 so can be remotely administered. Users can also login to the same port, change their password etc. Just like webconfig. However, you can also install the full GUI if you want. Seems like an advantage to me, what am I missing?

That's because Ubuntu, Debian et al are, and have a different raison d'etre to ClearOS. The former are distributions that can serve (in their basic form) as servers (file etc), or desktops (like Windows). ClearOS is specifically a server configuration, providing services to other machines - like Windows machines, or Ubuntu desktops, or tablets/smartphones. As such, it doesn't have a desktop per se, but a web interface allows administrators to configure the services and accounts (a bit like Microsoft Live accounts that you can use/access from different machines). There's also a interface allowing users to change their passwords, download VPN credentials, etc.

That said, there is a desktop that can be installed seperately, but you'd have to install any applications you want to use (LibreOffice for example) independently - they're not part of the default ClearOS install.

Dirk, Thank you for your guidance and for stepping in for folks like Bob. It's nice to see ClearOS Server community members helping one another. Thank you again!

It's actually a very nice server package. I've been using it for years. Using apps like Putty and WinSCP allow you to remotely perform commands at the command line and edit script in all your files, albeit it's easy to break things if you're not careful. That's why we back things up. There is great documentation available at ClearOS's documentation site to familiarize yourself and learn how to navigate the server and its packages. This forum is a wealth of knowledge as well.

Thanks Dirk, not good. So the only way is arcane using the command-line. Ah well.