Keith Nelson's picture

I did a quick skim of the forums and didn't see anything quite like what I would love to see in terms of Turnkey so I am posting this.  Please excuse any potential duplicate posting. ;)

I have been an unfortunate convert (bear with me) from Turnkey to ClearFoundation's Clear OS out of the sheer need for firewall security.  About 2 months ago, I was the subject of a DOS attack on my HOME network of all places where my poor little Netgear Router didn't fare to well in the game and froze up.  This prompted me to search for a different server setup, specifically a firewall/gateway appliance which I could depend on to block hack attempts and network exploites coming in.  Since I have done this, I have had at least 2 blocks daily from the East Coast here in the USA and often times from around the world.  Literally blocked by Snort which is included in their system.   Also, I have grown to absolutely love their mail retrieval/pop server combo which has allowed me to scale up my email retrieval to an enterprise level for when I am on the road and have to remote in to my box and retreive my mail.  There are a lot of other features but I am not trying to promote their product.  (NO - REALLY!!!)

I would love to see as an appliance idea Turnkey to create something similar to what they have.  My Dream system really consists of the following:

  • Firewall
  • Web Proxy (for my 7yr old who is on the internet)
  • Mail Server with Imap and Pop3/External Pop Retrieval
  • File Server
  • Asterisk - FreePBX based or other open sourced PBX based software
  • Web Server with MySql and PHP
  • Network Antivirus System

I know that I could always download the Base System with the Ubuntu or now Debian Lenny  - but my rudimentary skills are a bit too ruidementary for what I am really wanting to see.  I did try this several times with Debian Lenny as late as last week around this time, and got most of it working, but as I am sure the Developers here know, you can make one thing work, but sometimes it breaks others.  (At least for me it did). 

Right now, I am staying with the ClearOS for my main server because it has what I need, but would really love to see something from Tunrkey like this to fill some of the needs that I have.  With ClearOS, I am forced to either Pay them for their security updates, or go without.  Since they are using a CentOS system, it isn't exactly the same as doing an APT command to get software or updates and especially the YUM command.  Their distros are a bit proprietary in temrs of if you update your software manually, you break the system, or at least the module they wrote for their painfully slow web GUI.  (I am running on a 1.5ghz 512mb system FWIW).   

Is any of this something that Turnkey has considered or would consider?  Perhaps even a new appliance with just the firewall/web proxy would be a great place to start or Asterisk. 

Forum: 

Add new comment