During the event, which was attended by some 120 managers and professionals of the IT industry in the region, the commercial strategy of eBox Tehcnologies was unveiled, together with its business development plan. eBox Technologies is an spin-off from Warp Networks, founded in order to launch eBox to the market and continue its development.

The event has had wide media coverage in the printed regional papers and on the online sites, such as europapress, aragoninvestiga, cenatic, opensourceworldconference or somoslibres.org among many others.

The eBox development team proudly announces that you can already download our first release candidate (0.12.99) for eBox platform 1.0. This version will give you an accurate preview of the upcoming 1.0. Please note that it is a release candidate ready for testing.

You can download the eBox installer CD from here.

The packages will be available in our repositories very soon.

Happy testing!

To celebrate this moment we will host an event at the Technological Institute of Aragon, Zaragoza (Spain). For this event we will have a lot of support from the main public institutions in the region, with speeches from Fernando Beltran (Vice-Counselor of Science, Technology and University at the Government of Aragon), Ricardo Cavero (General Director of Science and Technology at the City of Zaragoza) and Francisco Rojas (Manager of the Development of Information Society at the Technological Institute of Aragon). The official programme can be downloaded in Spanish in PDF. The attendance is open and free, so we hope to see you there!

We have just added a new feature to our traffic shaping module: layer 7 filter.

We are using l7 filter to mark network packets based on its content. This is pretty useful for those of you who are in the need of throttling traffic that can use different ports. Shaping p2p traffic is much easier with this new feature.

We are using the kernel space version of l7-filter at the moment. We plan to switch to the user space version in a few months.

This version of l7-filter needs a patched kernel and patched iptables. But don’t worry just follow the steps below if you want to test it:

To install these packages add the following lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list file:

deb http://ebox-platform.com/testing/packages/l7kernel ./
deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ebox-unstable/ubuntu hardy main


Once you have added the apt sources run:

apt-get update


First of all, we need to install the pactched kernel by running:

sudo apt-get install linux-image-2.6.24-19-l7filter


Now you will have to reboot to be able to use the new kernel.

If you manage to boot with the new kernel, the next step is installing the patched iptables package and ebox-l7-protocols:


sudo apt-get install ebox-l7-protocols iptables


If everything goes ok, you will be able to access and configure eBox through the web interface.

Note that the eBox traffic shaping module is meant to be used when your machine is acting as gateway, and you can shape on internal interfaces for ingress shaping and on external interfaces for egress shaping.

Don’t forget you will have to enable the firewall and add rules to accept traffic from your internal networks to internet.

Enjoy

Your favourite development team proudly presents the availability of
eBox platform 0.12. This release brings a lot of bug fixes to increase the
stability and reliability that we all expect from such a product. However,
you will find more than bug fixes in this release. We have made some changes
to the UI of several modules: mail, maifilter and openVPN. We have worked on
reducing the memory footprint and increasing the performance, and much
more. As usual you can take a deeper look at the change log below.

The packages are available in our development branch in launchpad, although
they will make it to our stable branch after we get some feedback from our
users -yes, that’s you, and you too. Let’s cut to the chase, to install
these packages you will have to add this apt source:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ebox-unstable/ubuntu hardy main

For those of you who love bleeding edge stuff, I have great news. We already
have working packages of eBox for Intrepid. If you are up for it, just add this
source to your Intrepid installation:

deb http://ppa.launchpad.net/ebox-unstable/ubuntu intrepid main

Change log eBox platform 0.12
dhcp

• Make default and max leasing time mandatory fields
• Add help filed to model
• Make custom_ns field required
• Bugfix: Mark managers as changed every time they ask to change from/to static method because some models may appear/disappear because of modifying configuration method in interfaces

dns

• Use the new EBox::Model::Row api
• Load module capability in pre-start just like the bind9 init script does
• Don’t add static entry `ns` to localhost if user has defined another IP address for the `ns` name

ebox

• Bugfix: Don’t assume timecol is ‘timestamp’ but defined by module developer. This allows eBoxto purge some logs tables again
• Add page titles to models
• Set default values when not given in `add` method in models
• Add method to manage page size in model
• Add hidden field to help with Ajax request and automated testing with ANSTE
• Bugfix: cast sql types to filter fields in logs
• Bugfix: Restricted resources are back again to make RSS access policy work again
• Workaround bogus mason warnings
• Make postinst script less verbose
• Disable keepalive in eBox apache
• Do not run a startup script in eBox apache
• Set default purge time for logs stored in eBox db to 1 week
• Disable LogAdmin actions in `ebox-global-action` until LogAdmin feature is completely done

firewall

• Use the new EBox::Model::Row api
• Add help field to firewall models
• Bugfix. Use exit and not return in dchp-firewall external script
• Bugfix. Use #DEBHELPER# properly to be able to flush the firewall rules when the package is uninstalled
• Add support for ESP protocol

jabber

• Bugfix: Fix SSL PEM file path in c2s.xml template
• Use eBox OID number in LDAP schemas

mail

• Bugfix: Checkbox for unlimited size is unchecked, the field mentioned, i.e. Size (MB) is activated.
• Use the new MVC framework
• Add postfix to sasl group instead of dpkg-stateoverriding stuff
• Update INSTALL doc
• Use eBox OID number in LDAP schemas

mailfilter

• Use eBox OID number in LDAP schemas

network

• Use new EBox::Model::Row api
• Add help to model fields
• Remove default option auotmatically if another router is set as default

objects

• Use the new EBox::Model::Row API
• Added pageTitle to Objects model
• Add help to Objects model

openvpn

• Adapt ebox-openvpn to MVC framework
• Bugfix: Enforcing RIPv2 to always authenticate when using eBox tunnels

printers

• Bugfix: Create the `job` table when installing.

samba

• Add help to model fields
• Fix typo in defaultEnabledValue. Now shares are enabled by default.
• Fix typo in administrator label
• Mark shares strings to translate
• Use eBox OID number in LDAP schemas
• Do not use shares that don’t have permission for any user or group
• Remove deprecated printer admin configuration key in smb.conf.mas
• Enable dns proxy in smb.conf.mas

services

• Use the new EBox::Model::Row API
• Add help to fields in service model
• Increase some field length
• Add support for ESP protocol

squid

• Use the new EBox::Model::Row api
• Add field help to models
• Fix titles within tabs
• Set deny as default policy

trafficshaping

• Add field help to model

usersandgroups

• Use the new EBox::Model::Row api
• Check if there is any added user and show a message in case there isn’t any.
• Restore users reading from ldiff and adding them through eBox API
• Set password-hash in slapd.conf to make password changes from samba sync the user password

webserver

• Add help field to webserver model
• Bugfix. Do not add a dns domain if the virtual host is just a host name with no domain

That is the reason why in February 2008 the founders of Warp decided it was the right moment to separate eBox from the parent company and let it reach its full potential. So, eBox Technologies S.L. was founded as a spin-off from Warp, backed by a group of investors and focused solely on developing eBox and providing commercial services around it.

We have uploaded a new version of the eBox Samba module that we hope you find useful for your deployments.

We have added new features to the module. Now you can add any share you want, and not only one share per-group as we had before.

These shares can be directories which are automatically created for you by eBox under /home/samba/shares , or any given path within your filesystem -only those where sharing makes sense. And also, you will be able to control access to the share in a more fine-grained way. You can decide which groups or users have read-only, read and write or administrator access for every share.

You can install this new package from our repositories.

We have also ported ebox-webserver to Ubuntu, a pretty simple module to manage an Apache server. With this module your users might have a public_html directory under their home or you can just create virtual domains.

ebox

• Bugfix: Fix memory leak in models while cloning types. Now
  cloning is controlled by clone method in types
• Bugfix: Union type now checks for its uniqueness
• DESTROY is not an autoloaded method anymore
• HasOne fields now may set printable value from the foreign field
  to set its value
• findId now searchs as well using printableValue
• Bugfix: Minor bug found when key is an IP address in autoloaded
  methods
• Ordered tables may insert values at the beginning or the end of
  the table by “insertPosition” attribute
• Change notConfigured template to fix English and add link to the
  module status section
• Add loading gif to module status actions
• Remove debug from ServiceInterface.pm
• Add support for custom separators to be used as index separators on exposedMethods
• Bugfix. Stop eBox correctly when it’s removed
• Improve apache-restart to make it more reliable.

firewall

• Unroll inoexternal chain
• Bugfix: Do not restart firewall module if called from dhcp context and the module is not enabled
• Add setExternalService

trafficshaping

• Fixing typo in actions performed by the module

dns

• Added Mail Exchanger model to introduce MX records in domains
• Added mail exchanger model related methods to the exposed API
• Check consistencies among alias and hostnames within the same
  domain
• Updated remainder models to use lastest types HostIP and
  DomainName
• Added ‘changeName’, ‘getHostNameByName’, ‘getHostNameByIP’ and
  ‘findAlias’ to improve DNS API to Perl scripts and SOAP clients

openvpn

• Fix typo in CreateClient
• Do not remove quagga and openVPN rc links
• Bugfix: Retrieve rip password in server configuration
• Bugfix: Allow user to remove rip password when disabling ebox-to-ebox tunnel
• Add backwards compatibility with old openVPN tunnels
• Make removed daemons deletion more robust
• Bugfix: Get activeServers instead of activeDaemons to add
  INPUT rules
• Bugfix. Quote certificate files to allow whitespaces

software

• Bugfix: Fix typo in ebox-update-packages which prevented software
  management from working
• Add ebox-softwarecron.daily to debian package
• Add action to explain ebox-software cron script

mail

• Fixed bug when removing users in non-quota installations
• Do not remove init rc scripts
• Add port 465 (SMTP over SSL) to mail service, old outlook version
  will use this port

network

• Static routes become a model with three methods exposed
• Remove usage of a deprecated method in NetWrappers
• DNS resolvers become a model with three methods exposed. Now
  you may add as many DNS resolvers you want

dhcp

• Bugfix: Secondary nameserver in options does not fill a default
  value when setting as undef by user
• Added ’setLeases’ method to set lease times from module API

We are glad to announce the release of eBox 0.11.100 for Ubuntu. This release provides the same functionality and modules as the Debian Sarge version.

It is based on Ubuntu 8.04 which already ships some eBox 0.11.99 modules. 0.11.100 polishes some rough edges found in 0.11.99 and adds the following modules:

• traffic shaping
• mail
• mail filter
• jabber
• software

This release represents a significant leap forward for the eBox platform. Now you will take advantage of the improvements and new features of the last available stable version for most of the services which are managed by eBox: samba, cups (new printer drivers), squid, dansguardian, postfix, amavis…

We have created a custom cd installer based on Ubuntu Hardy server to ease the installation process, just like we did with the Debian Sarge version.

Enjoy!!!

Your favourite development team proudly presents eBox 0.11.99. As usual, this is our beta release before 0.12.

This version fixes a lot of issues and bugs and also ships new features.

We would like to highlight the new network traffic monitor based on jnettop which helps you diagnose network problems showing your traffic on a graph.

We have also added a new Log watcher which allows you to receive events based on the stored logs. This way you could, for example, be notified when a user is connecting to the openVPN, or when a given domain is filtered by the content filter and so on. Furthermore, a new RSS dispatcher has been added. Fire up your favourite RSS reader, add the feed and eBox will keep you posted about the events you wish to receive.

We even ship a new module to manage a web server. Now, letting users have its own public_html directory and update it through Samba is a piece of cake.

This revision also fixes a critical bug that prevented eBox from start and printed something like:
“Can’t use string (”ebox-ro/modules/network/nameser”)”

Install notes

We have uploaded a new runit package. This software is used to start/stop services. It is possible that after the upgrade you have to manually restart a service. In case you experience problems you may try reboot the machine to make sure everything is restarted properly.

Change log 0.11.99

libebox

• Fix rendering bug in hasMany viewer closing an open tag
• Added EBox::ColourRange to handle colour ranges
• Enhanced look&feel on model viewers

ebox

• DataTable contains the property ‘enableProperty’ to set a column called ‘enabled’ to enable/disable rows from the user point of view. The ‘enabled’ column is put the first
• Added state to the RAID report instead of simpler active boolean
• Fix bug when installing new event components and event GConf subtree has not changed
• Add RSS dispatcher to show eBox events under an RSS feed
• Rotate log files when they reach 10MB for 7 rotations
• Configurable minimum free space left for being notified by means of percentage
• Add File type including uploading and downloading
• Event daemon now checks if it is possible to send an event before actually sending it
• Added Action forms to perform an action without modifying persistent data
• Log queries are faster if there is no results
• Show no data stored when there are no logs for a domain
• Log watcher is added in order to notify when an event has happened. You can configure which log watcher you may enable and what you want to be notify by a determined filter and/or event.
• RAID watcher is added to check the RAID events that may happen when the RAID subsystem is configured in the eBox machine
• Change colour dataset in pie chart used for disk usage reporting
• Progress indicator now contains a returned value and error message as well
• Lock session file for HTTP and SOAP sessions to avoid bugs related to multiple requests (AJAX) in a short time
• Upgrade runit dependency until 1.8.0 to avoid runit related

ca

• Check “days” are positive numbers

dhcp

• Added thin client general options: filename and next-server
• Added include files to use by user in ${EBOX_HOME}/conf/dhcp/${iface}/plugins subdir
• Bugfix. Check fixed mapping names not to collide with other mappings in other models and make dhcpd crash
• Bugfix. Fixed mapping names cannot contain spaces

dns

• Added `getHostname` to the exposed API to interact with webserver module
• Now tables are shown sorted by ‘name’ attribute (domain, hostname and alias respectively)

firewall

• Added log domain for firewall’s drops. Firewall logging limits are stored in a configuration file
• Enhanced strings

jabber

• Added _stopService method to stop jabber daemons
• Improved postinst script to ensure daemons are stopped

mail

• Add mail dispatcher to notify eBox events using this SMTP server
• Enhanced strings

network

• Added traffic rate monitoring done on demand and in real-time. The monitoring may be filter by source address and service (protocol/port)

openvpn

• Bugfix. Shorten reserved daemons prefix to enlarge the daemon name user choice from RESERVED_DAEMON_ to R_D_

samba

• Allow others to read contents from users home directory to publish HTML services
• Added “updateDestPort” to the API to change a destination port in a service configuration in an agile way

soap

• Rotate log files when they reach 10MB for 7 rotations
• Lock session file for SOAP session to avoid bugs related to multiple requests in a short time
• Bugfix. Correct parameter naming in OpenVPN client creation
• Added finish script and make run script more runit complaint

software

• System and software updates work correctly again with progress indicator showing process already finished
• ebox-software cron script locks software module to work in order to hide corner cases
• Bugfix. libebox is treated as an eBox package and not as a system package

trafficshaping

• eBox internal networks traffic flow is not shaped anymore
• Exposing API from models
• Removing old code to decrease the module complexity and LOC by more than 500 lines
• Traffic shaping rules may be enabled/disabled by user

usersandgroups

• Remove use of Apache::Singleton

webserver

• Initial release