[cobalt-users] Re: Future of Cobalt

[Barbara <thebizworkers@xxxxxxxxx>]

>If your only experience with a GUI is cobalt then 
>I can understand this reasoning, but having used 
>the ensim, I know the value. It is not just the
>GUI, but the added security.

I would agree with you from what I've seen of Ensim.
But I wasn't speaking of Ensim, I have no experience
with the product at all. Though I am considering
leasing a box with Ensim Pro from my NOC for the 2
dozen or so domains still on one of my RaQ4's.. The
Ensim product looks nice and the chroot jail is a nice
feature. Though I've been told (but again I've not
used Ensim so I don't know for sure) that if you need
to add/edit anything on the server, you best go with
Plesk (which I've heard good and bad things about as
well). I would be interested in knowing if IPTables
(GIPTables -firewall) could be loaded onto an Ensim
box.. If it could, it would be a really attractive
setup for sure.. The only other thing I would want to
toss onto a box would be MRTG for monitoring -if I
could get MRTG and GIPTables on an Ensim system
without breaking something, I'd go for it.

What about CPU/memory resources are needed under
Ensim..? Do you mind sharing what's your CPU/memory
size on the Ensim system and what kind of avg load to
you see from the GUI and your users..? Can't be any
worse that a 300-450MHz AMD with 512MB RAM -which
really isn't too bad to begin with as it's all about
RAM more than CPU.. But there's a lot more
features/buttons on the Ensim interface so I'm curious
to know what kind of setup is needed to run the Ensim
product smoothly..

>This also means that they can all name their
>users 'joe' if they like because each host has its
>own /etc/passwd file and names dont conflict.

I've never liked the idea of letting users setup their
own id's and passwords, esp passwords.. I know you can
do some nifty things with PAM to enforce stronger
policies (alpha/numeric characters required) -and
always wondered why any of the "appliance" developers
didn't look at adding one more little tick to enforce
better security... Users have more or less learned
that on a shared system most of them can't expect to
have "joe" for their user id.. They don't get it with
their free mail accounts at Yahoo, nor with their
$25/mo accounts at AOL/Earthlink.. It's just one of
those things most users have come to understand, or
do, when they start hosting a web site on Linux.. But
it's the sorry password choices that make me cringe..
Some people just don't get it, nor do they really
care.. They figure that's your job (ensuring they
don't get hacked) -and will make those poor choices no
matter what your policies and/or how much you preach
on the good (preventative) measures of protecting
ones' data and it's integrity.. Not to mention that of
the whole system and 200 other domains sharing the
same box as well..  At least on the Ensim setup you
can restrict users to just the "user" interface where
they can play with their mail forwards/aliases etc
-yet not their userid's and passwords which the admin
could still control.. 

I'll probably lease an Ensim system here soon and give
it a spin..

Barbara


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