Hello,
I'm not sure how much of my question falls within the scope of this group? I've been in the process of testing all sorts of gateways, firewall, UTM solutions and Server OS's recently. I break out the middle two as every solution seems to offer something a little different. These solutions range from free to medium cost as well as minimal to greater level's of complexity. I am looking for opinion's on the best solution and not the cheapest cost.
In no particular order, I have evaluated:
ClearOS
SmoothWall
Untangle
Ebox/Zentyal running on Ubuntu
Windows Server 2008 r2
Windows Small Business Server 2008 Premium
Forefront Suite
My needs aren't huge, and certainly not different than a lot of others, but I have a couple of servers in my basement rack that can run most of the above options without complication. A few of those distros do take a bit of tweeking as they don't like the HP raid controller's in my DL380's.
Basic Network functionality requirements are Internet Sharing, DHCP Service's, DNS, NAT/Firewall and gateway level Antivirus/SPAM etc... protection. Next level of "like's" are ability to backup family devices, server's and ease to access permission based shares on my windows Servers. My NAS are either going to be 2 Win2008 r2 boxes running DFS or Windows Storage Server. (I have tried every flipping linux based NAS solution I can get my hands on and have concluded that there are a lot of great options out there, but none of them perfect.)
Being able to use my dyndns account to access files and mange my server infrastructure remotely is of great interest also. I'm currently using some services from my telco gateway and Ubuntu server and can not access anything away from my LAN. What ever my new middle device is to become, it will be connected directly to my Telco Fiber Gateway. NAT and F/W on the Gateway will be turned off. This device needs to be able to police all inbound/outbound traffic through eth0 and eth1.
Any advice/opinions are greatly appreciated.
e
I'm not sure how much of my question falls within the scope of this group? I've been in the process of testing all sorts of gateways, firewall, UTM solutions and Server OS's recently. I break out the middle two as every solution seems to offer something a little different. These solutions range from free to medium cost as well as minimal to greater level's of complexity. I am looking for opinion's on the best solution and not the cheapest cost.
In no particular order, I have evaluated:
ClearOS
SmoothWall
Untangle
Ebox/Zentyal running on Ubuntu
Windows Server 2008 r2
Windows Small Business Server 2008 Premium
Forefront Suite
My needs aren't huge, and certainly not different than a lot of others, but I have a couple of servers in my basement rack that can run most of the above options without complication. A few of those distros do take a bit of tweeking as they don't like the HP raid controller's in my DL380's.
Basic Network functionality requirements are Internet Sharing, DHCP Service's, DNS, NAT/Firewall and gateway level Antivirus/SPAM etc... protection. Next level of "like's" are ability to backup family devices, server's and ease to access permission based shares on my windows Servers. My NAS are either going to be 2 Win2008 r2 boxes running DFS or Windows Storage Server. (I have tried every flipping linux based NAS solution I can get my hands on and have concluded that there are a lot of great options out there, but none of them perfect.)
Being able to use my dyndns account to access files and mange my server infrastructure remotely is of great interest also. I'm currently using some services from my telco gateway and Ubuntu server and can not access anything away from my LAN. What ever my new middle device is to become, it will be connected directly to my Telco Fiber Gateway. NAT and F/W on the Gateway will be turned off. This device needs to be able to police all inbound/outbound traffic through eth0 and eth1.
Any advice/opinions are greatly appreciated.
e
