EBox

eBox Platform

eBox Platform running on a PPC Linkstation
Company / developer	eBox Technologies - Warp Networks
OS family	Unix-like
Working state	current
Source model	Open Source
Initial release	November 30, 2005 (2005-11-30)
Latest stable release	1.2 / 2009-07-15; 2 months ago[1]
Latest unstable release	1.3 / 2009-07-16; 2 months ago[2]
Available language(s)	English (More than 15 partially translated)
Update method	APT (Web front-end available through ebox-software)
Package manager	dpkg
Supported platforms	i386(x86), amd64(x86-64), lpia, SPARC, PowerPC, ARM, ia64
Default user interface	Web user interface
License	GPL
Website	www.ebox-platform.com

eBox Platform is an open source unified network server (or an Unified Network Platform) for SMEs. eBox Platform can act as a Gateway, a Network Infrastructure Manager, a Unified Threat Manager, an Office Server, a Unified Communications Server or a combination of them. Besides, eBox Platform includes a development framework to ease the development of new Unix based services.

The project's source code is available under terms of the GNU General Public License, as well as under a variety of proprietary agreements. eBox Platform is owned and sponsored by a single for-profit firm, the Spanish company eBox Technologies S.L., which holds the copyright to the codebase.^[3]

eBox Platform development was first published in 2005 as an open-source, collaborative project of two companies.^[4] On 16 November 2006 eBox was officially approved as a NEOTEC project, receiving public funds from the CDTI (a Spanish public organisation, under the Ministry of Industry, Commerce and Tourism) to complete the development of version 1.0.^[5] eBox was first included in Ubuntu in 2007, in the Gutsy Gibbon Tribe 3, the third alpha release of Ubuntu 7.10.^[6] The first stable release candidate, eBox 1.0, was published in 2008.^[7]

Overview

Features

As of August 2009 eBox Platform 1.2 offers the following features:^[8]

• Networking
  • Firewall and routing
    • Filtering
    • NAT/Port redirections
    • Multi-gateway support and traffic load balancing
    • Traffic shaping (L7-filter Support)
    • Graphical traffic rate monitoring
    • Network Configuration
      • DHCP server
      • NTP server
    • Dynamic DNS from main providers
  • VPN support (OpenVPN)
  • Domain Name Server
  • Web proxy
    • Internet cache
    • User and Group authentication
    • Content filtering
    • Support for categorized lists such as: urlblacklist or shallalist
    • Antivirus
  • Mail server
    • Virtual Domains
    • POP3 and IMAP with SSL/TLS
    • Spam and Antivirus filtering
      • Greylisting
      • Custom Filtering
    • Transparent POP3 proxy filter
  • Web server
    • Virtual Hosts
  • Certification Authority
• IDS Module (Snort)
• Workgroup
  • Centralized Users and Groups Management
  • Windows PDC support
  • Network Resource Sharing
    • File Server
      • Antivirus
      • Audit log
    • Print Server
  • EGroupware: Calendar Sharing, Address Book, Webmail, Wiki, etc.
  • Asterisk (VoIP) Module: Users are created with Extensions, and Voice Mail Boxes. They can make and receive external calls. Conference Rooms can be created.
  • Instant Messaging Server (XMPP)
    • Conference rooms
• Reporting and Monitoring
  • Monitor Module: CPU, Load, Disk Space, Thermal, Memory
  • Dashboard for Centralized Service Information
  • Disk Usage and RAID Status
  • Summarized and Full System Reports
  • Event Notification via E-Mail, RSS or XMPP
• Software updates
• Backups (full and configuration only)

Development

eBox Platform uses an open source model, with all the source code available for its users.

Design

eBox is a web application using Apache webserver with mod perl as foundation and Mason components as building blocks, mainly written in object oriented Perl, with some Javascript for visual improvements.

Its design incorporates modern programming techniques as:

• Design patterns: an Observer design pattern is used mainly to integrate different modules across eBox Platform. E.g. each service reports about which ports it needs to be open. Besides this, a Singleton holds global configuration and behaviour details.
• Presentation and logic decoupling: user interface uses CSS and Ajax, and include several Mason components, as a generic table used to configure services. Program logic is held inside library packages and CGI-like code.
• Fault tolerance: errors and warnings are managed through software exceptions, flowing from core to its handling routine.

It also offers debugging facilities, integrating the layout of the execution stack of the Perl 5 interpreter.

Service are monitored and automatically respawned if they die.

Open Source Components

eBox Platform is an open source software mostly written in Perl that merges the following open source components:

• Apache
  • Webserver
• mod_perl
  • CGI engine
• OpenLDAP
  • Shared users and groups
• OpenSSL
  • Cryptography
• Netfilter/iptables
  • Firewall
  • NAT
• BIND
  • Domain name system server
• Squid
  • Web proxy-cache
• DansGuardian
  • Content filtering
• Postfix
  • Mail server
• XMPP
  • Instant Messaging
• Ntpd
  • Clock and date synchronization
• OpenVPN
  • Virtual Private Network
• Samba
  • Shared storage
  • Primary Domain Controller for Windows clients
• Common Unix Printing System (CUPS)
  • Shared printers
• Advanced Packaging Tool (APT)
  • Software installation and upgrade
• Asterisk
  • Voice over Internet Protocol services
• Snort
  • Network Intrusion-prevention system
• eGroupware
  • Calendar sharing, address book, webmail...
• Dovecot
  • IMAP and POP3 server

eBox Platform Live CD is built using Remastersys project. The whole distribution uses Ubuntu 8.04 Hardy Heron and a tailored Ubuntu Installer for non-live media.

Community

Main eBox community work and support takes place at eBox Support Forum.

eBox's inclusion on Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon was preceded by some comments at Ubuntu Forums community.^[9]

There is also a very active group of Linkstation users which succeeded in porting eBox to PowerPC.^[10]

Documentation

• Installation guide: holds instructions about different installation methods like CD and Ubuntu packages, and how to get source code and run eBox from scratch.^[11]
• Official documentation for 1.2 release (available both in English and Spanish): aimed at eBox Platform users, introduces concepts and terminology, and explains different services and use cases.^[12]
• Instructions for developers: Tutorials and tips aimed at software developers, including module development guide, how to create eBox Debian packages or a development environment.^[13]
• Other documentation: Full list of available documentation including How-Tos, FAQ, Screencasts and other documents.^[14]
• API reference: class and method's description and parameters

See also

Free software portal

• Clarkconnect
• Webmin
• Control panel
• ehcp
• SysCP

References

External links

• Official website
• Development website