Ebox Unpacking
Recently I discovered a novelty (for me) on the hunt for groupware solutions, called ebox or ebox-platform for full (http://www.ebox-platform.com).
This solution does not focus strictly on groupware or e-mail but provides a fully costomizable office package with DNS,DHCP,LDAP,MAIL,PROXY and a lot more solutions, based on the LTS release of Ubuntu (8.04 LTS that is).
The first installation of ebox 1.2 was a breeze, and in general performance and configuration is very easy. Setting up as a groupware server they decided to include egroupware, not really my choice. Fortunately in the 1.3 beta they now included a solution based on roundcube, which works a lot faster and looks a lot better.
EBox Monitoring Example
Next step was the installation of ebox as a LDC (Local Domain Controller) with some Windows XP/Vista/W7/Ubuntu clients, with different types of users, a brother laserprinter and shared folders. The setup was very easy, and after creating the users everything was a walk in the park. Performance is definately at a level that it can compete with Windows Server 2003/2008 based AD solutions, and the additional web-management makes remote management a delight.
Ebox Dashboard
For the true demanding users, it might be a good idea to wait for the Ebox 1.4 release, which will (hopefully) have Ubuntu 10.4 LTS as a base. You can get your own copy at http://www.ebox-platform.com at no cost.