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ClearOS

seanbranagh
Grafter
Posts: 1,236
Registered: ‎02-08-2007

ClearOS

I wanted a good all round firewall/gateway solution that could sit on my connection and do all the things I need with my /27 subnet, my LAN, my Citrix VM's, and wireless bridge to friends house etc.
I bought a 1U HP Prolient, P4, 2Gb ram from ebay for £48 and added a second dual NIC to it so it now has 4 gigabit interfaces. It is a nice little server for the money.
Then I started playing with Smoothwall Express, very quickly found out that it cannot meet my needs.
I then discovered ClearOS and have only just started playing with it and I have one word;
NICE!
and it is also Red Hat based, even better!
9 REPLIES 9
Waldo
Grafter
Posts: 473
Registered: ‎01-08-2007

Re: ClearOS

I think a few people here (HB, for example) have used it in its previous guise as ClarkConnect.
HairyMcbiker
All Star
Posts: 6,792
Thanks: 266
Fixes: 21
Registered: ‎16-02-2009

Re: ClearOS

Your right I used CC for about a year after I retired my Smoothwall box due to not really needing a firewall any more  Wink
I used in the standalone config, as a mail server, web proxy etc. It was a good product but I needed to save power so moved my email to the cloud (now hosted by google as a webmail account (not gmail but my own domain pointed to google as the mail server), this was when my mail exceeded 0.5Gb and cheep hosting was getting expensive (relative I could have run a home server again for the cost) - Google is free hosting.
I have an old HP Prolient server (or two  :P) in the attic but they are not very power efficient beasts, one has at-least SIX big fans running in it and a raid 5 array of HP 10K SCSI drives (Unfortunately only 9Gb ones) with a DLT tape backup (all of 40Gb  :-[) I ran that as a mail server for a few years but as leccy prices went UP I had to switch it off. I used to build servers based on the 1/2/6U boxes and they were quite reliable once you got them commissioned. The ILO's were a god send with 100+ servers in the data centre to look after.
seanbranagh
Grafter
Posts: 1,236
Registered: ‎02-08-2007

Re: ClearOS

Playing more with the ClearOS box. It is getting nicer!
I have a wireless bridge conneting a friends house to my network. I have now connected the bridge through a nic on ClearOS, moved all his kit to a different network and added a route back to me on his router.
I am now able to use the multi-wan feature. I can pull the plug on my adsl and automatically failover to his connection without even breaking my Checkpoint vpn connection and RDP session to my desktop at work, pretty cool.
Only problem is the noise of the HP DL320. Despite being in the attic it can still be heard and I already have the fans turned down. Picture of server attached.
matt_2k34
Grafter
Posts: 1,300
Registered: ‎09-07-2007

Re: ClearOS

Quote
I bought a 1U HP Prolient, P4, 2Gb ram from ebay for £48 and added a second dual NIC to it so it now has 4 gigabit interfaces

I wish i found kit like that on ebay!!
whelpton
Grafter
Posts: 104
Registered: ‎06-06-2011

Re: ClearOS

£48 is a good deal defiantly. @Hairy Biker mentioned about the power drain, is it really that bad? Would anyone have a suggestion to a energy efficient & cheap server solution? Apart from some plug computer device that is!
seanbranagh
Grafter
Posts: 1,236
Registered: ‎02-08-2007

Re: ClearOS

Quote from: Matt_2k34
I wish i found kit like that on ebay!!

The same guy is atill selling them if you want one: http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HP-ProLiant-DL140-1U-Server-2-4Ghz-Xeon-2GB-RAM-Rails-CD-ROM-Rackmount-IDE...
I am not currently using it anymore because it is way too noisy and uses too much power. I have since set up ClearOS on a VM on my Citrix server, I have no idea why I didn't do that in the first place!
matt_2k34
Grafter
Posts: 1,300
Registered: ‎09-07-2007

Re: ClearOS

if you could find a storage array that takes SATA drives, like, 10+ that can turn it into a big NAS for £48 then i'll love you forever Smiley haha
seanbranagh
Grafter
Posts: 1,236
Registered: ‎02-08-2007

Re: ClearOS

I have been playing more with ClearOS, I have been running it now for a while as a router on a VM. I have just perfected the setup of the multi-wan and dynamic dns features built in. Really nice, it does the same for free that we have very expensive Checkpoints doing at work!
My friends internet connection on the other end of the wireless bridge has a dynamic IP.
After spending the day with firewall rules and cname records I now have the following thanks to ClearOS.
If my connection fails, all outbound traffic seamlessly fails over to my friends connection.
Inbound mail and web traffic also fails over to my friends connection thanks to ClearOS updating a domain name with the IP of the active line (which I then have some cname records pointed at).
I even still get my email pushed on to my phone from the mailserver in my house as if nothing happened (apart from the email from my ISP to tell me that my line is down).
Nice!
MisterW
Superuser
Superuser
Posts: 14,585
Thanks: 5,415
Fixes: 385
Registered: ‎30-07-2007

Re: ClearOS

Quote
I wish i found kit like that on ebay!!
This is also a place to look http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/computerdisposalsltd/m.html?_trkparms=65%253A12%257C66%253A2%257C39%253A1%...
We've bought 2 or 3 servers from them in the past. It helps for us that they are only 1/2 hour away so we can collect...

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