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Enterprise Unix Roundup: Plateau or Bubble?
November 3, 2005

Main     In Other News     Elsewhere in the Corral     Tips of the Trade

In Other News

» Well, it's not like we didn't see it coming. Late Wednesday afternoon, Novell announced the pending layoff of 600 staff members worldwide. Novell declined to comment on this cutback right up until the announcement, which is pretty much its standard operating procedure. When the story broke, about the 200 layoffs in its less-than-optimal EMEA division earlier this year, the news had been leaked weeks ahead of time.

Leaks aside, Novell must get its act together, and soon. Beyond letting these people go, the company says it plans to rebuild the company around its Linux and identity businesses. Which leaves a lot of folks wondering just what will be shed to make this happen. Celerant, Novell's consulting subsidiary, is definitely on the way out, but the fate of a lot of projects is still up in the air.

» HP this week became the first vendor to unveil an Itanium 2 blade. The BL60p is its first Unix blade and runs only HP-UX. It can be housed in the same chassis as Opteron and Xeon blades, which will save real-estate and simplify server management. We're honestly not sure what to make of it. Our best guess is that it was originally a customized solution that now provides HP with another avenue to sell both Itanium 2 and HP-UX.

» With little fanfare (and who could blame the company?), SGI announced this week it is getting delisted from the New York Stock Exchange and will now be traded as a "penny stock."

Where this leaves the high-end server company is anyone's guess. SGI made some inroads into the cluster space a couple of years ago when it launched the Altrix server line, a set of Itanium-based servers that used Linux or IRIX to deliver high-end clusters to their customers. The problem is SGI has yet to try leaving the hyper-specialized verticals (i.e., engineering, technical, and computer-generated graphics) and sell its wares somewhere else. Hey, we know how it is to have a comfort zone, but with IBM and Sun eating up the high-end and midlevel cluster markets, now is the time to take a few chances.

» Red Hat, after a long bit of silence that we in the media tend to describe as normal for it, popped out of its shell this week to announce an inititive to get the Xen virtualization engine into the Linux kernel.

This has been done before, mind you, but earlier efforts had fallen by the wayside. By getting Xen integrated into the kernel, the virtualization technology will allow many more integration possibilities for Red Hat in its target enterprise market.

Elsewhere in the Corral

Recent relevant articles about enterprise Unix

  • While we at Roundup are all about the enterprise, there's a new thought developing within the Linux community that perhaps all of the push of Linux into the enterprise was not such a hot idea after all. LinuxPlanet is carrying a four-part series that details where the server market is, where Linux fits in that market, and why it could be doing a lot better than it is today.
  • As grid computing makes its way from academia into the enterprise, open standards should pave the way for wider adoption but, like all things IT, it's not that simple. Will Open Standards Drive Grid Adoption? CIO Update takes a look.
  • Open source is bringing a lot to the IT community now. How does the future look?

    Tips of the Trade

    The Linux and Unix world has all sorts of Webmail servers, including SquirrelMail, the Horde, and Open Webmail. These are nice fully-featured Webmail servers that should do pretty much whatever you want, and aren't too dreadful to administer. However, when all you want is a simple, lightweight, easy-to-configure Webmail server, take a look at Nameko.

    Like all the other PHP-based Webmail servers, Nameko is an add-on to an existing mail server, and it requires an HTTP server that supports PHP. This means it runs on any operating system. Installation couldn't be easier — just copy a single file, nameko.php, into your HTTP directory; make a few configuration tweaks; and you're done.

    The first configuration tweak is to list allowed users in the $USERS_POLICY section, like this: 

    $USERS_POLICY="deny"; //allow, deny
    
$USERS_LIST=array(
    
 "carla1",
    
 "carla2",
    
 "carla3",
    
);

    Then configure the POP and SMTP servers: 

    $POP_AUTH_METHOD="standard"; //Choose between "standard" or "apop"
    
$EXTERNAL_SMTP_SERVER="192.168.1.15; //if empty use PHP build-in mail() function to send email
    
$EXTERNAL_SMTP_USERNAME="userme";
    
$EXTERNAL_SMTP_PASSWORD="sekkritwird";

    Then, point a Web browser to your server URL, and you'll be presented with the Nameko login screen. And that's pretty much all there is to it. Nameko supports sending attachments, multiple servers, and nearly 100 character sets. You'll find documentation and downloads at Nameko.

    Carla Schroder writes the Tips of the Trade section of Enterprise Unix Roundup. She also appears on Enterprise Networking Planet and Linux Planet, covering Linux from the desktop to the server room. She is the author of the Linux Cookbook and the upcoming "Linux Networking Cookbook."

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