Mandrake MNF

[Brian Kelsay]

Comments inline:
Jonathan Hutchins wrote:

> Woah there - that's completely backwards.  
> 
> It's the GUI junk like linuxconf and webmin (though I have no knowledge of the 
> latter) that use non-standard configuration files.  Mandrake is very much 
> standard-based, and is is coming into compliance with the LSB.  Admittedly, 
> the RedHat line of distributions, of which Mandrake and YelowDog are members, 
> does things a little differently than say Debian or SuSE, but I believe 
> they're more compliant with the Sys V standards.

His choice entirely which to go w/, I was just trying to help him w/ 
what he has and explaining why it was that way.  You will see below that 
I am right.  I didn't have to go to all the trouble I did in crafting my 
last post, but I thought it was helpful and informative.

> One of the main reason linuxconf is being actively killed off is that it's 
> possible to have a system configured one way with the standard config files, 
> and have linuxconf do something else entirely.  It's never sure which 
> configuration's going to win, but it's certain that you will loose.

My point exactly, hence the reason for my posts.  I instructed him that 
his best bet was to use GUI or config files, but not both as there are 
limitations.

> I believe that Webmin does a better job of using the standard config files, 
> modifying them directly rather than using a seperate store of settings.  The 
> nice thing about that is that once you have the system configured, you don't 
> have to load Webmin and expose your system to potential security holes.

There is nothing wrong w/ either implimentation as long as you know its 
limits
up-front.  Apparently our gentle user did not know this and I was 
instructing him.

> MNF has several areas where it's incomplete, and if the standard settings 
> aren't what you want, there's not much you can really do about it.  You 
> either accept the narrow range of defaults, or go to a standard distributin 
> and implement the firewall from there.  Mandrake and RedHat both offer some 
> decent firewall configuration tools in their main distributions now.

Did I not flesh this out in the 2 prev. posts?  If not clear then it was 
inferred.  Nothing wrong w/ Red Hat, that's what my firewall uses. 
Mandrake is very good for the beginner and can be good for the medium to 
advanced user if you stay w/in certain parameters or really know what 
you are doing.

> MNF reminds me a lot of Microsoft's Small Business Server - an absoulte 
> nightmare to manage, and hopeless if you step outside of Microsoft's 
> pre-configured image of how you're supposed to use it - which is not 
> documented anywhere, let alone detailed enough that you can know before you 
> buy it.  At least with MNF you're not out thousands of dollars if it's not 
> for you.

Don't even go there.  MNF is better than any pig firewall you might get 
out of Redmond.  They do want you to buy the recent ISO or they will 
kill the project.  I pointed our reader to the docs on how to load over 
the network.

> I don't know why you guys are so down on Mandrake.  I've found more 
> documentation that uses the same standards as RedHat and Mandrake, (MNF 
> excluded) than doesn't.   Even docs that may have originally been written for 
> SuSE or Debian will include notes on what's different in the RH world.  I've 
> certainly never seen a document that mentioned how Gentoo does things, 
> outside of references to Gentoo's own web site.  

Not down on Mandrake, just pointed out what it does.  I have found docs 
that give instructions only for SLackware, gentoo, debian, RH or 
whatever the package maintainer was using.  Sometimes this was due to 
his lack of testing time, other times because of distro prejudice. 
Maybe this will be solved when distros see the benefit of putting things 
  in the same place.  The LSB is a start.

> Winging, by the way, is this pointless carping and complaining about something 
> that we know really isn't as bad as we make it out to be.  Often in the 
> context of group whining in the workplace.  We were winging about the KC Job 
> market, you are winging about Mandrake.

It is not pointless and it is not whining or winging.  We are merely 
exploring and explaining how something works and sometimes offering 
alternatives which we use, such as IPCop.  Either way it is up to the 
reader to decide.  As for whining about not having a job, let's see how 
you react when you are unemployed or under-employed for a long period as 
some of us have been.  From the sounds of your posts you are a bit older 
than me.  I hope you don't run into age discrimination at some point. 
I've seen it happen and no one is immune from the declining job market.

I quote since you didn't go to the links I sent him to help out:
-Is there an easy way to get MNF-Admin to read the working shorewall rules
-(it's a pretty long set so reentering the same stuff is error-prone and
-not what I really wanted to do) ?
-
-By the way, this kind of things happen even without Cooker-stuff, or
-somehow it's just easier to call SSH and edit the respective config file,
-but this shouldn't mean you loose these changes within MNF-Admin !
-
-Shouldn't the real config files that control the behaviour of the system
-and programs be the ones that are read/checked by MNF-Admin (at least the
-administrator should be asked the moment the 'date modified' of a config
-file is newer than the one of the MNF-config file) ?
-
-Don't get me wrong, I really love my MNF, but it seems that somehow I
-don't like this kind of meta-config-files (that's why I dropped SUSE).

So obviously our reader is not the only one to have this problem.
Good Day,
Brian
-- 
A Computer without Microsoft is like a chocolate cake without mustard.
-as seen on IRC