I've decided to disable my email server on my FREESCO. The level of SPAM has reached close to 100% level , so what's the point of keeping the server online? Due to my (now) challenged hardware, the load on the machine was way too high, and for what?
This decision will result in my webmaster email no longer working.
############################## Changes in v0.4.5 ############################## Released 3/30/2014
Repaired a bug in the firewall from v0.4.4 that prevented dial-up routers from routing traffic correctly.
Repaired a bug in the login 'profile' script that caused the 'UID' environment variable not to be set. Also added the 'GID' environment variable.
Repaired a bug in the 'pkg' package command that prevented the packages list from being updated properly.
Repaired a bug in the setup that did not allow the use of the 'p' key on floppy installs to install the 'ext2' package from the menu.
Repaired the SSH server to allow 'root' logins when enabled on a live CD or when booted with USB or through a PXE network install.
Repaired a bug in the netmond binary that prevented more than seven IP entries from being shown on screen 6. Currently up to 15 can now be seen on screen 6 and an almost unlimited amount will show in the log file in /var/netmon.log or in the control panel when viewing the network monitor.
Added 'dhcping' to help diagnose DHCP issues on any subnet.
Added a second option in the 'setsite' script to set the package download URL manually if the auto selected site is not wanted.
Added the -E flag to the DNS server so that reverse lookups resolve to the fully qualified domain name for the local network.
Added the 'alc' option into the access restriction file. This allows cross communication between defined IP's or subnets when general communication has been 'untrusted' for security on multiple local subnets. So a shared printer or an administrative computer can be given access to other internal subnets.
Added the 'bsp' and 'asp' options into the restrict.cfg access control file. These two options allow control over service ports and stand for 'Ban Service Port' and 'Allow Service Port'. So if you have a non standard service or a port forward that you want to control access to. These two options facilitate the control and can optionally have time and day restrictions included as well.
Added a registration prompt for new systems. This prompt simply asks for a registration name and sends the name and FREESCO version number to the home URL configured on the system. This prompt is NOT intended as an inconvenience to users, but rather a way to track the number of users of the current system. There is no name checking or personal information needed as this information is only used for counting users.
Added 'ftpblock' to the main system and it is used when the FTP server is enabled. This script monitors FTP logins and blocks failed login attempts after the configured number of failed attempts is reached. The block time is also configured in minutes. This script prevents brute force user:password attacks on the FTP server from internal and external sources. Once an IP address is banned the client no longer has access to any FREESCO service until the block time has been reached.
Added 'sshblock' to the main system and it is used when the SSH server is enabled. This script monitors SSH logins and blocks failed logins after 5 failed attempts. The block time is configured in minutes. This script prevents brute force user:password attacks on the SSH server from internal and external sources. Once an IP address is banned the client no longer has access to any FREESCO service until the block time has been reached.
Added a patch to the SSH server (Dropbear) so that empty passwords are allowed using the '-G' server flag. This is beneficial in testing environments and where security is of no concern.
Added the 'filedate' script that is capable of displaying any file date information such as day of week, month in Abbreviated or two digit number format, day, year and time a file was last modified. It is also capable of delineating the fields with or without spaces or any deliminator you choose. It can also create a number capable of being used in other scripting to compare file dates to determine what file is newer than another or the age of a file.
Added the ability to create new FREESCO floppies from within the setup on hard drive installs. To enable this feature, just copy the 'freesco.[version]' file to the /pkg/freesco directory of your system or install one of the disk image packages.
Added freedns.afraid.org to the dynamic DNS client, this is a completely free service. Also removed everydns because the service no longer exists.
Added the ability to create home directories for FTP user accounts the same as normal users.
Added some error checking into the ext2 package so if a hard drive is not found on the system, the user is prompted to abort the install. Also added the 'x' exit option to most questions so the user can exit the install at any point.
Added the NFS file system and NFS support into the mount command so that remote NFS servers can have a directory mounted on FREESCO.
Added the inetd (Internet service daemon) super-server daemon. This daemon is required to run the tftp server and it can be configured to run other servers as well.
Added the tftpd server. This server is required in order to run a PXE server on FREESCO and be able to network boot local machines or software.
Added the 'tuxhunter' game. This is a very simple game where you track down and wound or kill an innocent penguin. But FREESCO would never be complete without a game that is fun and challenging to play and to challenge others to beat your score. This game keeps your score and if you choose, you can upload your score to the FREESCO web site and see how you compare with other users world wide. This feature is built into the web control panel to display the top 58 scores either locally or globally as well as within the game.
Added "calc", a simple command line calculator that can save your work or print it as well. Hey if it's good enough for Microsoft it is good enough for FREESCO.
Changed the control panel output for the logs so that they are in ascending order instead of descending, which is the actual text file log format.
Changed the system logging facility to no longer print out duplicated messages as "Last message repeated X number of times". Instead each message is printed as it is sent from the client. This change makes automated processing of the logs much more accurate when checking for specific messages and how many times they appear in the logs.
Changed the web control panel. Improved a number of sections of the web control panel to improve the ease of making changes. Notably the static DHCP lease, port forwarding and user menu sections.
Changed the admin and root user name change and password section of the advanced setup to be more robust and to include some extra error checking to prevent issues with the password file.
Changed the kernel in v0.4.5. This means that loose_udp is no longer enabled by default and some specific hardware may require the kernel to be changed to one of the 0.4.3 or 0.4.4 kernels to get a full cone NAT router instead of a port restricted NAT as it is now by default.
Specifications VIA Apollo PLE133 Chipset Bridge VT82535 ACPI Audio VT82C686 AC97 Rev 40 Ethernet VT6102 Rhine-II REv 51 VGA Trident Cyberblade/i1 Rev 6A Host & PCI Bride VT8601 ISA Bridge VT8231 Busmaster IDE VT82586 Prcessor: Centaur VIA Samuel 2 Stepping 03 550 MHz
In addition I've replaced the hard disk with a 120 Gb SSD, resulting in a completely silent box without moving parts!
After cloning the old hard disk with Ghost, no problems there, the FREESCO kernel produced a kernel oops.
It looked like the FDD driver might be the culprit, this PC doesn't have one (!) so Lewis kernels site came to the rescue. After replacing the kernel with a 'nofd' type, the box came to life! Only thing I had to do was to add the Via Rhine II driver from the modules new-net and off we go!
Quote:
[root@Freesco] cat /proc/cpuinfo processor : 0 cpu : 686 model : C6 vendor_id : CentaurHauls stepping : 3 fdiv_bug : no hlt_bug : no f00f_bug : no fpu : yes fpu_exception : yes cpuid : yes wp : yes flags : fpu de tsc msr mtrr pge mmx bogomips : 183.09
The power consumption is way way down, so that goal seems to be achieved, but regrettably also the performance of the web site isn't what is used to be. Oh well...
The day I've dreaded has finally come, my FREESCO is no longer my main router/firewall!
My FREESCO is now "degraded" to a mere web server, hosting several web sites.
Several packages will stop working, because the FREESCO is no longer monitoring the main internet connection and is no longer acting as router for my LAN.
I guess all things must at some point end to make room for new things.
, so what's the point of keeping the server online?
