ClearOS Community 6.3.0 Beta 1 Release Information
Released: June 27, 2012
ClearOS Community 6.3.0 Beta 1 has arrived! Along with the usual round of bug fixes and enhancements, this release introduces new apps focused on the mail server stack. Anchored on the Zarafa Community for ClearOS solution, you can now implement an on-premise or private cloud mail server using ClearOS. Beta 1 includes the following new apps: Zarafa Community for ClearOS, Mail Antivirus, Mail Antispam, Antispam Updates, Greylisting, and more.
For businesses and organizations, ClearOS Professional 6.3.0 also includes Zarafa Professional for ClearOS. This solution provides Outlook support (calendaring, tasks, etc.) as well as integrated mailbox backup.
It is important to note that the Zarafa Community for ClearOS is a paid app - just $10 - from a member of the community. There will also be a free plain old POP/IMAP server released before the final version. You can find out more about this topic in this forum thread
What's New in ClearOS Community 6.3.0
Along with updating the base system built on source code from Red Hat Enterprise Linux 1) 6.3, this release includes the following major changes.
- Zarafa Community for ClearOS
- Zarafa Professional for ClearOS (Professional Edition)
- Basic POP/IMAP Server (coming soon)
- Wireless Access Point (experimental)
Mail Stack Configuration for the Beta
The base mail domain is used by a number of apps: SMTP Server, IMAP, Mail Filter, etc. Each app saves this information in its own configuration file, but we really only want to see the domain in one place in the user interface. That's where the Mail Settings app comes in. This might not be the way we'll do it in the final release, but that's how it is done right now:
- Go to
System|Account Manager|Account Manager to make sure the accounts system (users/groups) is running.
- Go to
System|Settings|Mail Settings to set the mail domain.
- Go to
System|Accounts|Users to create a few users. Please make sure the SMTP Server User and Zarafa Account are enabled for the user. Feel free to fill out the contact information too - this information is shown in Zarafa's address book!
- Go to
System|Accounts|Groups to create a group or two. You will see a new option when adding/editing a group: Distribution List. If you leave this option enabled, the group becomes a mail distribution list (e.g. [email protected] will go to all the members of the sales group).
- Go to
Server|Messaging and Collaboration|Zarafa Community and start all the servers (if not running).
That's it. You should be able login to the Zarafa web client with your user account credentials:
- Go to https://w.x.y.z/webaccess to access Zarafa's web client
Feedback
Please post your feedback in the ClearOS Development and Test Release Forum.
Download
Known Issues
- The last step in installer may take a couple of minutes to complete
ClearOS 5.2 Differences
For ClearOS 6, the barrier for having an app available in the web interface was raised. If the quality or features in ClearOS 5.2 were not up to the standards of a modern small business server/gateway, the feature was either upgraded or deprecated.
Zarafa for ClearOS
The default groupware and mail solution is now based on Zarafa technology.
Horde/Kolab
Horde/Kolab has been deprecated and is no longer supported. This policy may change in a future ClearOS 6 release.
Reports
The reporting engine in ClearOS 6 is being completely overhauled. An administrator does not want to sift through 5 different reports to see what a particular user was doing on the network. Instead, a unified reporting tool is under development. The reports in version 5.x have been deprecated.
Advanced Firewall
The Advanced Firewall app was marked as deprecated in version 5.2. It is no longer available. The Custom Firewall can be used as an alternative.
Administrators
The Administrators app does not fit into the group-based policy engine in ClearOS 6. The underlying mechanism that existed in ClearOS 5 has been ported to version 6, but it requires command line configuration.