[ANN] Linux network appliances managed via Sinatra

[Guido De Rosa]

Hi all,

just to announce the first release or Ruby "OnBoard", a web interface
based on Sinatra, to manage Linux-based network appliances: routers,
firewalls, VPN, DHCP server, transparent proxy and so on.

Here's the website and the Github repo:

http://dev.vemarsas.it/onboard/

http://github.com/gderosa/onboard

I don't have knowledge of other similar projects in Ruby (Webmin is in
Perl; the web interface of OpenWRT is written in Lua; and Monowall's one
is in PHP) so I hope OnBoard will fill the gap ;-)

It's released under the GPL and it's sponsored by a small-medium
business in Italy, VEMAR sas (http://www.vemarsas.it/)

Thanks in advance to anybody for feedback, questions and future
contributions!

Guido De Rosa

 

[Phillip Gawlowski]

Hi all,

just to announce the first release or Ruby "OnBoard", a web interface
based on Sinatra, to manage Linux-based network appliances: routers,
firewalls, VPN, DHCP server, transparent proxy and so on.

I like the SSL screen, especially creating a certificate.

Thanks in advance to anybody for feedback, questions and future
contributions!

Well, the website's lacking in documentation (What OnBoard is, what it
does, and how you do stuff, not to mention installation and administration).

Will there be .deb / .rpm packages?

What about going down and dirty, like in Webmin (e.g. editing config
files directly)?

 

[Guido De Rosa]

I like the SSL screen, especially creating a certificate.

Thanks! It was an important requirement to make OpenVPN setup more user
friendly.

Well, the website's lacking in documentation (What OnBoard is, what it
does, and how you do stuff, not to mention installation and
administration).

There's an About page, and a README file in the source tree, but it's
certainly not enough, I admit. Documentation is one of the most
important lacks and a lot of work is certainly required in the near
future. For now just try to download it and run in the most obvious way
(./start.sh to daemonize or ruby onboard.rb to keep it in the
foreground) not before having installed all the dependencies reported in
README. And feel free to ask me anything you'll find unclear: this will
help me to write better docs ;-)

Will there be .deb / .rpm packages?

Another good question would be: will there be a gem? ;-) Well, packaging
is not an hot priority in the next few days but it's one of the mid-term
goals. Some work is required before this e.g.: 1) separation/extraction
of a more general system configuration library from the UI; 2) too many
hardcoded constants should be turned into user-editable config files 3)
source files layout should be more "position-independent" to be packaged
safely etc. etc.

Needless to say, collaboration with Linux distros developers will be
more than welcome!

What about going down and dirty, like in Webmin (e.g. editing config
files directly)?

This is a fundamental choice you make at the very start of a project
like this. And was not my choice OnBoard is not meant as a Webmin
clone. It wants to be a sort of little OS in the OS, starting services
by its own, having its own internal /etc directory etc. It's an
opinionated choice, I admit The idea is: when you uninstall OnBoard
you will get the system as it was before.

That said, thanks for your interesting opinions and feel free to
fork/patch/implement you own ideas.

gd

 

[Phillip Gawlowski]

There's an About page, and a README file in the source tree, but it's
certainly not enough, I admit. Documentation is one of the most
important lacks and a lot of work is certainly required in the near
future. For now just try to download it and run in the most obvious way
(./start.sh to daemonize or ruby onboard.rb to keep it in the
foreground) not before having installed all the dependencies reported in
README. And feel free to ask me anything you'll find unclear: this will
help me to write better docs ;-)

Certainly. I'm setting up a Linux VM soon, to play around with things
like OnBoard.

Another good question would be: will there be a gem? ;-) Well, packaging
is not an hot priority in the next few days but it's one of the mid-term
goals. Some work is required before this e.g.: 1) separation/extraction
of a more general system configuration library from the UI; 2) too many
hardcoded constants should be turned into user-editable config files 3)
source files layout should be more "position-independent" to be packaged
safely etc. etc.

Certainly. And while a gem would be nice, integrating an adminstrative
tool with a package management system would make maintenance a lot easier.

Nothing beats "sudo apt-get update && apt-get upgrade" in my experience.

This is a fundamental choice you make at the very start of a project
like this. And was not my choice OnBoard is not meant as a Webmin
clone. It wants to be a sort of little OS in the OS, starting services
by its own, having its own internal /etc directory etc. It's an
opinionated choice, I admit The idea is: when you uninstall OnBoard
you will get the system as it was before.

That is a quite good idea. And opionated isn't a problem in itself.

I was more curious about what to expect when installing OnBoard, and not
looking for a replacement for Webmin.

That said, thanks for your interesting opinions and feel free to
fork/patch/implement you own ideas.

Once I have the time, I'll take a look. OnBoard is on my GitHub
watchlist already.