LGCSB Open Source Blog

So, can this really be done? Does it really work? How?

In Limerick City Co we kept our heads down working away for more than one year  on testing many open source solutions for various servers/services that we currently provide to our users. In the presentation made at the Open Source forum on 25/01/2011 we showed how we can deliver similar or even better solutions by replacing proprietary software with open source technologies.

Directory Services: this is the back bone for network administration as in a Windows network every service relies on Active Directory for single sign-on, user management and authentication. Most of the MS servers requires AD to work properly: SQL Server, Exchange, Sharepoint, etc. Thus, we worked with Zentyal to deploy an Open LDAP Directory services server. To facilitate a migration path and the running in parallel of MS and Opens Source solutions this server must be able to synchronize with our AD data. Zentyal have a nice utility that does exactly that. Another option that one can look at is the Fedora Directory Services Server. It comes with a nice GUI for administration and utilities to sync with Active Directory.

Office: We went through a number of Open Office installations until Oracle decided to buy Sun and then they started feeling that they can now charge for Open Office functionality. This is when we simply replace OpenOffice with LibreOffice. More details will follow in a separate posting on things to watch when you deploy LibreOffice: Templates, Spell checker, working with Sharepoint, etc. However, this leaves us with Outlook which means that we still use an Office licence.  Mail was logically next in our list of things to “break”!

Mail: The problem with mail is that you cannot possibly move everyone from Outlook to a new solution over night. We needed a new solution that will allows to migrate at a slower pace so we do not cause havock in the organization. But how do you keep the same email addresses for user when you have two mail servers using different technologies that cannot talk to eachother?  We deployed Postfix in front of our Exchnage server and with a smart script we were able to forward email between Exchnage and Zarafa. Details will follow on a different post.

Zentyal Small Business Server: It was key to our approach. We did not have the skills in house to do the stuff we wanted to do but with Zentyal’s easy to use web interface you get a lot done without one line in the terminal window. We also got good support from them and tings went really smoothly.

Proxy server: As are using Zentyal for user admin and Zarafa mail server we simply enabled the proxy server that comes out of the box. It helps us as a back-up for our main proxy.

So, where are we now?

On the desktop side:

• 440 users migrated to Zarafa web based mail server and counting,
• all our users have LibreOffice installed and less than half use MS Office.
• All our users also got FireFox as an alternative to IE and they use it for access to email.

On the server side:

• OpenLDAP in sync with AD, so users have only one password;
• Zarafa mail server and Postfix to move mail between Zarafa and Exchange.
• Samba for some of our file sharing. More work is required here to get those printer drivers to function properly.
• Squid proxy server as a backup for our main proxy server;
• Municipal Museum in Limerick City uses Collective Access, an open source solution for cataloguing Museum/Archivs collections;
• Virtual corporate MySQL server to store a lot of our OS databases

On the support side:

• Our support technicians use Linux Desktops and virtual WinXP machines in VirtualBox.
• They can now check Linux servers in PUTTY as easily as they can RDP (using Remmina) to Windows servers.

What’s next?

• Well, we intend to finish up our migration to Zarafa and shut down the old Exchange box, also shut down the File Server on Windows.
• More integration of historical information by using Collective Access: City Archives, Local Studies will complement the Museum.
• We hope to have The Limerick City Gallery of Art using CA as well.
• LTSP for managing public computers in Libraries;
• Some sort of Open Source CMS will come in our way soon
• And…a linux desktop? Why not?

Presentations up later in the day, on Slideshare -

10:30 Introductions

• Welcome – Cork County Council

• Introduction – Tim Willoughby

11:00 Zentyal – Web Management and Integration –

Limerick City Council – Mihai Bilauca

Zentyal – Ignacio Correas

11:30 Asterisk Open Source Telephony Solution

Infinity – John Murphy

Carlow County Council – Eoin Lyng

12:00 Adopting OS Software – A Practical Guide

University of Limerick – Prof. Brian Fitzgerald

12:30 Lunch / Open floor discussion

13:15 Open Source Software & Organisational Risk Management

Arthur Cox Solicitors – Pearse Ryan

13:40 Open Office Implementation

Galway City Council – Mary Clarke

14:00 Fingal Open Data Initiative

Fingal County Council – Dominic Byrne

14:20 Working with Open Source applications:

Case Studies of 2 grant making organisations

Quest – Mervyn Colton

14:45 Open Floor Discussion

The 2nd Local Authority Open Source forum is taking place on Tuesday, April 12th in the Council Chambers in Cork County Hall, commencing at 10 o’clock and finishing at 3:30pm.

It will showcase OS developments and initiatives in LA’s over the last couple of months and discussion topics will include open source goverence and licencing.