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Vyatta Community Edition

Last week this column was about SmoothWall Express, an open source router/firewall distribution. This week I decided to try out Vyatta Community Edition 2.2. At the end of the day though, my network computer is back to running SmoothWall Express.

Vyatta requires registration to download the Community Edition, but once registered you have access to a CD ROM image for the Community Edition, the VMWare Virtual Appliance, and access to the source code. Just as SmoothWall Express is the open source version of the company's commercial software, the company Vyatta has a subscription release available only to paying customers and the freely available Community Edition.

First I found the Quick Evaluation Guide (PDF) on the download page. Later I found a documentation page with several more PDF files. I downloaded the Quick Evaluation Guide from the download page and copied it to my laptop so I could follow it while setting up Vyatta. One could print the thirteen page document, but as I run a mostly paperless office, that was not my first thought. There is a webinar series available, the next routing webinar is scheduled for September 11 and one must be registered to attend. Ok for those who plan ahead, but not so good for instant gratification. They also have video demos and screenshots of a Graphical User Interface, although the GUI doesn't seem to be part of the Community Edition. My 64-bit desktop machine doesn't run Macromedia Flash, so I couldn't check out the videos.

The Quick Eval Guide that I downloaded proudly proclaimed that it was once a Microsoft Word file, before it's conversion to PDF. One presumes that many of Vyatta's customers are using this distribution to secure and route a mostly Windows network. It contains a series of commands to be typed on command line of the configuration routine.

Vyatta CE includes standard WAN (wide area network) routing protocols such as RIP (Routing Information Protocol), OSPFv2 (Open Shortest Path First version 2), and BGPv4 (Border Gateway Protocol version 4). For the LAN (local area network) portion it includes intranet networking protocols such as DHCP (Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol), VRRP (Virtual Router Redundancy Protocol) and SNMP. I can only connect to my ISP using DHCP, which doesn't seem to be available for the outgoing connection.

Is Vyatta right for you? That's between you and your networking/firewalling needs. It is not right for me, unless I completely missed the ability to use DHCP for establishing an outgoing connection.

Update:

Dave Roberts at Vyatta contacted me with some comments and corrections about this article. While he confirmed that Vyatta does not, at this time, include DHCP for outgoing connections, he did say that are working on it and expect that it will be available early in 2008. This top enhancements page shows DHCP for clients at the top of the list.

When I said that the GUI wasn't part of the community edition, I was wrong. I didn't poke around hard enough but it is mentioned in the Quick Start Guide (on page 53), which can be found on the documentation page. The GUI is disabled by default, but it's easy to turn on, and it is demonstrated in the videos.

Registration is not required just to download the Community Edition. You use the "Skip It" button. Also the Quick Start Guide and the Eval Guide are available without registration. Registration is required for some of the advanced documentation.

Vyatta is a high end product, more often used in large cross-platform environments. It is not really geared toward the tiny home network, although it should work for most. Vyatta really does appear to be a nice product and I'll look forward to giving it another try in the future.

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New Releases

ALT Linux 4.0 Personal Desktop

ALT Linux has released (in Russian) version 4.0 Personal Desktop. ALT 4.0 Personal Desktop is a Russian desktop distribution for home and office use, with OpenOffice.org, WINE, graphics applications, multimedia, support for the latest hardware technologies, and much more.

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The first CD with LFS-6.3

The LiveCD team has announced the release of the first LiveCD with the Linux From Scratch 6.3 book for x86-based computers. "There are some known bugs and missing features that were present in the 6.2 series of CDs (e.g., no loop-aes support), thus the CDs are not called "stable", but for most people, they should be good enough to build LFS-6.3 and ask for support online."

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Debian reintroduces 0-day NMUs for RC and Release Goal bugs older than 7 days

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packages.debian.org updated

packages.debian.org was updated to the new code base that was already available from packages.debian.net. "This is a pretty big update that affects almost all features of packages.debian.org and includes some behavioural changes." Click below for highlights and known regressions. See also these associated changes to mail handling.

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forums.gentoo.org leaves the web

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Mandriva First to Demonstrate KDE/Linux Desktop on the New Intel MID platform

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Ubuntu Tribe 6 Milestone to Focus on Bugfixing

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Distribution Newsletters

Foresight Linux Newsletter Issue 6 (August) out!

The August edition of the Foresight Linux Newsletter features an update on the Foresight Linux 2.0 development and release dates, upcoming speaking engagements by members of the Foresight Linux team, and an introduction and overview to PackageKit.

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Ubuntu Weekly News: Issue #55

The Ubuntu Weekly Newsletter for September 1, 2007 covers the announcement of the next Ubuntu release "Hardy Heron 8.04", Full Circle's latest issue, the Month of Ubuntu Screen Casts, Gutsy Gibbon's release parties, and more.

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DistroWatch Weekly, Issue 218

The DistroWatch Weekly for September 3, 2007 is out. "If you have only recently discovered this web site and the joy of testing the hundreds of different distributions and live CD available on the market, then you need to learn one essential skill: how to correct a faulty screen resolution that many of these products fail to set up correctly. Today's featured article lists the necessary steps. In the news section, Canonical has announced Ubuntu 8.04 "Hardy Heron" LTS, FreeBSD has unveiled the first alpha of its all-new point-and-click system installer, Debian has updated the backend of its package database infrastructure, and the German Mandriva user community has released the first English issue of "MagDriva", a magazine dedicated to all fans and users of Mandriva Linux. Finally, we are pleased to announce that the recipient of the DistroWatch.com August 2007 donation is the lighttpd project."

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Distribution meetings

Gentoo Down Under Mini-conf - Call for Papers

There will be a Gentoo mini-conf at LCA, slated to run for half a day on Tuesday January 29, 2008. This is the call for papers and presentations.

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Newsletters and articles of interest

Ubuntu Xorg maintainer demonstrates bulletproof X (ars technica)

ars technica looks at the "BulletProof-X" feature planned for Ubuntu's Gutsy release. "If Xorg fails to start, the failsafe mode will initiate with minimalistic settings, low resolution, and a limited number of colors. The failsafe mode also automatically runs Ubuntu's new GTK-based display configuration utility so that users can easily test various display settings and choose a configuration that will work properly with their hardware. The display configuration utility provides a simple mouse-driven interface that is very intuitive. The configuration utility even has limited multihead [support], but unfortunately doesn't support more than two screens yet."

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The next 'business' Ubuntu is on its way (Linux-Watch)

Linux-Watch looks forward to Ubuntu 8.04 aka the Hardy Heron. "The next Ubuntu Linux distribution with long-term support, "Hardy Heron," Ubuntu 8.04, will be released in April 2008. Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, like Red Hat with Fedora and Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Novell with openSUSE and SUSE Linux, releases both a community version and a version for businesses or individuals who want to rely on a distribution with long-term technical support. Unlike Red Hat and Novell, though, Canonical doesn't separate the two versions with different names."

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Distribution reviews

DIY Linux live CD -- the really easy way (DesktopLinux.com)

DesktopLinux.com takes a look at Custom NimbleX 2. "This lesser known Slackware-derived project offers a Web-based tool that lets users concoct, and then download, their own customized live CD Linux images -- in minutes! "I am pleased to announce ... that I just released the Release Candidate of ... Custom NimbleX 2," wrote chief maintainer Bogdan Radulescu. "It allows you to generate your customized Linux distribution by choosing what packages you want to have and it also allows you to configure several other stuff like the default wallpaper, volumes, sounds, greetings, passwords and the language of the interface.""

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