NethServer 6.8 beta1 Released!

We are proud to announce a new NethServer release.

NethServer 6.8 beta1 is here, on schedule for our planned June final release.

What is the Beta release?

The Beta release contains all the exciting features of NethServer 6.8 in a form that anyone can help test. This testing, guided by the NethServer team, helps us target and identify bugs.

NethServer Rolling Releases and CentOS

A NethServer system is constituted by RPMs that come mainly from CentOS mirrors and NethServer mirrors. CentOS releases errata and bugfixes recompiling RHEL packages, as reported by the centos-announce mailing list and NethServer does the same, announcing new releases of its specific RPMs on our community.

When CentOS produces a new minor version like 6.8 they publish a new “minimal” ISO image, therefore the NethServer developers do the same adding a small RPM set on that image together with a kickstart file. The resulting image is the NethServer ISO, with installer, server-manager and other stuff.

NethServer 6.8 beta1 changes from 6.7

Highlights

• Upstream updates from CentOS 6.8
• Firewall: web interface for policy routing
• Simplified Multi WAN configuration
• Use DNSBL to fight spam
• IPsec site-to-site support
• Support for CIDR and IP ranges as source and destination for proxy bypass
• Bonding mode: it’s now possible to specify the bond mode (active-backup, balance round robin, etc) from the Network page
• NethForge is now install and enabled by default like in 7
• YUM clean button

Firewall and Ntopng

• Ntopng memory usage optimized
• Support for multiple interfaces on Ntopng
• Hairpin NAT from blue and orange

Proxy and Content Filter

• Web antivirus whitelist
• AD groups for squidguard profiles
• Add CIDR subnets and ip ranges as hosts without proxy in Proxy
• New WPAD implementation which includes also proxy bypass

VPN

• IPsec tunnels with PPPoE
• L2TP now correctly works with multi WAN
• IPSec tunnels automatically enable firewall-to-firewall traffic
• New “Public IP” field for OpenVPN to ease client configuration
• Added a remote field in OpenVPN interface to cover some scenarios where the OpenVPN client can’t find the server by searching for its host name

Fax Server

• Mail to fax
• Improve fax report quality

Shared Folders and PDC

• Samba now supports roaming profiles fir Windows 8,8,1 and 10
• Samba shares can now be browseable or hidden

Various upgrades

• New release of WebTop with support for Active Directory, data import from SOGo, and many other updates
• Upgrading to Owncloud 7.0.13
• Updated language pack and Portoguese Brazilian is added

Others

• Various bug fixes on firewall rules and objects, backup web interface, trusted networks, coova chilli, dashboard and bond configuration
• Multiple enhancments for: PPPoE, sNAT, IP/MAC binding, squid, RoundCube, DHCP, pulledpork, adagios, vsftpd, pop3 scan, group email addresses creation.

Download or upgrade

Please take some time to download and try out the Beta and make sure the things that are important to you are working. If you find a bug, please report it. This is a great opportunity for non-programmers to contribute back to NethServer.

Manual upgrade from 6.7

The system can be upgraded from the command line.

Make sure the system is fully updated:

yum update

Upgrade the nethserver-release package:

yum localinstall http://mirror.nethserver.org/nethserver/nethserver-release-6.rpm

Clean up yum cache and run update again:

yum clean all && yum update

Finally, reboot the system (optional).