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ClarkConnect 4.0 - Product Update

ClarkConnect 4.0 represents Point Clark Networks' most significant platform release. Thousand hours of research, software development, integration and testing have been invested in the 4.0 feature set. In this document, you will find information on this landmark release.

The first thing that returning users will notice are the name changes:

Enterprise Edition -- adds groupware features on the Office Edition.
Office Edition -- replaces the Professional Edition.
Community Edition -- replaces the Home Edition.

	New Features
	Software End-Of-Life
	Screenshots

New Features

Groupware

LDAP User Management

User management for ClarkConnect 4.0 has been migrated to LDAP, specifically, OpenLDAP 2.2. This will greatly improve integration for the abundance of third-party applications that natively support LDAP.

Group Management

A simple web-based configuration tool to manage groups is now available.

Calendaring/Collaboration with Outlook Connector

After significant research, Kolab was selected as the engine for groupware functionality in ClarkConnect 4.0. Kolab is a proven and stable project embracing open-standards. There is built-in support for Horde Webmail (see below) and several mail clients (in various stages of development/production), including KDE Kontact, Mozilla's Thunderbird and Microsoft's Outlook.

To fulfill a major requirement for ClarkConnect's Calendaring solution - the ability to plug-in to the most popular mail client in the world (Outlook) - there is a plug-in connector from Toltec.

Outlook Connector

Horde Webmail

Horde has replaced SquirrelMail as the standard webmail client for ClarkConnect 4.0. Squirrelmail will still be available.

Horde

Flexshare

A Flexshare is a flexible and secure collaboration utility which integrates four of the most common methods of accessing files or content:

Web (HTTP/HTTPS)
FTP (FTP/FTPS)
File Shares (Samba)
E-mail (SMTP/MIME/SMIME)

Flexshares also allows a simple form-based user interface for advanced configuration of services. For example, setting up Basic authentication to access a web page or enabling TLS on the FTP server. More information along with sample Flexshare configurations can be found in the Flexshare Online Manual .

Mail Services and Filtering

DSPAM Protection

A second antispam engine has been added to ClarkConnect 4.0's defense against spam. DSPAM is now available as an SMTP filter capable of running in series with SpamAssassin. One of the best features of DSPAM is the ability for individual users to train the antispam engine simply by forwarding SPAM back to the server.

ClamAV - Antivirus for Mail Protection

In all versions prior to 4.0, users requiring antivirus protection for mail servers had only a choice of Point Clark Networks' ASP Antivirus or Gateway Antivirus - both solutions which are licensed Sophos PLC solutions, or a 3rd party, non-integrated solution. The Open-Sourced ClamAV project is highly regarded as an equal among commercial antivirus vendors. ClarkConnect 4.0 users will now have a choice to run ClamAV or Sophos - or both - for protection against viruses entering the network via SMTP. ClamAV is now an installable module with pre-configured integration into Postfix SMTP server.

Cyrus POP3/IMAP

Cyrus has replaced Dovecot as the IMAP/POP3 service on ClarkConnect. This mail server software provides advanced access control along with mail quotas.

Network and System Tools

SSL Certificate Manager

SSL certificates are the de-facto standard for encrypting information sent over a network and can also be used to provide authentication, as in the case of SMIME email signature signing.

This module provides an administrator with the ability to create a Certificate Authority (CA) which can then be installed as a trusted CA on any operating system, browser or mail client in order to encrypt/decrypt (and/or sign emails) communications between two computers. Creating your own CA and using it to sign certificates is termed "self-signing". More information on SSL certificate management can be found in the SSL Manager Online Manual .

1:1 NAT and Multi-WAN

Creating 1:1 NAT rules through the ClarkConnect 4.0 web-based administration tool is now possible with Multi-WAN enabled.

Fault Tolerence Option in Multi-WAN

ClarkConnect's Multi-WAN feature has been extended to provide optional fault-tolerance, allowing users to configure a network interface (ISP connection) only in the event of primary connection failure.

Productivity

AdZapper

From the home page for the AdZapper project: "The AdZapper redirection software uses a list of patterns to zap annoying advertisement banners from Web pages, inserting a placeholder image. This has both aesthetic and bandwidth benefits."

Graphical Console

A VGA-supported graphical console has been on the feature list for quite some time. The procrastination in creating this tool was due, in part, to the scope of the development (the majority of the code had to be created from scratch). In addition, this tool was dependent on the SOAP technology and the ClarkConnect API.

Point Clark Networks is proud to announce the inclusion of "CC Console" in 4.0, a VGA-based console tool which will give users (especially new users) a much simpler and enjoyable 'first experience' with basic system configuration and network set-up. This tool is expected to greatly simplify the steps required to access the ClarkConnect web-based administration tool from a remote machine on the LAN.

Feature Upgrades

Bacula - 1.36.2 to 1.38.9

The Bacula upgrade from 1.36.2 to 1.38.9 is significant in a number of ways. DVD-RW devices were added to Bacula in version 1.37. Although not officially supported in ClarkConnect for the 4.0 release, this will give more advanced users the ability to implement backups to DVD through CLI editing of the Bacula configuration files. TLS support was introduced in version 1.38, allowing users to configure Bacula to communicate across encrypted channels between the director and client - essential for anyone considering offsite-backup. There are a number of bug fixes for Bacula with this revision.

ProFTP - 1.2.10 to 1.3.0

Some new directives were added in addition to several bug fixes. In addition, the 4.0 version of ProFTP was compiled with TLS support, allowing encrypted communications using SSL.

SpamAssassin - 3.0.4 to 3.1.1

Along with the usual bug fixes, SpamAssassin's 3.1 version supports automatic updates of patterns used to identify spam. With the new 3.1.1 version, ClarkConnect users will enjoy even better identification performance as "rules" are updated regularly to stay current with the latest techniques used by spammers.

Software End-Of-Life

To further demonstrate our commitment to consultants, businesses and organizations who have chosen solutions based on Linux - and more specifically, ClarkConnect - Point Clark Networks will announce a precedent-setting "End-of-Life" support policy for the 4.0 release. The commercial version of ClarkConnect 4.0 will allow valid license-holders to update their systems with security updates and critical patches/high-impact bug fixes for a period of six (6) years. This term effectively doubles the life span for IT solutions based on previous versions of ClarkConnect.