Nitix Autonomic Linux OS

An OS that's small in footprint for small business environments, and also features a recovery option for easy network configuration and Web-based manageability

Wednesday, February 22, 2006

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Nitix is an OS meant for emerging businesses. The beauty of the OS is that its installable is only 35 MB, and yet provides lots of features.  It can run as a Live CD installed to the hard disk. The OS can be installed on 64-bit machines like AMD Athlon 64. It's pretty easy to install and the only thing it asks for is an IP address. If you don't provide that, it can pick it up from a DHCP server as well. Once installed, it takes you to its Web interface, from where you can configure it. Currently it doesn't have X Windows, which is probably why it has a small footprint.

Nitix has a whole range of interesting features. When a new user is created, he automatically gets permissions to a MySQL database, and also gets an email account. You can then assign quotas, permissions, Password policies, etc to this account.

Nitix has VPN capability, with support for TunnelVision, IPSec and can act as a PPTP server. Nitix can be accessed from anywhere using its Remote Access Services (RAS), through VPN or a Dial-up connection. The OS supports CIFS/SMB (Windows File Sharing), Appleshare IP (for Macintosh systems), and NFS (for UNIX systems) for file sharing purposes.

You can monitor hardware status and logs through Nitix's Web interface in real time

Nitix features NetIntelligence, using which  it discovers and maps network routes. During this process it auto-detects live links to the Internet and auto-configures a firewall. Nitix has a SPI firewallwith NAT. Its SoftUpdate feature can update Nitix automatically over the Internet. It alerts you with a message every time a new update or fix is released. This product also supports redundant Internet connectivity. One drawback Nitix has is its documentation. There are help files provided in its Web configuration interface and couple of guides available on its website but none of them are good enough.

SystemER (Emergency Recovery) in Nitix is an advanced disaster recovery technology that enables Nitix powered servers to be recovered from any type of system failure including faulty hardware and fire. It can do this in just two minutes, but you'll need to have Nitix powered or certified servers. On the manageability front, the OS can scan for all workstations on its network. It can also act as a print server, for which it will automatically detect all printers on the network. Nitix's e-mail services include SMTP server, POP3 server, IMAP/SSL server, and LDAP server.

Nitix has a plug-in for Microsoft Outlook called ExchangeIt. When it is used with Microsoft Outlook, it adds features like schedule sharing, contact list sharing, meeting invitations, group sharing between different users of Nitix. It also backs up Outlook data on the Nitix server, and if Outlook loses data it can be re-synchronized. It also comes with add-on features like anti-virus and anti-spam but we couldn't test them because we had a Nitix trail CD. Cost of these add-ons is separate and not included in the base pack. While testing for its routing capabilities, we found that its Web interface doesn't have any pre-configured profile for configuring  NATing between two interfaces. This has to be done straight from the shell in IP tables. You can also monitor the logs of Nitix through its Web-interface or from its default shell interface in real time.

Bottom Line: Overall, it looks like a pretty good OS for small and medium businesses, given its small footprint and the bundled features.

Swapnil Arora

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