[Asterisk-Users] Xorcom Rapid Asterisk distro beta 0.5.2

[steve szmidt]

On Sunday 10 October 2004 06:41 am, Tzafrir Cohen wrote:
> Hi folks
>
> Hello to all,
>
> We have created a simple Debian-based distribution of Asterisk. A CD
> image of an installer(150MB, requires no extra packages from the 'net)
> that installs Debian and Asterisk simple and easy.
>
> You are invited to take a look at:
>
> http://www.xorcom.com/rapid/
>
> The image is free as in GPL. Sources included on the image.
>
> Any comments will be appreciated, either via the website or directly to
> me.
>
> I'd like to thank all the users and developers who helped me on
> #asterisk , #debian-boot and other places.

Being posed as an Asterisk distro I decided to reply to the list.


This is a nice and fast install ending up using the whole of 334M on a single 
partition. I used an old 600 MHz machine with 256M RAM and it went pretty 
fast and smooth. 

Though I can't for the life of me understand why it defaults to having these 
ports open by default:

port 	tcp udp	service
9	x	x	discard
13	x		daytime
37	x		time
2000	x		callbook

I know I don't want to offer any of these services to the Internet. 9/13/37 
are never used these days as those services were found too easy to hack 
through. That was a number of years ago and of course they could be improved. 
But still does not explain why they are open. My SIP devices uses 123.

Port 2000 has been reported as recently as the 25th Oct to be an increasing 
new IIS PCT exploit. 

One usually prefer to keep a low profile with servers. This one is asking for 
attention. 

To their defense, if you read the release notes, they do recommend against 
using this in a production environment. I'd like to see a more prominent 
warning. And during the ever simple install it does not verify the root 
password. You better know what you type.

It does not have ssh installed. Not being a debian user I'm not sure if 
there's a good reason to not include ssh in the default install. Except to 
keep things to bare bones. Though I would be hard to not have space for ssh. 
The game Banner could be skipped if space is the target.

All in all it has lots of tools linked through a menu system that works pretty 
decently. Plenty enough for a server. I guess having an ability to edit 
asterisk from there could be added. Otherwise it's quite complete.

I managed to install ssh, and mc, easily enough (from the CD I think, it seems 
too fast to have come down over the net). Somehow I've managed to make this  
my first direct contact with building a Debian system. It would be VERY hard 
to make it any easier.

The one thing I'd like to see is a menu option that opens the services I need 
After the install. Not open by default.

Asterisk from 05/31/04 is running on kernel 2.4.27. 

There's a minor point of having a broken vm link in /var/spool/asterisk.

Having said all that, I think they have done a great job of creating a single 
Asterisk CD. Some honest work went into getting this done. As a contribution 
to Asterisk I think it's a very good thing! If the next release continous 
this well, it should be a very popular distro for our community!

-- 

Steve Szmidt

"They that would give up essential liberty for temporary safety 
deserve neither liberty nor safety."
                                Benjamin Franklin