NetMAX Newsletter - April 2006

1. [Coming Soon!] New NetMAX L2.4Pv5.5 Beta Testing
2. [Tips and Tricks] Enabling SSL-based VPN in NetMAX
3. [Support] Holiday Hours
4. [General] Let's Hear From You

1. New NetMAX L2.4Pv5.5 Beta Testing

The NetMAX Team is seeking interested customers to help test the forthcoming NetMAX version L2.4Pv5.5, which is due to begin open testing in mid-May. If you are interested, please contact NetMAX Sales directly at:

734-668-2567 or sales 'at' netmax.com

Coming up in the next release of NetMAX, L2.4Pv5.5, will be support for dynamic DNS. Dynamic DNS allows users with dynamically assigned IP addresses to access their NetMAX servers from the Internet with a fixed host name. Dynamic DNS will also be permitted for NetMAX servers with static IP addresses.

NetMAX will support DynDNS, EasyDNS, and zoneedit. Your choice of service provider will depend upon whether you need a custom fully-qualified domain name (for example, myhost.mydomain.com) or just a host name (myhost.dyndns.org).

Setup will be extremely simple, requiring you to supply the service provider, a login (or in some cases, a host name), a password, the domain name, and optionally service provider-specific data. From then on, updates will be completely automatic.

We will be releasing updated documentation along with the new release.

2. Enabling SSL-based VPN in NetMAX

One aspect of NetMAX that we're particularly proud of is our addition of SSL-based VPN, which first appeared in the L2.4Pv5.02 release. Enabling SSL-based VPN on the server side is simply a matter of checking "SSL Included" for the appropriate interface in Network | VPN | Options and adding an SSL virtual network (for example, 10.0.0.0/255.255.255.0).

For NetMAX-based clients in the so-called gateway-to-gateway configuration, simply check "Use SSL VPN instead of IPSEC" in Network | VPN | Remote Peer | Create to use SSL-based VPN.

The major feature that distinguishes NetMAX's VPN from our competition is that we do not require proprietary third-party VPN client software. For example, one competitor's VPN product requires that you purchase a $40 software product for every Windows client. For small and large business alike, this makes NetMAX an obvious choice for your VPN.

NetMAX supports the free and extremely easy to configure OpenVPN and OpenVPN GUI. You can download these programs from www.openvpn.net and www.openvpn.se, respectively. Note that you must enable SSL-based VPN on the server side for OpenVPN and OpenVPN GUI to function correctly.

To configure OpenVPN, simply create a copy of the configuration file we supply in a text editor, add the IP address of your VPN server, and supply the credentials file that you've generated from Users | Users | <Pencil> | Password.

See the VPN Server Suite User Manual for more information, which is also available via NetMAX Support at:

www.netmax.com/pdfs/manuals/NetMAX5-vpn-manual.pdf

3. Holiday Hours

Here in Michigan, we like to use the Memorial Day holiday as an excuse to drive north and spend a long weekend on the beaches of Michigan's many lakes. And because the NetMAX offices will be closed in recognition of the holiday, we on the NetMAX Team may do exactly that. However, this does mean that NetMAX Support will be closed on Monday, May 29th -- online help will continue to be available, and our technical support number will still be accepting support messages, but our normal weekday live phone support will be unavailable.

Because of these holiday hours, any support requests or orders recieved after 2pm on Friday, May 26th may not be addressed until we resume normal support hours on Tuesday, May 30th.

Thanks for your patience!

4. Let's Hear From You!

We would very much like to hear from you -- especially about how you use NetMAX and Linux in your business, and how we can make NetMAX better suited to your needs. Contribute your input to the NetMAX Forum at:

www.netmax.com/cgi-bin/ikonboard/ikonboard.cgi

or to our general NetMAX contact form at:

www.netmax.com/partners/contacts.html

Let us know about your likes, dislikes, and general comments. We are especially interested in the type of additions to NetMAX that you would like to see as we continue to develop the NetMAX line.

Thank you!