Openfiler is a powerful, intuitive browser-based network storage software distribution. Openfiler delivers file-based Network Attached Storage and block-based Storage Area Networking in a single framework. Openfiler sits atop of CentOS Linux (which is derived from sources freely provided to the public by a prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor). It is distributed as a stand-alone Linux distribution. The entire software stack interfaces with third-party software that is all open source. File-based networking protocols supported by Openfiler include: NFS, SMB/CIFS, HTTP/WebDAV and FTP. Network directories supported by Openfiler include NIS, LDAP (with support for SMB/CIFS encrypted passwords), Active Directory (in native and mixed modes) and Hesiod. Authentication protocols include Kerberos 5. Openfiler includes support for volume-based partitioning, iSCSI (initiator), scheduled snapshots, resource quota, and a single unified interface for share management which makes allocating shares for various network file-system protocols a breeze. The following are just some of the features currently available (unless indicated otherwise) in Openfiler. * Powerful virtualization o Point-in-time snapshot support with scheduling o Online volume size expansion (testing) o Volume usage reporting o Support for multiple volume groups for optimal storage allocation o iSCSI initiator (manual currently) o Volume migration & replication (manual currently) * Accounts management o Authentication using Pluggable Authentication Modules, configured from the web-interface o NIS, LDAP, Hesiod, Active Directory (native and mixed modes), NT4 domain controller o Guest/public account support * Quota / resource allocation o Per-volume group-quota management for space and files o Per-volume user-quota management for space and files o Per-volume guest-quota management for space and files o User and group templates support for quota allocation * Extensive share management features o Per-volume based share creation o Multi-level share directory tree o Multi-group based access control on a per-share basis o Multi-host/network based access control on a per-share basis o Per-share service activation (NFS, SMB/CIFS, HTTP/WebDAV, FTP) o Support for auto-created SMB home directories * Full industry-standard protocol suite o CIFS/SMB support for Microsoft Windows-based clients o NFSv3 support for all UNIX clients with support for ACL protocol extensions o NFSv4 support (testing) o FTP support o WebDAV and HTTP 1.1 support o Linux distribution back-end for any other customizations o Open source provides you the power to modify and deploy software if you want to do so
