SME Server 7.1
==============
December 31, 2006

The SME Server development team is pleased to announce the release of SME
Server 7.1 This release has many new features and fixes for previously
reported issues.

All SME Server users should upgrade to this release.

The packages in 7.1 will be made available as updates for SME Server 7.0

Bug reports and reports of potential bugs should be raised
in the bug tracker (and only there, please);
    http://www.contribs.org/bugzilla/

Major changes from SME Server 7.0
=================================

- The CD no longer boots automatically into the installer

- The installer now provides many raid and lvm configuration options

- The Software Installer has been enhanced to provide better feedback during
  installs and to deal with large update sets

- Local mail delivery is noticeably faster

- The clam filesystem scan now scans /home/e-smith/files by default

- A list of work included in this release can be found here:
    http://contribs.org/bugzilla/showdependencytree.cgi?id=2036

About SME Server
================

SME Server is the leading Linux distribution for small and medium
enterprises. SME Server is brought to you by SME Server, Inc. 
( http://www.smeserver.org/ ), a non-profit corporation that exists to
provide marketing and legal support for SME Server.

SME Server is freely available under the GNU General Public License
and is only possible through the efforts of the SME Server community.
However, the availability and quality of SME Server is dependent on
meeting our expenses, such as hosting costs, server hardware, etc.

As such, we ask for a small donation to offset costs and fund further
development.

Please visit http://www.smeserver.org/donate/ to donate.


Installation
============

- Simple single CD install

- The default installation procedure will rewrite all disks in the system

- Automatic detection of multi-CPU and HyperThreading CPUs

- In order to install on i586 machines you will need to do the following:
  - Type "smei586" at the boot prompt

- Many installation problems are caused by the following issues:

* Incorrectly burnt CD:
   Please use the "Media Check" to test your media. This screen is
   presented at the start of the installation

* Faulty memory
    - Type "memtest86" at the boot prompt

* Unsupported or faulty hardware
  - Check the memory and CD media
  - Use good quality cables and an error-free CDROM drive
  - Ensure master/slave configuration is correct, if appropriate
  - Disable onboard RAID controllers
  - Disable power saving and ACPI features in the BIOS

Automated RAID installation
===========================

NOTE: All disks must be the same size for SME Server 7

- The default installation provides the following setup:
  - Single disk provides one-way RAID1
    - Console screen allows simple addition of second disk to provide mirroring
  - Two disks are configured as a RAID1 mirror
  - Three to five disks are configured as RAID5 (/boot partition is RAID1)
  - Six or more disks are configured as RAID6 (/boot partition is RAID1)

- (bug 2015, 2066) The installer provides options to:
  - skip software raid
  - skip logical volume manager
  - force a raid 1 install on the first two disks detected
  - attempt to reserve one disk as a spare

- (bug 130) A script has been provided for conversion from non-RAID to RAID

Upgrades
========

- Always perform a backup prior to major system upgrades

- An upgrade will preserve the existing data

- Seamless upgrades from unmodified SME Server 7.0, 6.5, 6.0.1 and 6.0 servers

- Many common contributed add-ons have been included in the standard
  distribution

Email
=====

- Virus scanning

- Executable attachment blocking

- Spam filtering
  - Automatic tagging with X-Spam-Status header
  - Optional sorting to 'junkmail' mailbox
  - Selectable tagging levels
  - Optional rejection of spam during SMTP transaction
  - Full user/domain recipient filtering

- Attachment conversion from TNEF to MIME

- Pseudonyms panel enhancements
  - Ability to send (e.g.) support@domain1 and support@domain2 to different
    places
  - Can enter pseudonyms of pseudonyms

- Secure POP, IMAP and SMTP

- SMTP authentication for users and for ISP connection

- Horde/IMP3 based webmail

- (bug 1893) Local mail delivery is noticeably faster
  - Different configuration is used for local and external connections
  - Local connections are not subject to spam scanning, and DNS tests

Software installer
==================

- Yum based software installation with server-manager panel

- (bug 59, 1163) Software installer panel has been enhanced to:
  - provide better feedback during installs
  - use multiple mirror sites
  - automatically choose the closest working mirror
  - deal with large updates
  Note: The 'prereposetup' stage may take 5-10 minutes for a large update set

- Standard/safe yum "channels" enabled
  - (bug 1849) CentOS base and updates channels are now enabled by default

General features
================

- Based on CentOS 4.4 and all available updates

$Id: README.txt,v 1.16 2006/12/26 22:53:34 gordonr Exp $