A note about Open Source

Open source software can represent very good value when used appropriately. At the National Theatre, I took advantage of the Internet Software Corporation's DNS and DHCP software as part of an approach to network security and integrity.

Each desktop computer's MAC address was registered in the DHCP database, and thus permanently associated with a particular IP address and canonical name in the DNS. Security privileges - e.g. the ability to by-pass web content filtering - could easily be controlled by client IP address, and the DHCP/DNS database served as an asset register which could readily be checked for recent network activity. Clients whose MAC address wasn't in the database couldn't obtain a 'legal' IP address.

This approach also enabled me to install dual DHCP servers on the network, eliminating a single point of failure. I wrote some Perl CGI scripts to make it easy for my staff to maintain the database through a simple web browser interface. The documentation and software can be obtained by following the links below:

View the documentation     Download the scripts

Nowadays for the DNS and DHCP functions I would recommend an appliance such as Bluecat Networks' Adonis range, but if you are really having to watch the pennies, then the Linux world still has plenty to offer. At the time of writing I've been investigating Drupal - the open source content management system - as a solution for a voluntary organization's web site.