Univention Corporate Server (UCS) / Blog: Recent posts

With Univention Corporate Server 5.0-4, the fourth point release for
Univention Corporate Server (UCS) 5.0 is now available. It includes
functional enhancements and improvements, new features, several detail
improvements, and bug fixes. Also included in the installation media are all
errata that have appeared since version 5.0-3.

New: Announcement Feature in the Portal

With UCS 5.0-4, you can notify your users about upcoming maintenance work or
software updates directly in the portal with a special announcement. Also, the
messages can get a read confirmation.... read more

I would like to look ahead to UCS Release 5.2, which we plan to release in the
3rd quarter of this year. And yes, that is right, we will release UCS 5.2 and
not, as you would otherwise expect, UCS 5.1. Let me briefly explain the
reasons for this in the following.

The Technical Basis of UCS: Debian

You probably know that the proven operating system Debian GNU/Linux, which is
known for stability, security, versatility and good package management, forms
the technical basis of UCS. Usually, the release cycles of Debian major
releases take about two years. For the maintenance and further development of
UCS, this means that we update the Debian base we use for our UCS versions at
regular intervals to be able to use its features and security updates in UCS
as well.... read more

When we at Orange decided to renew our e-mail platform, we could not yet know
that we would celebrate the successful end of migration on the 5th of July
2022 in our headquarters in Paris with more than 200 guests. We initiated the
project back in 2014 and are now able to look back on eight years of
successful cooperation with Univention that led to our new e-mail platform.
Its main components are the e-mail back-end solution Dovecot, the groupware
Open-Xchange as webmail and PIM solution, and the identity management
Univention Corporate Server
(UCS), which today manages the
user identities of about 13 million active mailboxes.... read more

From pandemics to corporate training, new technologies have transformed the
landscape of learning dramatically in recent years. It is especially true in
the area of learning platforms. Whether used for self-study or to coordinate
homework, learning platforms have become an integral part of almost all
educational institutions. Many UCS@school users rely on the well-known Open
Source solution Moodle , which can be adapted to individual needs in terms
of content and presentation. By integrating Moodle into UCS@school, which we
offer as so-called " cool solutions ", teachers and students can easily
log in to their courses and classes with their familiar user data.... read more

On this year's Girls' Day, seven girls and three boys between the ages of 11
and 14 not only learned about software development, open source and the
management of large IT projects, but also got involved themselves. With the
help of our trainees Mika, Joschua, Richard and Amir, the kids programmed a
little ping-pong game with "Scratch" and had a lot of fun!

We were very impressed that six of the kids had programmed before and already
knew Scratch or similar programs. There was a wide range in terms of
experience - from kids with no prior knowledge to kids who really had a lot of
knowledge. But despite the different levels of knowledge, we were able to
"pick them all up": The experts among our young guests later said that they
had also learned some new exciting tricks and the "newcomers", who had never
programmed before, found it super exciting to work with Scratch and develop a
real computer game themselves.... read more

The Univention ID Broker portfolio is constantly growing. We are pleased to
introduce another great online platform that enables efficient digital
learning in schools and an easy integration by USC@school users.

sofatutor GmbH

sofatutor is one of the biggest online learning platforms in Germany. It
offers more than 10,000 learning videos, over 43,000 interactive exercises,
38,000 worksheets, and many more features to support learners and teachers in
their daily work.... read more

In this blog article I would like to briefly introduce you to the new feature
of OX Connector and OX App Suite.

OX Connector and OX App Suite

The apps OX Connector and OX App
Suite have been available in the App Center for some time and
are among the most popular apps in UCS. The OX App Suite app includes, for
example, a mail client as well as applications for managing contacts and
appointments and is installed via the Univention App Center. However, users
can also use the OX Connector, which synchronizes user data and information
between a standalone Open-Xchange installation and a UCS instance. Until now,
the OX Connector has not interacted with the OX App Suite app installed from
the Univention App Center, but only with a standalone Open-Xchange
installation.... read more

When people think of Schwäbisch-Hall, they most likely think of the building
society of the same name or a picturesque old town (which is well worth a
visit, by the way). Maintaining the latter is just one of the many tasks of
the city administration. And the days of pencils and paper files are slowly
coming to an end here, too. Modern IT ensures that the more than 900 employees
can access their mails, appointments, contacts and files at any time and from
any place.... read more

Our Univention Corporate Server (UCS) architecture documentation has grown
with more content and will continue to grow. In this article, I will give you
an overview of the newly added content, introduce another level of detail for
administrators and solution architects, and share some of the experiences we
have gained over the past few months with the new approach of iteratively
delivering new documentation.... read more

The subject of finance often divides opinion: Some consider it a science,
while others simply an indispensable requirement for managing a company. While
for some entrepreneurs "management by account balance" quickly exhausts the
possibilities of strategic business, for others the constant overview of cash
flow, EBIT and cost accounting is simply indispensable.

Asked about it, many say: This is the domain of well-known, expensive
programs. But that's not so: ITISeasy.business in particular offers the
necessary control variables with its finance area, which is specially adapted
to mid-size companies’ requirements. If you don't want to deal with the
bookkeeping behind it, you can simply outsource this service - a phone call is
all it takes.... read more

Univention's vision is a world in which people and organizations alike use IT
in a self-determined way and can help shape it - for us, this can be
summarized as Digital Sovereignty. We derive our mission from this vision: We create IT solutions that
are open, transparent and easy to use. This is what all our teams are working
on at various levels. The open source philosophy is always a pillar of this.
We publish the source code of all our solutions both to enable users to
understand the mechanisms of our software solutions and to enable them to
continue working with them themselves.... read more

At Univention, we have been supporting school authorities and federal states,
organizations from the private sector and public administration for many years
with our powerful identity management. With its role and authorization
concept, it is tailored to the needs of organizations with many users in a
wide variety of contexts, whether schools, departments or branch offices.

The Advantages of UCS@school... read more

When we think of the administration in Germany in the context of
digitalization, we often hear terms like "slow", "outdated", "backward" or
"analog". In comparison to other European countries, the administration is not
up to date, has to catch up, act faster and finally become more digital.
However, our public administration is no longer as dusty as its image
suggests, but it is already very modern.... read more

Users who are still using UCS 4.4 should update to the more recent version UCS
5 in order to continue receiving security updates, bug fixes and minor
releases. In any case, the update sequence must be observed. An update to UCS
5.0 requires at least UCS 4.4-8 with UCS 4.4-8 erratum 972. For more
information about the current release versions of UCS 5 and the necessary
steps for an update, please refer to the release
notes.... read more

More and more business communication is taking place via e-mail, and it has
long been common practice for contracts and invoices to be sent only by
e-mail. This speeds up and simplifies communication, especially in times when
home offices is very popular. At the same time, many of those involved are not
aware that those who do not archive their company e-mails in an audit-proof
manner will end up in hot water faster than they think.... read more

On March 10, 2023 we will perform maintenance work on the hardware of various
servers. From 5.30 PM to approx. 6.30 PM you will not have access to the
following repository servers:

https://download.software-univention.de/
https://service.software-univention.de/
https://appcenter.software-univention.de/
https://docs.software-univention.de/
https://errata.software-univention.de/
https://docker.software-univention.de/... read more

Improve your support experience with USI: Using Univention Support Info
(USI), you have the option of automatically providing the support team with
information about the status of your UCS system. A USI file bundles all
important information about a UCS computer and is sent - encrypted if desired
- to our support. The following article shows how USI not only gives you
direct insight into your system, but also saves you valuable time in
communicating with the support team.... read more

Using the UCS@school Kelvin REST API app, you can conveniently create,
delete or modify UCS@school user and class objects via a REST interface.
Unlike the import function and manual interventions via the web interface, it
is less error-prone and can be addressed automatically.

We have now released an updated version for the REST API, which you can find
in the Univention App Center and integrate into your UCS environment.... read more

With the point release UCS 5.0-3, the next important step for the further
development of the Univention Corporate Server has been taken - towards more
usability and performance as well as the deeper integration of services and
their central administration. In this blog article, I would like to give you
an overview of the most important new features and improvements bundled in the
release.

Improvements in the Area of Usability: More System Diagnosis Possibilities

for More Efficient Support... read more

More than 630 IT experts and decision makers from politics, administration,
education and the software industry met last week at our Univention Summit
2023 to "rock IT". The musically inspired motto "Rock'n'Roles'n'Rights - WE
ROCK IT!" referred to our focus this year on the further development and
expansion of the Univention roles and rights model, but also to the digital
turnaround that we want to implement this year together with our partners and
customers.... read more

We reached an important milestone in the step-by-step migration to Keycloak as
an Identity Provider in UCS: In August 2022, we made Keycloak available as an
app in the UCS App Center for integration in UCS in an initial version and
have improved it ever since. With the latest release in December, the app is
now also part of our official product support, and thus ready for productive
use.... read more

Let's talk about VLANs—in this article I would like to talk about virtual
networks and their benefits. I'm also going to describe how configure VLANs in
Univention Corporate Server (UCS), how to increase security for your UCS
environment with our RADIUS app and dynamically assign devices to specific
VLANs via a RADIUS server.

What are VLANs anyway?

Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs) divide existing physical networks into
several logical networks. They are used to separate data traffic at network
level. Each VLAN has its own unique VLAN ID and creates its own broadcast
domain, i.e. its own logical group of network devices in the LAN (local area
network). Devices in different VLANs can therefore only communicate with each
other via a router that is also connected to both virtual networks.... read more

Due to the progress in our technical basis in general and because of the usage
habits of our customers, we have revised the pricing model for Univention
Enterprise subscriptions. It takes effect on December 1, 2022, for all new
customers.
Our Univention Corporate Server (UCS) subscription model has been
streamlined and simplified. At the same time, the basis has become more
flexible. In the past, pricing was mainly based on the number of servers. In
the new pricing model, the dependency has been significantly reduced in favor
of a model that is based on the number of users.... read more

Using the UCS@school Kelvin REST API app, you can conveniently create,
delete or modify UCS@school user and class objects via a REST interface.
Unlike the import function and manual interventions via the web interface, it
is less error-prone and can be addressed automatically.

Important Changes in Version 1.7.0:

• School classes and workgroups can now be created without share. Until now, group shares were a prerequisite for creating a class or workgroup. By joining a group with share, students and teachers can share data that is of interest to the respective group, such as worksheets. However, since this does not always go hand in hand in practice, sharing is now optional during creation and thus more data-efficient.
• If you want to check if a school already exists before creating it, the new HEAD endpoint for schools now makes it easier to find out.... read more

When you hear Marburg, you probably first think of its nationally known
Philipps University or the production site of the biotechnology company
BioNtech. What is probably less well known to most outsiders is the role of
the school authority. In this function, the university city is responsible for
23 schools of all types - from elementary school to vocational school. The
approximately 11,500 students and 1,100 teachers can be accommodated in the
schools' more than 800 classrooms.... read more