Frequently Asked Questions

• General
• Does AsiaComtek provide support for ACHE?
• How do I get in touch with AsiaComtek?
• What industries is ACHE used in?
• What is the benefit of using ACHE compared to RedHat Enterprise Linux or CentOS?
• What is the license agreement?
• Where is AsiaComtek located?
• Who are AsiaComtek and why have I never heard of them?
• Why are there so few releases of ACHE?
• Security
• Is ACHE impacted by CVE-2021-44228 Log4j vulnerability?
• Technical
• Can ACHE be used with multiple disks?
• How do I configure the network after installation?
• How do I upgrade an existing release of ACHE?
• What ACHE specific software is included with ACHE?
• What about security patches?
• What architectures is ACHE available for?
• What is the default root password?
• What is the recommended application server model?

Does AsiaComtek provide support for ACHE?

No. It is just a subset of CentOS. As such, users should refer to Cent OS and RedHat community forums for support.

How do I get in touch with AsiaComtek?

Please send non support queries to developer@asiacomtek.com .

We will make every effort to respond within 2-4 business days.

What industries is ACHE used in?

We can only confirm the deployments performed by AsiaComtek. To date, ACHE has been deployed on three continents in the following industries:

• Banking
• Market Infrastructure
• Education
• Streaming services

What is the benefit of using ACHE compared to RedHat Enterprise Linux or CentOS?

ACHE is a carefully cultivated subset of CentOS that rapidly reduces time to useful deployment via the following:

• Installed package list reduced from 9 GiB to just 1.5 GiB of the most useful packages.
• Pre-tuned list of enabled services provides only what is minimally required for a stable system.
• Pre-tuned configurations for multiple services.
• Because of the lack of bloat, ACHE is fast to deploy and fast to run.

What is the license agreement?

ACHE is covered by the same GNU license as used by CentOS.

Where is AsiaComtek located?

We are based in Hokkaido, Japan.

Who are AsiaComtek and why have I never heard of them?

AsiaComtek are a private IT services organisation with a discrete client list. Our focus is on bespoke quality solutions rather than generalised products and commercial recognition. We do not need to advertise to keep our service slots fully booked.

Why are there so few releases of ACHE?

A primary goal of ACHE is to provide a longer term stable platform for developers and avoid the moving target of changes that plague most software development cycles. For this reason, ACHE releases have been based on just 4 CentOS releases to date: 5.4, 6.2, 7.2, and the current ACHE 4.0 release based on CentOS 8.3.

Is ACHE impacted by CVE-2021-44228 Log4j vulnerability?

No. Apache log4j is not used by ACHE.

Can ACHE be used with multiple disks?

Yes. In fact it is expected to. A common use case for ACHE is a RAID storage appliance. However, the initial installation should be done while the host has just one connected disk.

How do I configure the network after installation?

Use the Network Manager text GUI tool nmtui to set the system hostname and network parameters if not DHCP.

How do I upgrade an existing release of ACHE?

It is possible, but it is not recommended.

ACHE takes it enterprise class credentials seriously. A large part of that is providing a stable platform where changes do not break the environment. For this reason, we strongly recommend that a new host be deployed with the desired current version of ACHE and any applications migrated over after assurance testing.

What ACHE specific software is included with ACHE?

ACHE comes with a small collection of powerful tools to assist in the management of the host:

• AC Firewall (ac_firewall)
  A powerful, yet simple file based configuration frontend for the netfilter kernel module. Configuring a firewall in Linux has never been simpler.
• AC Integrity (ac_integrity)
  A system file change monitoring and alerting system. Have groups of files or folders be monitored for unauthorised changes and take a predefined action depending on severity from simply logging the change, to shutting down the network, or even powering down the host.
• AC X509 Authority (ac_x509_authority)
  A fully featured X509 certificate authority and repository.
• Configure Syslog (configure_syslog)
  Simple commands for easily managing syslog levels, retention periods and even logging remotely or acting as a centralised logging server.
• Make Bash Installer (make-bash-installer)
  Create and package your own software into a single executable file without relying on native package manager tools.

What about security patches?

Users should apply patches when necessary. These fall into two categories:

AsiaComtek software
Patches will be made available by AsiaComtek for a specific version of ACHE.

Operating System software
Patches and updates are made available via the normal CentOS repository.

What architectures is ACHE available for?

ACHE is available only for x86-64. However, additional deployment options may become available in the near future for AWS, Azure, and VMware.

What is the default root password?

Abcd1234

What is the recommended application server model?

Out of the box, ACHE is ready for a classic LAMP deployment (with MariaDB replacing MySQL).