Hi
I'm not sure if this is the appropriate list for my question, but I think most of you have more than enough knowledge in web hosting.
I have a dedicated server (Debian Sarge) which I mainly use for my own purpose. Until yet I've done every change like adding a user or creating a database over the shell. That was nice, I got routine in Linux administration. But since a few months some friends have got accounts for web and mail on the server. Managing everything by hand is getting really uncomfortable. I'd like to have an easy solution for my friends to manage their accounts on their own. They are non-paying "customers", therefore I don't need a billing system. Just creating mail and ftp accounts, creating MySQL databases, managing mail forwardings and DNS records would be enough. Quota and traffic limiting is not needed.
There are many different management tools. I found VHCS, syscp and ISPconfig. They all support what I need, so I installed VHCS. It works fine as long as every setting is made over the browser. When I change a Bind zonefile by hand it gets overwritten by VHCS with the entries in the DB. Syscp and ISPConfig seem to behave accordingly.
Is there a tool which _reads_ a config file and adds its entries, instead of writing the whole file from its DB? Or do I have to decide between manual and automated administering?
Which managing system do you use? I saw that Init7 uses VHCS. (Which is the reason that I tried it first.) Have the other providers created their own account management system? Which system can you recommend? I prefer Open Source Software.
If I understood correctly, VHCS, syscp and ISPconfig only manage one server. I'd like to have the same mail accounts and dns zones on a secondary server (backup MX, secondary DNS). Any idea how to manage that? I thought maybe I can install VHCS on both systems and copy the VHCS DB to the secondary server using MySQL replication. But you probably got a better solution.
Thank you very much for your help!
Cheers Manuel
Manuel Krummenacher schrieb:
Which managing system do you use? I saw that Init7 uses VHCS. (Which is the reason that I tried it first.)
oh wow, at least you have someone to blame ;-)
We moved away from the commerical Confixx to VHCS, which seems to me more stable. But for details, I must pass to Huggi and Tobi :-)
F.
Hi Manuel
On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 20:14:30 +0100, Manuel Krummenacher wrote
If I understood correctly, VHCS, syscp and ISPconfig only manage one server. I'd like to have the same mail accounts and dns zones on a secondary server (backup MX, secondary DNS). Any idea how to manage that? I thought maybe I can install VHCS on both systems and copy the VHCS DB to the secondary server using MySQL replication. But you probably got a better solution.
You can do that by using MySQL replication (which works for the most CPs) or like we did it with some dirty bash scripts (to make some exceptions, for non-productive hosts and the like).
That topic was also discussed some weeks ago on one of the debian mailinglist and then the Hosting Control Panel-overview [1] was created within the debian-wiki [2].
I would say that most of these CPs do their job very well, but most of them do not have a solution for end-users and automated software installation/update/removal of cms-systems, wiki-systems, guestbooks, forums and the like. But since all of the CPs [1] are open source, you are open to integrate your requirements to the front end.
If you're really wanna take the "best tool" for your requirements, then maybee you have to create something like the overview at forensoftware [3]. Please drop me a line if you wanna collect all the information on our SwiNOG Wiki [4].
HTH and have a good start into the new week!
--
Cheers
Marco Huggenberger "huggi"
[1]: http://wiki.debian.org/HostingControlPanels?highlight=%28Panel%29%7C%28Contr... [2]: http://wiki.debian.org [3]: http://www.forensoftware.de/ [4]: http://wiki.swinog.ch/
Marco Huggenberger wrote:
On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 20:14:30 +0100, Manuel Krummenacher wrote
[Hosting Control Panel]
If you're really wanna take the "best tool" for your requirements, then maybee you have to create something like the overview at forensoftware [3]. Please drop me a line if you wanna collect all the information on our SwiNOG Wiki [4].
Thank you for the info and the links! I looked through the links listed on the Debian Wiki.
A short summary:
AlternC: documentation is mostly in french (a language which I try to avoid since school ;-) Account Services Manager: seems to be dead, last version released in 2002 Baifox: version 0.1.2 released on 30-10-2005, not final yet Domain Technology Control: actual version is 0.17.0 R3, not stable enough for me Freeside: is a billing and ticketing system, does not suit my needs Fusion Management Console: currently in alpha status, could become an interesting software (Web 2.0! AJAX! XML! ;-) GNU Hosting Helper: supports multiple servers, too complex for me Host4NET: a Webmin Module, too complex for me (and I don't want to install Webmin) Interworx: too complex (clustering etc.), not free software ISPConfig: seems to be comparable to VHCS ISPMan: at least a number too big for me: "ISPMan is a system to design massive ISPs using LDAP as the backend." OpenHSP: not yet finished QmailAdmin: only for Qmail (nomen est omen) RAQdevil: for FreeBSD (maybe you could get this to work on Linux, but with no support) Ravencore: actual version is 0.1.1, not stable enough for me SysCP: seems to be an alternative to VHCS and ISPConfig; disadvantage: configuration changes are made through a cron job, therefore no instant changes (I can hear the phone ring: "I just added a subdomain, but it doesn't work!") Tequila: only for Postfix Usermin: needs Webmin, not for hosting providers (the user can change mail forwardings and cron jobs, but not creating a subdomain or adding a ftp user) VHCS: professionals use it, can not be bad ;-) (but had security problems in the past, more on that later) vHost: seems to be too complex to manage one server Virtualmin: needs Webmin web-cp: "working toward version 1.0": I'll eventually have a look at it when it's finished Webmin: only for the admin, not for the users ZPanel: includes a billing solution, too complex for me
You are free to put this information into the SwiNOG Wiki, but I don't think my evaluation criteria are the same as yours! ;-)
I will stay with VHCS for the time being. But first I have to reinstall my server, some guys which are definitive not my friends exploited the recent security bug in VHCS and played around with their freshly uploaded PHP remote shells... note to self: Update your software, _including_ the one you are "only" testing (or test it in a closed environment and not on the live server)! And perhaps I could think about installing mod_security.
A little question at the end: Is everybody welcome at the SwiNOG meetings? I do not work at an ISP, but am very interested in networking stuff.
Cheers, Manuel
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Fredy Kuenzler -
Manuel Krummenacher -
Marco Huggenberger