SSL for Plesk simply lacks

[Peter]

It appears even with the countless controls and features Plesk Server Admin offers, there is still major lacking support for the SSL setup for any domain name.

Either way, on a Plesk 7 domain, it appears the server administrator must make a symbolic link from the users httpdocs/ folder to their httpsdocs/ folder since when an ssl key is created, the user of the web site has two public folders (httpdocs/ and httpsdocs/) which is really a very tasteless setup.

In order to make ILance or SSL accounts on Plesk servers, the admin must first remove the folder created by plesk called httpsdocs/ and then run this syslink command (within linux):


ln -s /home/httpd/vhosts/domain.com/httpdocs /home/httpd/vhosts/domain.com/httpsdocs

I'm done ranting :) But the point of this rant is Plesk ensures everyone has control via control panels, but I've been recently reviewing the major aspects of plesk and what it doesn't really do.

- No Effective Backup (and Restore isn't even an option without 3rd party software)
- Cron Job Lacks when trying to get a script to work (never works)
- Lack of spam control (still receive spam) :)
- Setting up an SSL key for a customer takes a lot of time, and there is no effective way for a customer (within plesk) to accomplish this ssl key setup themselves.

I think we're going to consider reviewing what CPANEL has to offer. With the release of ILance shortly to be available in open source format to our customers, I think a new line of dedicated CPANEL servers are in order! :)
All the the above (which lacks) is really the major parts of what ILance requires (at some point in time). The admin needs to BACKUP and RESTORE on demand, the admin needs to "BLOCK SPAM effectively", the admin needs to purchase an SSL key and install it themselves with ease (would be nice). :)

Regards,

Peter

[sliqua]

Plesk sucks - try InterWorx, cheaper, more reliable, better support.

http://www.interworx.com/

[Peter]

It seems nice, but I didn't see any place for cron jobs. They make it really nice with the live stats on the side of the main menu, thats fresh, but I'm not sure what has more features... Interworks or Cpanel. I think Cpanel will be the choice for the line of dedicated servers we'll be managing for our customers, but we might obtain a few licenses for this interworks as well just to have some choices for our customers.

Question: do you use this Interworks for your control panel?

Excellent resource, thanks! :)

Regards,
Peter

[trochta]

What about webmin.com and their server admin tools. They are free and offer great wide array of toolsets.

Personally I am getting away from having to manage my own servers these days so I can focus on other core tasks and will be using a managed hosted server.

[sliqua]

It seems nice, but I didn't see any place for cron jobs.

It's within SiteWorx, the demo on their site is only for NodeWorx I believe.

SiteWorx is the equivilent of cPanel, NodeWorx is the equivilent of WHM

Question: do you use this Interworks for your control panel?

I actually use both, I have a new server in NYC with InterWorx installed (I bought the license directly from the developers for their $24.95/mo fee) and I also have 2 servers running cPanel.

I'm actually currently in the process of moving users over to InterWorx servers as cPanel is buggy, unstable, and of no comparison to the power of InterWorx in my personal opinion.

Interworx gives the systems administrator full control of the system - not just within the control panel, but also in terms of customizing daemons and the like. It has just about every feature that cPanel includes with many more in production and updates on an almost weekly basis.

They are also working on setting up a similiar reseller setup close to what cPanel/WHM offer - which will be an extremely nice addition. (Currently, the reseller functionality *is* built in, but it doesn't have any where near as many features as cPanel in that regard).

All in all, Interworx is a very good alternative to cPanel, Plesk, Enism, and all of the other panels that I have personally tried throughout the years. I'd recommend it to anyone, especially someone planning to sell webhosting with a control panel. Their development team fully backs their product and will login and fix/research any issues you might be having at the drop of a hat - very unlike cpanel where you just post on a forum and wait for a response that you might not like.

-AM

[sliqua]

What about webmin.com and their server admin tools. They are free and offer great wide array of toolsets.

They are free and work well I will agree, but they are far from being as user friendly and have way less features than any paid control panel.

[Peter]

Thanks the for valuable information in regards to control panels. It's one thing to talk about CP's, and it's another thing when you have someone using it that can provide a comparision.

You mentioned constant updates, etc. Does this have any affect over a live server? how does this actually "upgrade"? does it require any user intervention other than "Check for Updates" button?

With the web hosting industry saturated with everyone (including your neighbours) running a hosting business, the end of the day the winner will always be the one with more features, ease of use and non-techy administrative and management flow. I really like your comment about managing the daemons (such as apache, mysql, etc) as this would provide technical users the ability to dig in and completely customize their servers, resources, processes.

Thanks again

[sliqua]

You mentioned constant updates, etc. Does this have any affect over a live server? how does this actually "upgrade"? does it require any user intervention other than "Check for Updates" button?

You can leave it so that you have to manually do updates, however you can select "Update OS Automatically" and "Update InterWorx Automatically" ... both of which use YUM to upgrade just as if you were at a command line doing it. All updates are done using tested rpms so that things don't break (they test the rpms on the same OS that you're using - which is why InterWorx only runs on redhat rpm-based enviroments).

With the web hosting industry saturated with everyone (including your neighbours) running a hosting business, the end of the day the winner will always be the one with more features, ease of use and non-techy administrative and management flow.

I agree, but it's always good to have a clue what you're doing if you're actually expecting to host clients that expect good uptimes from your host in a market with common 99.9% uptime guarantees. InterWorx basically manages the OS and InterWorx updates, but besides the built in InterWorx firewall (based on APF) you're still on your own as like all control panels.

I really like your comment about managing the daemons (such as apache, mysql, etc) as this would provide technical users the ability to dig in and completely customize their servers, resources, processes.

This is a very nice feature for systems administrators of all experience, because it's like MRTG out of the box - but for monitoring every aspect of your server. The fact that InterWorx lets you tweak configurations and other things about every daemon just proves that it can be stable "any way you like it" and you don't risk not being able to get support for it.

I hope that this information is helpful :-)
-AM