How is it going in regards to the release of Virtualmin Pro?

I am still struggling with configuration issues that I believe will be handled by the Virtualmin Pro installer.

Could we have a detailed update please?

Hi Glen,

The installer is ready for Early Adopter release for Fedora Core 3 and 4 and CentOS/RHEL 3 and 4. I am working with the OpenACS developer to get the final bugs worked out of the software registration system...and I expect to begin selling sometime tomorrow.

There will be a few bits and pieces of the system that aren't in yet but will be in the official release (specifically, SuExec FastCGI and PHP4/PHP5 configurable on a per-domain and per-script basis, scponly and possibly another restricted shell), but otherwise everything is working great and makes for a thoroughly useful system.

In short, if it isn't available for purchase tomorrow, I will make elaborate excuses for why it isn't. ;-)

Is the installer script one script a single script for all currently supported OSs? Just wondering if at the time of purchase you have to decide what OS is going to be used. I installed virtualmin pro on Fedora 4, but am likely going to switch to CentOS, and eventually to FreeBSD when it is supported.

Hi James,

The same script will install for all supported systems. Right now, it supports Fedora and RHEL/CentOS. The OS is detected very early in the script so that the right stuff can happen later on. The shopping cart will ask you what OS you're using it on, because we want that data so we can decide where our efforts are most useful for customers, but the same script will run on any OS. It just needs a reasonable shell to run in, a download program (either wget or curl), Perl, and the package manager of the OS.

The script makes use of the system standard package manager when possible, so everything is installed from RPMs using up2date and yum on Red Hat based systems. On FreeBSD ports will be used for everything except for our components, which will be installed from tarballs. On Gentoo we will use Portage and install local ebuild scripts for our components. And on Debian apt-get will be used for most everything. This is one of the reasons things are taking a bit of time to get rolling--but in the long run it will allow us to provide more timely updates and track the latest versions of the OS more closely. We know that a very common complaint about many of the other proprietary virtual host administration systems is that they trail so far behind the latest releases of operating systems. I don't want that to be a problem for our customers.

hi not sure if i should post this here but what the heck i wouldnt be a unix admin if i did anything the correct way would i.

i have a couple of questions if you dont mind.

will the installer now add all configurations for quota`s, bandwidth management, apache, multi sql etc i still have the odd problem with installing the system because the current virtualmin needs a working apache, sendmail etc.

is there to be support for multiple stats packages.

will it be possible to store all the customers logins etc on a remote sql server so it will integrate with the current .net support system and ordering system

i have been using virtualmin since pretty much day 1 version 1 and the same for webmin.

also will there be a demo version we can install so that we can show people the full system running as selling an invisible product to manageing directors is not too easy.
a 30 day limited key would suffice for this.

i hope it also has better reporting features, i would need a weekly summary to be emailed to multiple addresses stating, domains bandwidth and good and bad activity on the server and hopefully the latest revision numbers for each of the installed rpm`s and definately mails sent/blocked (i use mailscanner and logcheck on verbose) and thats for starters, putting that directly into a database thats viewable via webmin would be a bonus.

Here's my best answers to your questions:

Yes, the installer takes care of all configurations of all relevant software packages, and actually installs the packages if they are not present. Right now Virtualmin will disable Sendmail and install and configure postfix, but other than that, it completely works with your current system, it just configures the necessary aspects to work with Virtualmin.

There are two stats packages that are currently included and auto-configured in Virtualmin Pro: Webalizer and AWStats.

Storing customer logins on a remote database is not something that comes build-in to Virtualmin. The Pro version is very similar to the GPL version at this point, it just adds several much-needed features that are imperative for a web hosting system.

As far as reporting features, the features it seems you are looking for really don't require Virtualmin at all .. they could be done using simple Cron jobs and logwatch reporting.

Hi Ken,

James has answered pretty thoroughly, but I'll weigh in with an official response.

The installer does the following:

Installs all necessary components (web, mail, name, databases, spam/av, Webalizer/AWstats, Mailman, Webmin/Usermin/Virtualmin, etc.)

Configures quotas and all services for use in a virtual hosting environment

Starts all necessary services

Sets up Virtualmin to work specifically with all of the components we just installed (as you may know, Virtualmin is extremely flexible, and can be used with many different components--Sendmail or QMail instead of Postfix, for example)

Bandwith monitoring is not enabled by default, but it can be enabled easily in the GUI after installation.


Remote storage of account information is not supported, though we're adding LDAP mailbox users in a not too distant version. Also, there is a pretty comprehensive Perl API, which can be accessed from any Webmin server using the RPC API (i.e. you can do it from a remote server). So far, no one has implemented anything making use of this.

There will be a time-limited demo version.

On the reporting question...The following is supported:
[list]

[*]Webalizer[/*]

[*]AWStats[/*]

[*]Bandwidth monitoring with email alerts on overage (and optionally when approaching overage)[/*]

[*]System and Server Status monitors, which has dozens of types of checks, with emailed alerts on service failure[/*]

[*]Quota overage email notification and optional approaching overage email notification[/*]

[/list]


As for RPMs installed, mails blocked, ssh failed logins, etc., on a Red Hat based system, this is already handled by logwatch (assuming you have it enabled). No reason for us to reinvent the wheel. Now that you mention it, however, we may very well add a plugin module for some mail log analysis tool. And it might be useful for us to help you make sure you get those log reports from logwatch and cron, by insuring that your root alias points to some mailbox that is read by a human.

In short, I think reporting is pretty good, but it doesn't answer all of your wishes.

Hi Joe,

Being a software developer myself, I understand about how development and deadlines just don't seem to mix.

I have a new server project that needs to be setup this weekend, and I would really like Virtualmin pro to be a part of that project.

On 09/05/05 you wrote:

> In short, if it isn't available for purchase tomorrow, I will make elaborate excuses for why it isn't.

Ok, so tell us, what is the current projection? (elaborate excuses gratefully accepted ;-)

Best regards,


-Glen

PS.

Really, I appreciate your willingness to discuss these issues, very few developers/companies are. It really helps to create confidence (for me at least) in Virtualmin Inc. In my experience, the truth is always better than silence, even if it's bad news.

-G

From the news on the front page, it appears Pro will be available tonight.

Now, when shall Ubuntu/Debian versions be available? Rough guesses are okay ;-D

Currently I'm running the GPL Virtualmin on Ubuntu and would love to upgrade to the Pro version. Also, I'd still like to get in on the early adoptor deal.

Hey Glen,

Elaborate Excuse #13: Aliens
Elaborate Excuse #79: Corporate Espionage
Elaborate Excuse #101: A dingo ate it
Elaborate Excuse #231: Michael Jackson

Real Excuse #1: It isn't ready yet. I simply can't bring myself to release it when I know the installer is going to fail in some way on one of the first round of supported Operating Systems. I suppose this also indicates that I'm not willing to drop any of the first round of supported systems (FC3/4, CentOS3/4, RHEL3/4). The list of supported systems is short enough without dropping one or more of them just to get it out the door a day sooner!

The good news is that none of the problems are huge, and I keep thinking the one I'm working on right now will be the last one (but that's been my thought for several days now).

I'd like to tell you that it will be released today, but no one will believe me at this point. So let's just say I'm doing an all-platform test, as we speak. If it passes, it goes out today.

To get specific:

The current problem is that the Mailman module is configured with the wrong paths, and so the Virtualmin Configuration check fails. A minor thing, but the real fix has to happen in both Webmin and in the Virtualmin Mailman module. Jamie has sent me the fixed Mailman module, but the new devel Webmin version isn't ready yet. I'm working around the problem in the installation script, I think...I'll find out if my workaround actually works around in just a few minutes.