Optimal configuration for multi-server setup

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#1 Fri, 12/27/2013 - 10:23
sengo

Optimal configuration for multi-server setup

Hi, actually we have the following setup:

1 mailserver (custom setup, postfixadmin) 1 virtualmin server (lamp, no dns, no mail) 2 dns servers (windows, manually managed)

We want to migrate to a Linux only setup like this: 1 mailserver 2 virtualmin server (lamp, no dns, no mail) 2 dns servers (slaves managed by virtualmin)

As far as I understand virtualmin can't manage a mailserver on a dedicated machine so it will probably stay as it is now

For the dns, is it possible to configure it like in the attached picture?

The hosting server will have virtualmin pro and should push dns zones to the "frontend" dns servers (with webmin). Only the frontend dns servers will be published in the whois database

Last but not least, is there a way to centrally manage both virtualmin servers? Do I need a separate product like WHMCMS?

Fri, 12/27/2013 - 11:42
Locutus

The "attached picture" is missing...

About the DNS server slaves: You don't need Virtualmin on those; Webmin is sufficient to add a server as a BIND Cluster Slave to another Virtualmin server.

To centrally manage multiple Virtualmins you can use Cloudmin. WHMCS is not really a server management software, it's a customer billing system (with Virtualmin automation/integration).

Sat, 12/28/2013 - 08:14
sengo

Picture: https://virtualmin.com/files/vmin.png

About the rest: i thought Cloudmin was for managing vps (such as virtual machines, VZ containers and so on). Does it manage multiple virtualmin installation as well?

Sat, 12/28/2013 - 10:52
Locutus

Cloudmin can manage "physical servers" (which can be foreign virtual machines as well) too, yeah. Eric can certainly tell you more about this subject. :)

Mon, 12/30/2013 - 03:38
sengo

Hi, any chance of getting in touch with some of you guys for a chat or something? I would like to build a test environment to see if cloudmin+virtualmin would meet our needs

Thank you

Mon, 12/30/2013 - 05:10
tpnsolutions
tpnsolutions's picture

sengo,

If you'd like to discuss things in greater detail feel free to fire me an email and we can setup some time to discuss the matter in greater detail.

If you'd like to give Cloudmin a try (great product), give the guys a day or two to respond to the thread (Eric will likely be the first to notice), and if you still haven't received a response within 48 hrs, feel free to send me an email and I'll see to it that they are made aware of the thread. Just make reference to the forum thread so I know who's emailing me.

Keep in mind, Eric, Jamie and Joe have quite a bit on their plate and don't simply ignore messages but sometimes due to the overwhelming nature of the site may miss a thread or two from time to time.

Best Regards,
Peter Knowles
TPN Solutions

E: pknowles@tpnsolutions.com
P: 604-782-9342
W: http://www.tpnsolutions.com
Best Regards,
Peter Knowles | TPN Solutions
Email: pknowles@tpnsolutions.com | Skype: tpnassist
Mon, 12/30/2013 - 05:21
sengo

Thanks for the answer, I'll wait for the devs to answer :)

Tue, 01/28/2014 - 03:15
sengo

Hi again, Jamie kindly gave me a demo license for cloudmin. I gave it a try but, AFAIR, it allows to manage multiple Virtualmin installation but it does not allow to "span" a domain on multiple servers like other products (eg. Plesk Automation)

I can separate have mysql database on different servers and dns slave autoconfig, but I can do that with regular virtualmin as well.

What I really wanted is a distributed setup like: dns on server1 and 2 lamp on server 3 mail on server 4 ecc

Another question: is there a way to aggregate multiple domains owned by a single customer in virtualmin?

Think about this: customer acme inc. owns 10 domains registered in my virtualmin servers, how do I find out which domains are owned by the same customer since I have 10 different administration logins?

Ty

Sat, 02/15/2014 - 10:52 (Reply to #8)
tpnsolutions
tpnsolutions's picture

sengo,

It is possible to have domains across servers, though it's not quite automated. However, you could make use of the API to deploy domains across servers which would simplify the process by having your script talk to each server's API in a single script request.

Let me know if I can be of any further assistance.

Best Regards,
Peter Knowles
TPN Solutions

Email: pknowles@tpnsolutions.com
Phone: 604-229-0715 (new)
Skype: tpnsupport
Website: http://www.tpnsolutions.com
Best Regards,
Peter Knowles | TPN Solutions
Email: pknowles@tpnsolutions.com | Skype: tpnassist
Wed, 07/30/2014 - 05:28
Sam_Butler

I too have multiple servers I want to administer centrally for a given domain. Did you get anywhere with this?

I'm pretty sure it's a similar conundrum - I have dedicated CentOS servers for (1) Web (no DB); (2) DB; and (3) Mail. I'm running Webmin on each and have just installed Virtualmin on the web server.

If I was setting up example.com, I would at least want to be able to set up its mailboxes and Apache conf in the same place. If it works I'd go for Virtualmin Pro and delegate user access to the client who owns the domain, allowing them to administer everything themselves. For DB admin we can just install PHPMyAdmin so I'm not so concerned about that.

Sam

Wed, 07/30/2014 - 08:25
tpnsolutions
tpnsolutions's picture

Sam,

Our current architecture works something like this.

First we have the following components as part of our basic cluster:

  • dns1 / dns2
  • web
  • eml
  • sql

*** each of the above represents a different node with "dns1" and "dns2" geographically redundantly setup. ***

We have setup "web" to act as the "master" dns for domains it manages, and have configure it to make use of "sql" for MySQL databases.

When we add a domain to "web" it creates the basic DNS zone, but points all traffic via "ns records" to "dns1" and "dns2" respectively and is firewalled so you cannot make direct dns queries to it. Basically the only machines which can talk DNS with the "web" box is "dns1" and "dns2" so that they can be kept in sync.

When you create a database on "web" it actually creates the database on "sql" but shows up in webmin on "web". We've further added an installation of "adminer" (preferred over phpmyadmin) to manage "sql" databases from our "web" box. Again, things are firewalled in a way to ensure that only "web" can talk to "sql" so as to reduce traffic sent directly to "sql" amongst other things.

When we want to setup email for a domain, we create an identical user account on our "eml" machine, copy the DKIM record from "eml" to "web" DNS, and add the an appropriate SPF to the DNS on "web".

*** whenever we add or make changes to DNS on "web" these records are automatically made available to "dns1" and "dns2" within seconds. ***

I hope this helps!

Best Regards,
Peter Knowles
TPN Solutions

Email: pknowles@tpnsolutions.com
Phone: 604-229-0715 (new)
Skype: tpnsupport
Website: http://www.tpnsolutions.com
Best Regards,
Peter Knowles | TPN Solutions
Email: pknowles@tpnsolutions.com | Skype: tpnassist
Tue, 08/11/2015 - 22:28
delta150

Hello everyone,

Before anything, I would like to apologize for posting on an old threat such as this and reviving it; however, I came to the point where I have no much of a clue of what's I'm doing wrong on my server and I read this threat and found it 100% relevant to my setup and issues.

Before anything, allow me to describe my setup: 5 instances/servers/nodes running from AWS with Ubuntu v14.04. These 5 servers are within their own VPN (Amazon VPC) and talking to each other. All of this instances have their own private IP within the VPN (10.0.0.0) and an External IP (e.i: 52.0.0.0). 1) WEB server: main/master server running Virtualmin with BIND, Apache, among other irrelevant plugins to the network setup. 2) DB server: running Webmin with MySQL. 3) MAIL Server: running Virtualmin (as I read in another threat that I should run Virtualmin for mail servers) with Mail for domain, MySQL database (Not sure if I need it here), Spam and Virus filtering, Mailman, among other irrelevant ones. 4) NS01 Server: running Webmin with BIND. 5) NS02 Server: running Webmin with BIND.

What I've done so far (and by all means, correct me if I am wrong): I created a master zone in my Web named mydomain.com. 1) I added A records on WEB: Nameless with the WEB external IP, www with WEB external IP, mail with MAIL external IP, ftp with WEB external IP, ns01 with NS01 external IP, and ns02 with NS02 external IP. 2) I added 2 NS records on WEB: one of NS01 and another for NS02 with the hostnames, ns01.mydomain.com. and ns02.mydomain.com. respectively. 3) I added a MX record on WEB: name: mydomain.com. and Mail Server: mail.mydomain.com.

I also added NS01 and NS02 as slaves for WEB following documentation: http://www.virtualmin.com/documentation/id,dns_slave_auto-configuration_... Both, NS01 and NS02, were configured the same way.

I configured DB using this documentation: https://www.virtualmin.com/documentation/id,running_mysql_on_a_remote_sy... and I can connect via SSH from WEB to mysql at DB with no problem when using this command: mysql -u root -ppassword -h DBexternalIP. Also DB was configured to listen on all interfaces by commenting out #bind-address = 127.0.0.1 from /etc/mysql/my.cnf.

I haven't done any configurations to MAIL as I am kind of lost.

Am I going the right path or I just ended up going downhill? Can somebody tell me what I am missing? Maybe tell me what configurations I must set for each server (i.e. WEB, MAIL, DB, NS01, NS02) if I am missing any settings in order for all of them to do their jobs correctly?

I look forward to hear from anybody that can dazzle me with their knowledge.

Decio

Thu, 08/13/2015 - 12:27 (Reply to #12)
delta150

No add ups to this one?

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