LiteSpeed with Virtualmin ?

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#1 Wed, 12/14/2016 - 17:06
Bianca

LiteSpeed with Virtualmin ?

Hello,

I have a functionnal Webmin/virtualmin panel running ; and I have a litespeed webserver running. lsws should be apache compatible, but I don't know how to make virtualmin detect it and use it.

I have tweaked the apache module options (see screenshoot : https://s23.postimg.org/t8ngre4jf/webmin.png ) and also LSWS (to tell it using apache configuration files).

However while the apache module doesn't complain, virtualmin tell me : "No virtual servers using the feature Apache website were found."

What may be the culprit ? How does virtualmin does its detection ?

Wed, 12/14/2016 - 17:35
Joe
Joe's picture

So, while I don't have any experience with Litespeed (we had a couple requests for it in the early days, but nginx won out in the popularity contest of "should we support another web server, and if so, which one?"), that looks like Virtualmin isn't yet configured to work with your virtual hosts.

In the Webmin Apache module, are you able to modify the Litespeed configuration, add/remove virtual hosts, restart the server, etc.? That'd be the first step; Virtualmin will need to believe it is actually working with Apache, and it does that almost exclusively through the Webmin Apache module. If that's working, then on to the next step...

Which is just to import your websites into Virtualmin, or create new ones. There is an import feature that will load virtual hosts from an Apache config file and create Virtualmin users for them, that are associated with the VirtualHost sections, and grant permissions to manage them. Again, all of this would require the Webmin Apache module to recognize the configuration and be able to work with it. If you get that far, I think Virtualmin will work pretty normally.

But, again, I have no idea. I dunno anything about Litespeed. I tinkered with it maybe a decade ago, but I don't think it had Apache compatibility back then. If the Litespeed folks wanted to get in touch with us, we'd be happy to work with them to iron out any kinks in support...but, if it really is Apache compatible in terms of config files, it should be just a matter of telling Webmin where to find those files.

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Thu, 12/15/2016 - 10:10 (Reply to #2)
Bianca
In the Webmin Apache module, are you able to modify the Litespeed configuration, add/remove virtual hosts, restart the server, etc.? That'd be the first step; Virtualmin will need to believe it is actually working with Apache, and it does that almost exclusively through the Webmin Apache module. If that's working, then on to the next step...

The virtual host I created with webmin is running when I check in my LiteSpeed control panel ; so I guess that it means yes to your questions 1 & 2. Also, the stop/start button of webmin do actually stop/start the server, I tested that also. The webmin module doesn't complain about anything, I fixed yesterday all the error messages it throwed.

it does that almost exclusively through the Webmin Apache module

It seems that this small part where it doesn't rely on it is the culprit which needs to be identified.

Which is just to import your websites into Virtualmin, or create new ones. There is an import feature that will load virtual hosts from an Apache config file and create Virtualmin users for them, that are associated with the VirtualHost sections, and grant permissions to manage them.

Well, I still have to import my website (I want to do that soon but it requires some work), however I doubt it will work if VirtualMin refuses to enable the Apache Module ?

If the Litespeed folks wanted to get in touch with us, we'd be happy to work with them to iron out any kinks in support...but, if it really is Apache compatible in terms of config files, it should be just a matter of telling Webmin where to find those files.

It should indeed. I'll also try to contacte Litespeed folks ; but this difference in detection between webmin's module and virtualmin should be easier to spot on your side.

Sat, 12/17/2016 - 02:25 (Reply to #3)
Joe
Joe's picture

Sorry, Bianca, you're right i did miss this. I got side-tracked on that tangent about CloudLinux.

I think I need more clarity about where you're seeing this message. I think maybe you're misinterpreting it (or I may be misunderstanding where it's happening and what action you're doing to trigger it).

The message seems to just be saying that there aren't any virtual hosts configured yet; which is not an error...it's just saying, "Hey, I don't have any domains setup yet." So, what happens when you try to create a new domain in Virtualmin, or import an existing one (by "import and existing one", I mean use the Import form in Virtualmin to bring an existing VirtualHost under control of Virtualmin)?

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Sat, 12/17/2016 - 08:44 (Reply to #4)
Bianca

Virtualmin > System Settings > Features and plugins

When I had an error in "re-check configuration" about apache and was still changing configuration ; I unchecked apache there. I can't re-enable it because of the above given error message.

However, you're right : the virtual host in webmin's apache module doesn't seem to be the same thing than what is called virtual server in virtualmin > add server (where I still have nothing, causing I guess the error message). It's pretty confusing right now, maybe adding a link in the error message to where to fix it would help.

I have tried to "import" but it hasn't been clear what I imported and I couldn't get to the end. I'll try to migrate this evening and I'll tell you if it works - hopefully it should.

Also, quick question : my website will be the only thing on my IP, but virtualmin doesn't seem happy with that - "You indicated that the IP is unique to this domain, but it is the systems default address." Does selecting "shared" have any downside ?

Mon, 12/19/2016 - 01:48 (Reply to #5)
Bianca
Starting migration of *******.** from local file /home/backup-********.tar.gz .. Checking for cPanel features .. .. found Home directory, Administration user, Log file rotation, Webmin login, BIND DNS domain, Mail for domain, MySQL database. However, the follow features are not supported or enabled on your system : Apache website, Webalizer reporting, virtualmin-awstats. Some functions of the migrated virtual server may not work. Checking for clashes and dependencies .. Log file rotation cannot be enabled unless a website is Failed to migrate any servers!

So yes ; that Virtualmin doesn't recognize my webserver does indeed block migrating.

Note that to find the issue you may easily and quickly get a free LSWS 15-day trial license. I suppose they would send you a full license if asked, but to test quickly this is probably easier.

Wed, 12/21/2016 - 07:45 (Reply to #6)
Joe
Joe's picture

I'm still not sure I understand what steps you're taking and what problem is resulting from those steps.

You need a web server enabled in the Features and Plugins section. In this case, it needs to be Apache. So, go to Features and Plugins, and enable the Apache website feature (and disable nginx, if you have enabled it).

If that results in an error, I'd need to see that specific error.

Note that migrating and importing are different things. Migrating is loading a cPanel or Plesk (and some other less well-known contenders) backup files and migrating them to Virtualmin configuration. Importing is loading virtual hosts from the Apache config file on the local system and creating Virtualmin accounts for them.

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Wed, 12/21/2016 - 16:23 (Reply to #7)
Bianca

Ok so : 1)When I try to enable apache in features & plugins (as I did at the start of this thread), I get this error message :

Failed to save enabled features : The Apache webserver does not appear to be installed on your system, or has not yet been set up properly in Webmin's Apache Webserver module. If your system does not use Apache, it should be disabled in Virtualmin's module configuration page."

2)The webmin's apache server doesn't complain (see screenshoot in 1st post for how I configured it ; here is another one of what it looks like when I open the webmin's apache module : https://s23.postimg.org/786ajf5d7/webmin2.png)

3)As for migration ; I have uploaded my cpanel backup on my server before using the migrating tool (and getting the error indicated in message #6) ; and though it's different from importing, it should also create a virtualmin virtual server, right ?

Sat, 12/24/2016 - 02:24 (Reply to #8)
Bianca

Do you need any other information to investigate this ?

Mon, 01/02/2017 - 01:46 (Reply to #9)
Joe
Joe's picture

That error probably indicates some part of the configuration in the Webmin module is wrong, though I'm not sure which one. But, that's the next step to take to solve your problem.

To repeat:

Can you start, restart, stop, LiteSpeed from within the Webmin Apache module?

It does look like it is reading at least some of the configuration file(s) correctly, but some other element of the configuration is still not matching your LiteSpeed installation, as it's telling Virtualmin there's no Apache webserver to configure.

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Mon, 01/02/2017 - 11:09 (Reply to #10)
Bianca

I have associated these options to the correct command, so yes, when I click stop or start ; my server does that (I can check if the default page is loading or not).

Also, when I stop my server from SSH or restart it from SSH and reload the module page, the webmin module detects correctly the current status of the server.

At this point, I think it would probably waaay quicker to solve this if you would install and test on a box you control (there are free trial licenses). The back and forth here takes a lot of time. I gave my configurations of the wembin module above.

I have also changed a few settings from the litespeed control panel : In the subsection "Using Apache Configuration File"

Load Apache Configuration Yes

[...]

Apache Binary Path /usr/sbin/httpd
Apache Configuration File /etc/httpd/conf/httpd.conf

[...]

PHP suEXEC Yes
Tue, 01/03/2017 - 16:46 (Reply to #11)
Bianca

I don't want to sound disrespectful ; but if you don't want to solve this tell me.

I have been patient, understanding you have a lot of things to do and you are not directly paid to solve this, but I won't wait another three weeks to maybe have something. It's not worth the hassle. And that's why most people won't even bother to try something outside the market's leaders.

Wed, 12/14/2016 - 19:54
Diabolico
Diabolico's picture
If the Litespeed folks wanted to get in touch with us, we'd be happy to work with them to iron out any kinks in support

You got similar offer from Cloudlinux but you never took it and for what i know Virtualmin still doesnt support CL. If this is still the case then i must say you guys made a huge mistake. I dont know if that was your arrogance or miscalculation, but you really cut out good amount of potential clients.

From CL forum:

We don't plan to develop native plugins for Virtualmin, due to very small number of people using it. I did provide Jamie couple of CL licenses years ago in case he would like to extend Virtualadmin to support CL. Otherwise -- it would still work, but all the controls would be command line.

Now reading what you said makes me question if this was just to say something or you are serious in your statement.

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Thu, 12/15/2016 - 05:32 (Reply to #13)
Joe
Joe's picture

That's the first I've heard of any contact from CloudLinux. Jamie never mentioned it to me (nor did the CloudLinux folks).

For Virtualmin support, I'd be the right person to talk to (Jamie handles Webmin OS support, but Virtualmin needs a lot more from the OS, in terms of specific packages and configuration and a software repo containing more than just Webmin itself; thus, Webmin supports dozens of operating systems and versions, Virtualmin currently only only 9 combinations on two architectures). Supporting a different service that has identical configuration to an existing one (like say MariaDB instead of MySQL, or in this case, Litespeed instead of Apache) is a few hours of work and testing. Supporting an OS is committing to several hours of work every month for literally years, so even if they had been willing to work with us on Virtualmin support, I'm not making an open invitation to support any OS. We're very limited in our resources, and OS support is a big piece of it.

Anyway, I'm not sure I like their tone ("very small number of people using it"), and we've had only a couple of people (other than you) request it in several years of its existence, and supporting an entirely new OS is a much bigger commitment than supporting a web server that is compatible with Apache...but, if we had a contingent of Virtualmin Pro users that wanted to use it on CloudLinux, I'd look into adding it. As I understand it, it is just a fork of CentOS with grsecurity patches and maybe some other tweaks. It'd probably be reasonably easy to support; but still a big commitment, and from what I've read of their docs, I'm skeptical of some of their decisions.

Anyway: This offer to help support Litespeed is not comparable to supporting a new OS. But, if folks want CloudLinux support, they should let us know about it. I can only think of a couple of requests in several years. I may be forgetting some, but it's definitely not been a big number. We've gotten more requests for Fedora support in that time, by far, and I've always said "no, but I'll help if you want to work on it". To refresh my memory, I just searched forums and issues for Cloudlinux and found three people other than you asking for it (and no Pro customers, which is not the only consideration, by any means, but it certainly helps to know people are willing to pay for software when it works the way they like). I won't rule out CloudLinux support. but it's gotta be something that will effect our bottom line in some kinda way (Virtualmin is currently active on tens of thousands of CentOS and Ubuntu servers to put it into perspective for the kinds of numbers we're looking at here).

What does CloudLinux provide that makes you willing to pay for it, and yell at us for not supporting it?

I just browsed their site, and they list Webmin as being among the supporting products. I guess Jamie took them up on the offer of adding support to Webmin. But, again, I'm the one who handles Virtualmin support, and I add support for what people are asking for. Bring me more users than Fedora or FreeBSD or something would bring (both systems we don't support for various reasons, but have had people request them over the years), and I'll probably be willing to put in the work.

Also...I think Virtualmin 6 will bring some stuff that may satisfy you even without CloudLinux. It's coming early next year with some major changes, including a couple of features that have been requested for years by tons of people (features I've been hesitant to offer due to the security implications, but most of my concerns have been resolved).

Man, I've rambled a lot here. Quick summary: Supporting a new OS is a lot of work, and maintaining it through the life of the OS (we support every OS for the full lifecycle of the OS...so, we're committing to 5-7 years of maintenance for each OS), and we're a very small team with a very small budget (serving a huge community of users). I support the distros that'll make the most people happy. Right now, that is clearly CentOS, Ubuntu, and Debian, in that order (and the next runner up is so far distant that I'm not confident what OS it would be). I'll run another poll sometime soon to see if there's some clear leader in the alternative distro battle that people really want to run on their servers.

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Thu, 12/15/2016 - 07:47
Diabolico
Diabolico's picture

I'm not a big user of Cloudlinux as i have installed only on 2 servers but this are the servers i'm hosting clients who want to save some money. Its not like classic shared hosting because i split the server capacity evenly, lets say some sort of hybrid between shared and VPS. Still i like that one client cant so easily affect others on the same server. To be honest i would not dare to have Virtualmin with few dozen clients on the same server. This CP is good for single user per server and only reason i dont have Pro is because my clients dont like it. I tried to show them and majority of them just rejected the idea to use Virtualmin. Now like it or not this are the facts.

You said "Anyway, I'm not sure I like their tone...", well that post was made back in 2014 and to be honest they tried to reach to you guys but looks like you rejected this idea. Today i dont know any serious and decent host with shared hosting and not using Cloudlinux. I dont have any numbers but i dare to say this market is huge. No one asking for Cloudlinux? Maybe the problem is with Virtualmin and your policies surrounding it, marketing, people perception...? I dont know and i'm not payed to make such analysis but looks like all those companies and individuals arent using Virtualmin. In other words, not supporting CL you cut yourself out of shared hosting market/business. But this isnt my CP, its your, and you have all rights to decide what route to take.

If Virtualmin 6 and Webmin 2 will bring so much needed changes and people actually can accept this control panel then i dont see any problem to buy pro, in mean time they speak with their wallet and so do i.

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Thu, 12/15/2016 - 22:25 (Reply to #15)
Joe
Joe's picture

"Still i like that one client cant so easily affect others on the same server. To be honest i would not dare to have Virtualmin with few dozen clients on the same server."

I'm curious why you believe that to be true? Are there specific bugs in Virtualmin you're aware of that allow a user to impact another user on the system?

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Fri, 12/16/2016 - 07:58
Diabolico
Diabolico's picture
I'm curious why you believe that to be true? Are there specific bugs in Virtualmin you're aware of that allow a user to impact another user on the system?

Can Virtualmin limit CPU, memory, IO, number of processes, concurrent connections... per account? Can we achieve complete isolation between each account? Can this limits be (pre)set from the control panel and then automatically applied during account creation?

If Virtualmin 6/Webmin 2 will bring this functionalities then you did great job and i think it would be the greatest improvement this software ever received. This is old and robust control panel and its not a question about his quality but its "old". Technology and client requirements are so different now than it was before 10+ years. Hell, i still remember filling up the papers, then send by fax and after that by mail just to buy a domain what i payed 5-6 times more than now. But the times have changed, technology and clients too, and the software need to keep up or lose the battle and be left behind.

P.S. If the functionalities i mentioned earlier are available with Virtualmin then disregard everything i say and please accept my sincere apologies.

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Sat, 12/17/2016 - 03:06 (Reply to #17)
Joe
Joe's picture

"Can Virtualmin limit CPU, memory, IO, number of processes, concurrent connections... per account? "

Of course. For as long as I can remember (though it hasn't always been in there, it's been in there for many years). At least, in Virtualmin Pro, we've got a Resource Limits page for limiting CPU and memory usage. I'm pretty sure GPL at least has bandwidth (Pro definitely does, but I think it's in GPL, too). Obviously, disk quotas have been supported from the very beginning. Number of connections would be a function of number of Apache/PHP processes, so that's mostly covered indirectly by process limits applied to the user, since all kinds of applications run under suexec, by default (it'd require a third party Apache module to limit connections specifically..if we had a Pro customer asking for that, we'd look into it, but it's never come up to my recollection).

None of this requires CloudLinux.

"Can we achieve complete isolation between each account?"

Define "complete isolation"? Users cannot see or modify other users data or network traffic. We configure suexec, by default, and directory permissions are quite tight by default (tighter than any other control panel I looked at when we were designing our permissions model). That's always been true in both Pro and GPL. If you can see or modify another users data in a default Virtualmin install that would be a huge security bug...and, obviously, we'd drop everything and fix it right away. I don't know of any such bugs. With more than 100,000 active installations of Virtualmin, I think we'd hear about a bug like that.

I've long been opposed to chroot jails for users as a "security feature", as it was historically merely security theater, and actually introduced pretty major potential vulnerabilities into the system (where an accident in building the chroot could result in privilege escalation, and a bug in the tool setting up the chroot would also result in a root exploit, and it was previously necessary to disable privilege escalation in OpenSSH to use a chroot shell, among other problems). But, those issues have mostly been resolved, if you are careful and make use of capabilities in the kernel and have a new-ish openssh version. So, I've been working on chroot support for Virtualmin 6. I still think it's a no-op for security, but I no longer think it is a disaster waiting to happen (capabilities allow the chroot shell to not be setuid, and OpenSSH no longer needs to have priv sep disabled, so the only issue remaining is getting the build of the chroot shell app right and the risk of an administrator error leading to root privilege escalation, and we can provide tools to help protect against that).

So...yeah, Virtualmin has had pretty much everything you're asking for, for many years. And, it's getting chroot jails in Virtualmin 6 (because it's finally become reasonably safe to do so a year or two back). I don't consider chroot jails a major improvement (and they are not a security improvement, though I can see how usability and user happiness might be improved by having them feel "isolated"), but it is something that has been requested a lot over the years, almost since the beginning.

We've shipped a few limited and restricted shells over the years, and of course, the File Manager can be locked down (the old one could, too; that's not a new feature in the new HTML5 file manager), and FTP can be locked down to the users home. It is only ssh that has never been chroot-able, and for what I believe are valid reasons. We've always advised users who are really worried about their users being able to look at the filesystem (but still being prevent from causing harm or seeing any sensitive data by filesystem permissions) and who don't trust Linux filesystem permissions to do their job to only enable FTP and file manager access for the users they don't trust (but, we also think that's an unnecessary fear). The reasons we've said no to chroot jails for all these years is because they were a bad idea; technically they're easy to implement (hell, I'm the one building it; if it were hard, Jamie would do it). chroot jails for users are still not a great idea, but they're no longer a bad idea, so we're adding support for them (I've asked for help testing my jailkit package for CentOS over in the developers forum, but so far no one has taken me up on it).

We've also go some other (real) security features coming soon. Since I feel guilty about shipping chroot jails (and the inevitable assumption that many people will have that enabling them provides some remarkable improvement in security), I want to make some real strides forward on security, as well. Ilia recently added SELinux attribute handling to the file manager, for example, which will ship with Virtualmin 6. We'll likely have a beta SELinux policy package for CentOS systems by the time Virtualmin 6 comes out, or, if not, it'll come soon after.

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Fri, 12/16/2016 - 08:31
Bianca

Joe, have you missed my previous comment, above ?

I'm ready to help iron out the issue if needed, but it's you who may find where it comes from.

Sat, 12/17/2016 - 03:49
Diabolico
Diabolico's picture

Ok so you tell me if i buy Pro i can limit the user on 1/2 CPU core, XX amount of physical and virtual memory, limit IO and/or IOPS... and so on?

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Sat, 12/17/2016 - 18:10 (Reply to #20)
Joe
Joe's picture

Limits are not based on cores (that's more sensible in a virtual machine or container environment, where Cloudmin is the right tool for the job). Limits are "Maximum number of processes", "Maximum size per process", "Maximum CPU time per process".

Trying to devote a core to a user in a virtual hosting environment would either be impossible or would require every service they use to be dedicated to them. So, instead of one Apache instance, you'd have one for every user (and, you'd either need a dedicated IP per user, or yet another web server in front to proxy to the right local address for each user's website), and MySQL would need one server per user, Postfix, etc. At which point you'd be better off giving each user a container or VM (which is what Cloudmin is for, and Cloudmin does have more resource limit options, including limiting number of cores available to the user, etc.).

There's probably some sort of hybrid model that makes sense, where Virtualmin can manage the hosting stuff inside of multiple Cloudmin guests, but that's not something we've approached yet. Right now, you'd put Virtualmin inside the guests...and since each guest is quite isolated (it's a VM or container, after all), Virtualmin GPL would work for some use cases. So, Cloudmin provides the isolated user environments, Virtualmin provides the web hosting configuration. Cloudmin Services (included in every Cloudmin Pro and Cloudmin Connect license) allows off-loading DNS, databases, and spam/AV scanning to one or more centrally managed servers, so you'd only serving the website and optionally mailboxes from the user container/VM.

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Tue, 12/20/2016 - 00:36
Bianca

I can't do anything until you tell me what to do ; or until you take a look yourself.

I get you are busy, but I'd like to solve this soon - otherwise it may too easily be postponed after the new year.

Sun, 01/01/2017 - 14:08
Bianca

Hello, now the end of the year holidays draw to an end, may you help me to solve this issue ? I gave above all the answer to all the questions you asked. I really need to get past this.

Sun, 01/01/2017 - 16:44
nibb

Virtualmin does work with CloudLinux, I integrated at least 2 servers before. I didn't had time to look into a visual GUI integration so the user has nice stats and I did everything from the command line. My main concern was making LVE work with Apache and Cage with Virtualmin and that works as long as you are willing to do some extra work. The main problem is related to suexec as CloudLinux looks for a different path, as CloudLinux ships their own patched version. Long story short you need to mount the sites path or recompile suexec with the correct path. Not only you need to use their packages but you have to recompile Apache from source. That is not something straight forward and something you would do on each update. After I recompiled Apache with the correct paths, it works.

Before this, while LVE was working, Cage was not working correctly, there was no isolation between accounts which is what you want for security.

As for Joe pointing out Virtualmin does this, this is a bit misleading. CloudLinux uses mainly open source stuff and other available tools like cgroups so technically nothing stops Virtualmin from doing something similar but that is not how Virtualmin works today (neither cPanel or Plesk or any other control panel either). The limits are per process but there is no account isolation in terms of stability or security, so Diabolico has a good point when he said he would not consider it to host production servers.

Let me make one simple example, Apache symlink race conditions, without the isolation that Cage provides, you can exploit this on basically any server and there is no real path to solve this in Apache. The fact that users can access others users files, means a compromised account can easily read another website wpconfig file for the logins details or database details. As most web apps will store logins in files it means one compromised account can compromise other sites in the same server. Read access is more than dangerous enough...for files you don't own.

I'm sorry to say this but Virtualmin like any other control panel that just relies on Apache and other standard config files does not protect you against this. Joe even confirms this when he said FTP and the file manager is restricted to the user account but not with SSH. Actually if you use CloudLinux even when you log with SSH you can't see other users process or files because each user has mounted a copy or clone of the systems files like a virtualization environment. So even running TOP in the command line the user only has access to his process.

The FTP restriction can easily be bypassed so can the user file manager. In a Linux environment that is just how it works. You can see other files on the systems, even if its on read mode that is enough to be a security concern with sites. This is why most providers selling shared hosting actually use CloudLinux because it solves several problems while running a multi tenant environment where you can't trust everyone.

If Virtualmin integrates CloudLinux properly it would open itself to a new market, the commercial one or you could go directly with using container technologies like Docker in Virtualmin which solves all the above mentioned problem as it does basically what LVE in CloudLinux does but far better and more efficient. Personally I think shared hosting as it stands today has no real future because of the problems mentioned, all of them which containers actually solve. So I would instead say for now, integrate with CloudLinux but think about dockerizing virtualmin accounts in the future.

Mon, 01/02/2017 - 04:35
Diabolico
Diabolico's picture

Thanks @nibb for expanding the subject as i gave up, it start to look like pissing contest. Like you said it can be done but this is something i would never do on live/production server. While it could be that at some point shared hosting will become obsolete especially with VPS and dedicated prices dropping down, but we are long way from that. VPS and dedicated are like Pandora box and if the user doesnt know how to manage them he must pay someone else to do the job. While on shared hosting the client actually gets plug and play (almost) and with script installers the only thing left to do is keep updated the theme and/or plugins.

So yeah, there is still market for this kind of hosting, its huge! and i dont see in near or distant future any major changes.

Nothing stops Vm to do the same as CL but why doing this if there is already a software covering this field. Following the same logic cPanel and Plesk left this job to CL while they focused on their control panels. I still think Vm loss was huge by not accepting CL offer and like i previously said Vm literally was left out from shared or any other kind of multi user hosting. Even today that is the biggest and most used type of hosting as everything else is way behind.

I dont think Vm would beat cPanel in popularity but its one thing be left behind and another be able to grab part of the market. This become clear with Joe comment I just searched forums and issues for Cloudlinux and found three people other than you asking for it (and no Pro customers, which is not the only consideration, by any means, but it certainly helps to know people are willing to pay for software when it works the way they like). If Joe didnt realize the irony of his statement that speaks volume. Instead of offering this option to potential clients they are waiting for the clients to ask for it. But why bother with this control panel when most popular and often used cPanel offers same thing out of the box, and in case you dont want it no problem there is Plesk. Joe need to understand that he must compete with cPanel (and Plesk) and is not other way around.

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Wed, 03/29/2017 - 00:21 (Reply to #25)
volk

I’m working on this already if you are interested. CloudLinux told me they have no intentions and I'm not going to wait another 3 years to ask them again.

They switched the wording they told Joe before. So instead of saying not enough people are using it, they said they didn’t have enough requests from their customers. They claim it costs them $100K to support a new integration, so unless you are willing to chip in, this is never going to happen.

To be honest, I'm a bit pissed with them. They benefit from the open source community exclusively and don’t support even 1 single open source control panel. But you know what? I don’t plan to invest a lot or putting hope on them, I may use CloudLinux with Virtualmin as a temporary fix but not a permanent.

Even if they do ever support Virtualmin the integration is going to be a poor one and always lacking. They even prioritize features for cPanel only leaving other things like Plesk with less feature. So think about it. Do you want to pay them to be the underdog? Its never going to be on pair with what they offer for cPanel.

So this is what I will do. I will try to implement similar features in Virtualmin. And if it works, it will be native to Virtualmin. If it costs me $100K so be it. But it will be come with Virtualmin out of the box and this will cause CloudLinux a huge hole in their customer base. Why pay cPanel and CloudLinux if you can just get Virtualmin that has similar features already included out of the box? This will be their lost anyway.

If anyone wants to work on this I’m open to make it work. Joe already worked on a chroot system so that can be used as well.

Thu, 01/05/2017 - 06:08
Bianca

Got it. I'll never get it done here. Uninstalled webmin & virtualmin. Bye !

Thu, 01/05/2017 - 22:06 (Reply to #27)
nibb

Bianca,

Did you contacted LWS support about this? Did you contacted Virtualmin support about this? What was their response?

If not please read on...

This is a community forum, not official Virtualmin/Webmin support. If you are using the open source editions of LWS and Virtualmin, then I don't understand your complains, those are open source free products, and usually come without any support. That is true for every other product that is free and you didn't paid money as people (including developers) don't put food on their tables out of thin air.

Now, if you paid the commercial Virtuamin license, then you get official Virtualmin commercial support or if you paid the LWS server edition or are leasing it, then you also get commercial support from them.

LWS works with Virtualmin and if you don't have the proper technical knowledge to make it work, I would suggest to pay a professional to assist you.

Thu, 01/05/2017 - 23:43 (Reply to #28)
Bianca

Virtualmin support told me to go to this forum.

And if you would have looked at this thread, you would understand my "complaint" (I didn't really complain, just let know I decided to go elsewhere).

If I had been told from the start "you won't get any kind of support", it would have been clear. But no.

Joe ask me this or that question and tell explicitly it should be a one-time few hours things to make LSWS work with virtualmin - which could help future users. So yes, faced with this reaction, I indeed expected the issue would be looked upon, and could be fixed with a few simple steps.

At every post, I gave the most clear info I could about what was going on, often proactively. But in the end, nothing was ever done to understand why webmin's apache module didn't complain at all while virtualmin refused to detect the server. This discrepancy is something I can't solve but which Joe, with first-hand knowledge of virtualmin, absolutely could have.

The end result is that I waited 3 weeks for nothing, being fed deceptive hope.

See the discussion here about cloudlinux too (which I didn't take part in but which is interesting). Joe would like users to come use virtualmin when it doesn't support things they need, would like them to ask to support these, and then try to support it. It works the other way around. Support what people need, and they will use your product and even pay for it. That's even more true for professionals (which I'm not, otherwise I would have gone elsewhere day 1).

So I'm done.

At least when someone else will want to try LSWS+Virtualmin they'll see this thread pop at the top in google and know it's not worth to try.

Thu, 01/05/2017 - 23:20
Bianca

FYI

wbm-virtual-server-5.05.gpl-1.noarch wbt-virtual-server-theme-9.2-1.noarch

Are not removed on uninstall and throw a "pre-existing rpmdb problem" on yum update.

Thu, 01/05/2017 - 23:43
nibb

You need to find the offending packages, then remove them manually and clean/rebuild yum. Assuming you are on CentOS, you can also remove packages manually but they probably have dependencies which you should not remove. It would be of more help if you post what you are trying to do exactly.

Thu, 01/05/2017 - 23:58 (Reply to #31)
Bianca

I removed these 2 with yum erase.

Fri, 01/06/2017 - 00:14 (Reply to #32)
nibb

Great.

It seems like you removed the software and already decided to use something else. I wish you the best of lucks with what ever solution you go with.

Wed, 03/29/2017 - 00:32
volk

I know this post is old, but there is no reason why LiteSpeed would not work Bianca. Its just a web server...

Virtualmin creates the Apache vhosts LiteSpeed reads the vhosts

I'm not sure if you need to have Apache running for Virtualmin to create them, but even if it does, you can still run LWS in parallel and not have traffic send to Apache. Either way, Virtualmin just creates the proper config and LWS reads it.

I suspect you where testing the open source edition of LWS. That edition CAN'T read Apache configuration files directly. Your errors also complain about Apache not working or installed which is not a LWS problem and you mentioned Webmin several times in your post. You need to create the accounts from Virtualmin, not from the Apache Webmin module.

  • So first, you should test if Virtualmin is creating accounts properly on its own. Yes?

  • Install LWS (standard or enterprise)

  • Try to create an account again with Virtualmin

  • Check if it appears on LWS

Any problem? Go back and test the previous part. Reading your posts the whole problems seems to come because you are creating them from Webmin, and not Virtualmin.

Topic locked