Slashdot Mirror
Control Panels for Web Hosting?
jstrzalko asks: "I recently started a web design and hosting company and am looking at all of the control panel solutions to offer my clients. I consider myself quite adept at Linux so server administration is not the issue. I just want to be able to allow my clients to easily add/remove email addresses and domains, give them stats, manage their databases etc. Has anyone had good experience with any of them? I am currently running Fedora Core3 (test3) on my server, if that helps anyone."
Its expensive but the best http://cpanel.net
Nothing for you to see here, Please move along.
cpanel, ensim, h-sphere, virtualmin (free plugin for webmin) and there is probably more as well. Google should turn up a few.
DirectAdmin is the best out of the others I've used (cPanel, Ensim Webppliance, and Plesk). It's just cleaner overall. Of course, no control panel is much better than having one, IMHO.
US businesses that currently accept chip and PIN/signature
Someone else mentioned it in passing, but since I had a hand in making it happen and I think it's very nice, I'll mention Virtualmin.
Virtualmin.com
It's free (as in beer and speech), integrates cleanly with Webmin and Usermin for system administration and user level access to email, spamassassin configuration, etc.
It doesn't do everything that all of the control panels do, but none of them can do everything that Webmin/Usermin/Virtualmin can do either, so it all comes out in the wash. It has the benefit of being easily modified without violating any licenses and is very polite to the underlying OS and services. Unlike pretty much all of the other products in this space (except for the Positive Software CP+ product that is based off of Virtualmin and Webmin) it does not screw up the configuration files, or require you to do all of the configuration of the services from within the GUI. You can switch between vi or emacs and Virtualmin without fear of losing comments or configuration file order.
It has a couple of long-term commercial sponsors, including my company (Swell Technology) and the previously mentioned Positive Software, so it gets consistent developer attention and fast bug fixes. And like Webmin on top of which it runs, it is easily themeable, provides online help features, and is internationalized with many translations.
It may not be perfect for every purpose today, but it gets better all the time and is already in use at a lot of ISPs and hosting providers, as well as ASPs. Worth a look, at least. You may find that with some customizations (which you can do, or you can hire Jamie or someone else to do) Virtualmin can provide a better fit for less money over the long term than any of the proprietary options.
And since it is free, it will cost you nothing but a few minutes or hours to give it a try.