Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!


Do you think a terminal based GUI server admin panel can take off?
New on LowEndTalk? Please Register and read our Community Rules.

All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.

Do you think a terminal based GUI server admin panel can take off?

We regularly read about servers administration panels getting hacked. One of the main reason for this is that these are web applications, running over world-open HTTP ports. Since most of the non-enterprise customers can't have static IP for their SOHO connection, the panels can't be locked down to their IP.

Security of web applications is a very involved matter. There are many attack vectors. Also, web technologies change very fast, so a lot of projects end up with outdated dependencies.

So do you think there is a scope for a server admin panel which works with a ncurses type GUI? One will need to log in using SSH and then run a command to launch the control panel.

Or do you think to expect a shared hosting customer to log in using SSH connection is too much? Also, there is a question of educating people to use a desktop FTP client instead of a web-based file browser/editor.

Ideas/Opinions?

Comments

  • It's called CentMinMod, and doesn't really need ncurses or slrn to do the job. Dialog already exists if you wanna make it pretty.

    Expecting a shared-hosting person to know what an vhost is, little alone an A record, is a bit above and beyond.

  • that_guythat_guy Member
    edited October 2018

    From an admin point of view, I'd love to get rid of the whole web stack (at least when it isn't required for the applications that run on the server anyways). So if you could create something like webmin, but without the web, it'd be great. Also make it modular so everyone can easily extend and customize it. And of course make it mostly distro agnostic (maybe systemd would be a dependency if you think abstracting it away is too much work).

    But for non-IT/enduser-facing servers (as a customer self service / high level admin thing like cpanel): forget it!
    People will kick and scream and claim its "complicated", and "nerd stuff" or that it "looks like DOS". If it can't be done in a browser it sucks. No good argument will change that.

    Thanked by 1simpleguy8288
  • that_guy said: And of course make it mostly distro agnostic

    There is one disadvantage to this. To support multiple distros, the admin panel needs to do things its own distro-agnostic way. Later, when the admin panel fails at a particular task and one needs to fix it from the command line, none of the online tutorials come in handy as they target one distribution or another.

    that_guy said: If it can't be done in a browser it sucks. No good argument will change that.

    Yeah, that's what I thought.

  • You could write it in Cobol on Cogs: http://coboloncogs.org

    Thanked by 1simpleguy8288
  • simpleguy8288 said: So do you think there is a scope for a server admin panel which works with a ncurses type GUI? One will need to log in using SSH and then run a command to launch the control panel.

    yeah that's basically what my Centmin Mod LEMP stack does - example of shell based menu https://centminmod.com/menu.html and also can do alot of tasks can be done from equivalent SSH command line or addon/tool scripts i.e. creating new nginx vhost sites.

    example of setting up nginx http/2 https vhost with letsencrypt ssl and creating mysql databases/user/password https://community.centminmod.com/threads/quick-centmin-mod-install-nginx-vhost-site-mysql-database-setup.12904/

    creation of mysql database/user/pass via addons/mysqladmin_shell.sh script https://community.centminmod.com/threads/mysqladmin_shell-sh-shell-based-addon.543/

    need to mass create multiple nginx vhost sites and mysql databases via command line https://community.centminmod.com/threads/guide-save-time-creating-nginx-vhost-mysql-users-and-databases.8257/

    You can then script automated creation of nginx vhost sites/mariadb mysql databases etc. I know some web hosts that are doing just this with Centmin Mod for their own usage :)

    As to whether such a terminal based panel would take off, Centmin Mod has between 2,000 to 3,000+ new installers per month roughly and it's growing :) But Centmin Mod isn't for shared hosting just own user run sites.

    Shared hosting really wouldn't work well with terminal/SSH only based control panel as the level of knowledge and understanding required would be much lower.

    Thanked by 1simpleguy8288
  • @eva2000 CentMinMod looks great!

  • HostEONSHostEONS Member, Patron Provider

    @simpleguy8288 said:
    We regularly read about servers administration panels getting hacked. One of the main reason for this is that these are web applications, running over world-open HTTP ports. Since most of the non-enterprise customers can't have static IP for their SOHO connection, the panels can't be locked down to their IP.

    Security of web applications is a very involved matter. There are many attack vectors. Also, web technologies change very fast, so a lot of projects end up with outdated dependencies.

    So do you think there is a scope for a server admin panel which works with a ncurses type GUI? One will need to log in using SSH and then run a command to launch the control panel.

    Or do you think to expect a shared hosting customer to log in using SSH connection is too much? Also, there is a question of educating people to use a desktop FTP client instead of a web-based file browser/editor.

    Ideas/Opinions?

    What about SSH Exploits
    If you are giving Shell Access, it becomes much easier to run exploits

    Thanked by 1simpleguy8288
  • What about SSH Exploits
    If you are giving Shell Access, it becomes much easier to run exploits

    Hmm. I guess this will work only for VPS hosting.

Sign In or Register to comment.