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.
All new Registrations are manually reviewed and approved, so a short delay after registration may occur before your account becomes active.
Comments
FYI if you read my DirectAdmin install guide fully you'll see a custom pre-install guide section https://servermanager.guide/162/how-to-install-directadmin-control-panel-on-centos-7/#setup-preconfigure so basically you only need to do full guide manually once with all stuff configured and then copy the /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild/options.conf options file and use that as a template for subsequent DA installs. This way you can write your own wrapper script to install DirectAdmin unattended with all your customisations outlined in my guide including switching MariaDB from 5.5 to 10.3 and installing CSF. That's what I have done myself write a wrapper DA install script pulling my custom made options.conf file hosted on Gist at https://gist.githubusercontent.com/centminmod/62cc0bcdb44977718f98390a93ad8776/raw/options.conf
So running my own custom wrapper DA install script will pre-populate DA options.conf with my Gist version and install everything outliend in my guide at https://servermanager.guide/162/how-to-install-directadmin-control-panel-on-centos-7/
And don't forget to read section of how you can utilise ccache compiler cache to speed up DA recompiles by up to 80% at https://servermanager.guide/162/how-to-install-directadmin-control-panel-on-centos-7/#step14
Of course Centmin Mod has advance install guide at https://servermanager.guide/117/centmin-mod-advanced-customised-installation-guide/ too
Hi @eva2000, btw do you have a page containing all of the variable that can be set in custom_config.inc and their explanation? I think I tried to search it without any result
best to ask on Centmin Mod forum rather than this thread but here https://community.centminmod.com/threads/add-all-params-commented-out-to-custom_config-inc.16549/#post-70551
Thanks. I just think that it should be somewhere on your site like as after getting started to guide new user
Just link it to the related files on github so you don't need to update your site often
Thanks for the explanation @eva2000 . I didn't notice that section on your guide, the first time i went over it. Thanks for the update!
Nah DirectAdmin is installing a really really old version of MariaDB which causes loads of issues when migrating from cPanel
Not that it can't be fixed with a couple of SSH commands but just thought to mention it.
Is there any chances of this changing for Lux? I have a reseller to segregate some pretty basic sites (mainly for convenience) but the cPanel licensing model has kind of made that model redundant unless DA is an available alternative.
Cheers
Working on it. Hoping this week.
Francisco
>
I added that section a few days after the original guide was published as didn't know about that until was informed on DA forums
Has anyone started using the new DA icon theme which looks similar to cpanel? I saw it on custombuild
There is a very simple reason for this. And not sure what to do about it in the future
MariaDB 5.5 is a drop in replacement of MySQL. Meaning it's very easy to upgrade to MariaDB 10.4 or MySQL 8 if needed. However, If you have MySQL8 or MariaDB 10.4 shipped with DirectAdmin - there is no easy way to switch between MariaDB/MySQL anymore. It's really easy to get any MariaDB/MySQL version installed after DA installation. Waiting for your suggestions on this though. Thank you!
Maybe easiest thing is to make folks plainly aware of the default MariaDB 5.5 version that is installed on install page/documentation and also give them option to choose their version at initial install time. This way they don't require upgrading post-install to the version they want. You can offer up variants of setup.sh labelled as such i.e. setup-mariadb10.sh, setup-mariadb55.sh, setup-mysql57.sh setup-mysql8.sh along side setup.sh.
I really think DA needs a basic install, to give you a nice interface, then a wizard to install the features you want so it compiles once to how you want it....
choose:
skin
hostname
nameservers
Ip's to add
MariaDB / MySQL
PHP Version(s)
choose some php memory limits etc...
Antispam
Plugins:
CSF
ClamAV
etc...
or an option to upload a config file and go from there...
If you set up one the way you want it, you can copy the conf file from that server to any other server and it will set it up to the same way.
I did too many installs both cPanel and DA last 45 days so I now follow the lazy way of less typing in shell.... I do 100% default install of DA as (it is require host name license and couple of yes)
that is the minimal way
and then I place ready options.conf with almost all of the things you mentioned and do ./build all d
while writing on forums watching tv etc... when it is ready the fine tuning is no more than on cPanel (even less)
In Cloud Linux deployment scenario after the initial install I just convert the Centos, reboot add CageFS and MySQL Governor and alt php and then place the options conf and do build all
P.S I know that I can place options conf on initall setup but that is more typing and will not work for cloud linux unless I optimize to deploy it before the DA but then it will not recognize the panel so ... I like my way of "lazy" deployment
I believe @MikePT is
Personally waiting for the next stable release which shouldn't be too long
^ I still think a simple curses-based (pre-)install script would go a long way to make installation much easier for many. The results of choices made can then become a template, if needs be. Though I'm slowly getting there, I do think there are far too many manual steps, at this point. A sensible set of more defaults (CSF, DKIM etc.) would be beneficial, many of which are outlined in eva2000's walk-through. Plus my previous suggestion of enabling EPEL and installing ccache right at the start, ofc.
(BFM isn't working out well for me, when trying to not disable sections of CSF but I hope to resolve that. At the moment it acts just as a monitor, not passing violations to CSF/iptables.)
I'd like to see an integrated munin presentation that contrasts with the 3rd party nonsense of CWP. This would also replicate WHM functionality.
Hi guys,
First order of business is to thank you for your feedback (from what seems like a long time ago) regarding our Lite license. We finally locked in the details of what it will be, all due to the feedback here. Because of the pushback I received, there's actually two new retail products that came as a result of this. Here's a preview of what our retail pricing page will soon contain:
1) Trial license. Actually, a full retail DA license that will last for 60 days. No credit card required. No spam. No contact with a live human being required. Perfect for summer hosts.
2) Personal license. $2/month. Yes, two bucks a month for a commercial control panel. Single login, and up to 10 domains. It will be charged annually due to merchant costs eating up monthly transactions.
3) Lite license. About half price of our $29 retail license. 10 accounts, 50 domains.
4) Regular $29 license remains unchanged.
I realize this isn't earth-shattering news to anyone, because most of you are providers or getting licenses from providers, which is cheaper than retail pricing (even with these new changes). So this is more of a thanks than anything.
Regarding the other suggestions, please keep them coming, especially the installer. Now that the licensing structure has been worked on, we will have much more time for tweaks and development. I really like the idea of wayyyyy more customization in the installer, even to the point of defining default skins etc. (On the other hand, lots of the big guys are demanding a hands-off installer, requiring zero input -- not even license ID etc. We are working on this too.)
Mark
It'd just be nice to be able to make a VPS template and we just have to call a couple of commands to globally change hostnames and whatever other stuff married the install to the original IP's/etc.
That'd be slick
Francisco
This is almost perfect, just wish it didn't have the 10 account limit. 50 domains is plenty, but on my personal usage cPanel box, I'm currently sitting at 12 accounts, 15 domains.
Don't forget webmail and phpmyadmin auto-login.
But yes, #3 on https://help.directadmin.com/item.php?id=2104 -- you can now do a license-less install of DA, to make things a bit faster. getLicense.sh to install the license, and ipswap.sh to assign the new IP, maybe 30 seconds and done? Not the most seamless I admit. I guess you could set the hostname to host.name.com and let the customer adjust it in their admin panel once they login? No command line neeeded.
I hear you -- we had to draw the line somewhere, but for a half-price retail license I think it's pretty fair. It's not intended for crazy amounts of shared or reseller hosting (that's that the regular license is for). If your server provider/datacenter offers DA, they should be able to offer you an unrestricted license (unlimited accounts/domains) for the same price or better. Retail license is always the most expensive option of course, no matter what product.
In regards to the installation process - I guess I wonder if there is too much noise in all of these comments.
Could improvements be made in the installation process? Maybe. But how much of that can be scripted by the server administrator?
I mean... I see complaints about the default DirectAdmin install installing this or installing that. Perhaps there's not a bright enough light being shone on the ability to place a /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild/options.conf prior to running the DirectAdmin setup.sh script?
Perhaps a more modular design needs to be made. Instead of complicating the installation process by adding menus... create a separate script (or flag to the setup script) that starts an ncurses or some type of step by step system to create a /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild/options.conf file before running the setup.
Those of us that already have a /usr/local/directadmin/custombuild/options.conf to distribute out to our new servers, we can just set it and run the setup.sh.
I guess my philosophy is... there's a line between what DirectAdmin is suppose to provide and what server administrators are suppose to provide for themselves. If DirectAdmin development is spending all of their time adding requests that can be easily scripted by server administrators... is that time better spent working on some other improvement?
Like the backup system... is it DirectAdmin's place to sync backups to all of these backup storage places? Or is that the job of the individual server administrator? For me... if DirectAdmin can provide a backup of an account - a shell of that account - then I can handle the synching of that backup packge and the account's home directory to where ever I need it. If you're not careful, you end up providing a backup system that fits specifically to just PersonA and then another backup system that fits specifically just to PersonB and you're spending countless hours making backup system that each fit just one person. At some point, server administrators have to take the tools that are made available and meld them into a model that works for them.
Perfect for summer hosts.
LMAO! Too funny!
Thanks for the first-hand news!
Please don't forget to mention "trial license" at the panel's bottom so we can easily pinpoint the summer ones.
This seems reasonable for personal sites and small business. Like myself I am no longer in Hosting business but help friends and family members with hosting needs. This works just fine. looking forward for entry level plans.
Good pricing. I unfortunately really bite my ass that I just bought a lifetime license, as I could get along well with one of the "smaller" and cheaper licenses, but still good, fair and competitive pricing. Well done, @DA_Mark!
Good pricing and presents a great option to use any provider rather than just those that bundle it.
all good - as said above automatic sql login and webmail login.
I would love a few more options to the built in backup such as:
ssh rsync backup with only changes updated
days to keep backups option
test option to make sure its correct and can do what it needs
Thanks for the feedback -- it really helps me because there was a bit of internal resistance/grumblings about my price proposal for the personal license; mostly that it was too much of a discount compared to other solo-type licenses out there. That's the reason it took so long to finalize pricing. My business partners made good points -- that even a 50% discount (compared to others) would be a deal.
Ultimately it came down to what I would do in that situation. My own VPS, a few hobby domains/projects, maybe looking like a hero to a friend/acquaintance by hosting their static content and domain. Would I really pay $10-$15/month ($120-$180/year) in addition to the cost of my VPS? Zero chance. My hobby VPS isn't a money maker. I don't want it to become that much of a financial burden.
But $2/month.. Hmm. I'm getting a commercial product.. I'm giving up a bit of cash to support development, but I don't mind -- because someone finally decided to be fair about pricing.
My thoughts anyway.