cpanel free alternative with DNS tool

Question

I'm looking for a free alternative to manage personal sites (php/apache/mysql support) with the ability to configure DNS.

it should be VERY light weight and optimized.

I tried many panels especially kloxo, and i was disappointed, too many bugs and random crashes of the whole server.

Remember, i dont want any ticketing system or payment system or ability to install CMS by one click. Most important is an upto date product with strong community for regular updates and support.

I tried googling for hours and I came with a big list, so i am confused..

how in the world is this OT? +1 for being bullied. – Jan 02 '13 at 02:41 — , Jan 02 '13 at 02:41

Reece45 · Accepted Answer · 2011-02-28T23:41:53.423

Virtualmin

The Good

It creates the web sites as I would create them. It puts them in the home directory, create a user/group for them. Sets up FTP/MySQL/more. Allows extensive customization: for example, I set up the websites to use chronolog and shorten the amount of time it takes to logrotate.

The resources

After an install (which includes Apache, BIND, MySQL, SpamAssasin, ClamAV, dovecot, and postfix. The memory usage of the entire server is about 500MB RAM (in an OpenVZ container after a reboot). The installation does not start any additional services, so in a memory constrained environment, you may want to disable them BEFORE restarting.

After disabling features in the setup, it still starts many unneeded services like SpamAssasin, mailman, postgreSQL, and more at startup. You can disable these using either the distribution tools or the "Services and Startup" portion of the interface. After a little tweaking I usually get the Memory Usage down to ~200MB (in OpenVZ containers) before giving MySQL about 33% of the RAM (usually at least 1GB containers).

Usage below 200MB is certainly possible-- also note that OpenVZ is a little wierd when it comes to memory

The integration

Virtualmin/Webmin manage the configuration more than anything else. Every Virtualmin server I set up feels like it can run without virtualmin (although I haven't tried it). In Ubuntu (maybe Debian as well)-- the apache configuration are placed in /etc/apache2/sites-available and /etc/apache2/sites-enabled. Usually every option in the interface corresponds to a configuration file that Virtualmin just helps you generate. It doesn't blindly override most files (like apache). If you make a modification, it'll notice and try not to botch it.

Things to know

One of the first things you may do is set up the Directory Restriction features so that users get chrooted to their home directory
If using Ubuntu 10.04 and fastcgi, you'll need to pull the new apache2 fcgi package from the updates repository to avoid an upload bug.
The subaccount usernames could be better: cPanel uses user@domain.com for FTP/WebDAV and domain_user for MySQL usernames/databases. Virtualmin allows you to choose one or the other: not both. The users Virtualmin creates in MySQL end up being truncated (instead of "some-user@my-domain.com" you get "some-user@my-dom" with nothing in the Virtualmin interface telling you that it did this). You can just manage your MySQL separately and have Virtualmin import it.
New account names seem to default now to the entire domain name. I'm not a fan of it, but at least its configurable.
Virtualmin stores account passwords in plain-text. It does this so that it can manage accounts in several different systems that don't have a unifying password format-- its understandable, I still use it because all of the passwords are just randomly generated and internal only (no emails on virtualmin boxes)
The webmin.pl file seemed to crash a bit last year. I haven't encounter it in a while, but its non-critical compared to apache and such. In fact, It'd be nice if it only started on-demand.

Overall

It saves me time, even with all of the options I need to tweak. It works with more operating systems than most control panels. They have their own repository, so the update-system integrates well with the operating system.

good overview, i run on VPS with 512 ram, this is definitely not my choice. kloxo runs good in 128mb ram environment. things dont look as forward as it seems. any knowledge of other panels? — TDSii, Feb 27 '11 at 17:38
Virtualmin does *not* use 500MB of RAM. The entire stack could use 500MB of RAM, but most of that usage would be Apache, Postfix, ClamAV, SpamAssassin, BIND, etc., and would happen with any control panel that manages those services. — swelljoe, Feb 28 '11 at 18:45
@swelljoe Yes, the virtualmin process (miniserv.pl) typically only uses 12M (or less). I'm sorry if I didn't make that clear. — Reece45, Feb 28 '11 at 23:26
@TDSii My coworker and I were discussing some alternatives today that I'll be looking into shortly. I've updated my answer to include some information about OpenVZ, its memory usage, and clearifications that it was the entire server using 200-500 in OpenVZ (which may be 63-300 in a Virtual Dedicated Server) I was hoping to get that information for you today, but my personal VM server is temporarily down while I experiment with other things. — Reece45, Feb 28 '11 at 23:45

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Feb 27 '11 at 14:18

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Have you tried webmin?

answered Feb 27 '11 at 14:18

amitchd

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webmin and ontop of it i put virtualmin? how good is this by installing this combination? – TDSii Feb 27 '11 at 14:24
Pretty good, you might realize you are doing a little bit more of manual work than channel.. But then it's a lot more flexible and FREE. Worth it. – amitchd Feb 27 '11 at 14:30
in kloxo everything is done with clicks like cpanel. any similar alternative? – TDSii Feb 27 '11 at 14:39
Yes, almost. It's pretty much point and click. – amitchd Feb 27 '11 at 14:44
i also came across ISPconfig, have you tried it? it is weird no real comprehensive comparison for such softwares – TDSii Feb 27 '11 at 14:48
Sorry, haven't tried ISPconfig.. – amitchd Feb 27 '11 at 14:51
Webmin is a general purpose systems managment GUI. Virtualmin, a module of Webmin, provides the sorts of features OP is looking for. – swelljoe Feb 28 '11 at 18:46

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Feb 27 '11 at 15:34

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Directadmin is another one that is used by many. You can give it a look at http://www.directadmin.com.

answered Feb 27 '11 at 15:34

Chinmoy

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i guess i asked free, you know open source always wins. – TDSii Feb 27 '11 at 17:27

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Feb 28 '11 at 18:55

I won't make a recommendation, since I have an obvious bias (I'm a Virtualmin developer, and it's how I make a living), but I do want to chime in with more detail about Virtualmin memory usage, since it's been alleged that it uses 500MB of RAM, which is way off.

Virtualmin, the control panel by itself, uses anywhere from 11MB to 150MB, depending on configuration, number of domains managed, amount of caching enabled, etc. The services that it manages, like Apache, BIND, databases, ClamAV, etc. could use hundreds of MB more, or even GB more RAM. That usage, however, happens in any system where you use those services and has no relation to Virtualmin. No control panel makes Apache smaller, assuming identical configuration. Likewise, if you are using ClamAV for virus scanning email, you will always have that memory usage no matter what control panel you use (or even if you don't use a control panel at all).

It is very easy to make Virtualmin use about 11-16MB (closer to 11 on a 32 bit system and closer to 16 on a 64 bit system) simply by turning off all library caching.

Memory usage is thoroughly documented, including how to configure it to use very little memory, in our "Virtualmin on Low Memory Systems" guide: http://www.virtualmin.com/documentation/system/low-memory

Virtualmin, by default, is configured for use in large deployments...hosting hundreds of domains on large servers. But, that doesn't mean it's only for those kind of deployments. We have tens of thousands of installations running on systems with 256 or 512MB of RAM, and even a few hundred running on 128MB systems (or even smaller; I know one guy that runs a static websites-only configuration on 96MB VMs). I'm not sure how Virtualmin could get much smaller than 11MB, honestly, and still be useful. I doubt any other control panel is significantly smaller.