Hi there i was wondering if anyone on this list has any comments on CPanel vs Plesk on Centos 4+? Looking for the one that best work with the "out of the box" RPMs for Centos.
Thanks in advance!
Dustin
On Sun, 5 Feb 2006 13:56:11 -0800 Dustin Krysak mailinglists@backbonetechnology.com wrote:
Hi there i was wondering if anyone on this list has any comments on CPanel vs Plesk on Centos 4+? Looking for the one that best work with the "out of the box" RPMs for Centos.
I've installed both for clients. I'm not administering or using them. Just from what I saw I cannot recomment cpanel in any way - it basically just takes over the machine. A note from readme "If instalation fails in anyway, just reinstall your server and start again" says enough. At least plesk is packaged nicely in rpms - you can always remove it.
On 2/5/06, Dustin Krysak mailinglists@backbonetechnology.com wrote:
Hi there i was wondering if anyone on this list has any comments on CPanel vs Plesk on Centos 4+? Looking for the one that best work with the "out of the box" RPMs for Centos.
Knee-jerk response I'd say "neither". The cpanel people seem to generally be good folks, but I don't approve of how they handle packages because.. well, they don't. They have you build custom cpanel software such as mysql, apache etc, and they seem to be perpetually behind the latest security updates with respect to what they do support in the distro. If you decide to use cpanel, be prepared to be told to ask them for help, because they don't use the distro supplied software. I have no real opinion of plesk, because I've never used it, nor have I heard of others using it. The task of administration is best left to admins, and best done from the command line (in my opinion). With gui tools such as cpanel, webmin, and plesk you're only able to configure the software as well as the person who wrote the gui understands it and was able to script for.
-- "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety'' Benjamin Franklin 1775
Jim Perrin wrote:
On 2/5/06, Dustin Krysak mailinglists@backbonetechnology.com wrote:
Hi there i was wondering if anyone on this list has any comments on CPanel vs Plesk on Centos 4+? Looking for the one that best work with the "out of the box" RPMs for Centos.
Knee-jerk response I'd say "neither". The cpanel people seem to generally be good folks, but I don't approve of how they handle packages because.. well, they don't. They have you build custom cpanel software such as mysql, apache etc, and they seem to be perpetually behind the latest security updates with respect to what they do support in the distro. If you decide to use cpanel, be prepared to be told to ask them for help, because they don't use the distro supplied software. I have no real opinion of plesk, because I've never used it, nor have I heard of others using it. The task of administration is best left to admins, and best done from the command line (in my opinion). With gui tools such as cpanel, webmin, and plesk you're only able to configure the software as well as the person who wrote the gui understands it and was able to script for.
I can say that Webmin, and yes, I know, that wasn't in the original post... But, Webmin is very good about first not taking over anything and it is also pretty darned happy about admins working directly from the command line or from within the GUI. It is however a bit of a geeky interface. In many intances the interface provides direct access to the config files as an alternative. Using Webmin has saved me countless hours of time. It takes a lot of time to set up the module configs so that things are done the way you want to do thing and one needs to be careful to understand what gets stored within Webmin with regards to users, vhosts, etc. as somethings sort of do need to be done from webmin or you'll not have access to deal with them from webmin later.
I have no direct experience with cpanel or plesk, but was a bit involved with a plesk machine from the user side and found it to be very frustrating. There was a lot you simply couldn't do from the interface that was provided in that situation, but maybe it was there to turn on if the sysadmins had set it up on the other side?
Again though, Webmin is pretty geeky and really is a tool for existing admins with knowledge, not a tool to replace that knowledge. It is a timesave as it is faster at things like adding a new virtual hosting account.. once setup, just a few entries in a form and absolutely everything is done for you, from bind through email. No way I can be that fast via the command line.
Best, John Hinton
I can say that Webmin, and yes, I know, that wasn't in the original post... But, Webmin is very good about first not taking over anything and it is also pretty darned happy about admins working directly from the command line or from within the GUI. It is however a bit of a geeky interface. In many intances the interface provides direct access to the config files as an alternative. Using Webmin has saved me countless hours of time. It takes a lot of time to set up the module configs so that things are done the way you want to do thing and one needs to be careful to understand what gets stored within Webmin with regards to users, vhosts, etc. as somethings sort of do need to be done from webmin or you'll not have access to deal with them from webmin later.
I have no direct experience with cpanel or plesk, but was a bit involved with a plesk machine from the user side and found it to be very frustrating. There was a lot you simply couldn't do from the interface that was provided in that situation, but maybe it was there to turn on if the sysadmins had set it up on the other side?
Again though, Webmin is pretty geeky and really is a tool for existing admins with knowledge, not a tool to replace that knowledge. It is a timesave as it is faster at things like adding a new virtual hosting account.. once setup, just a few entries in a form and absolutely everything is done for you, from bind through email. No way I can be that fast via the command line.
Webmin scares me more from a security perspective (as do the others) mostly because I don't like the idea of a "one interface to rule them all" type of approach. There have been several privilege escalation type holes found in webmin, and if someone gets access to it they can do whatever they want to your system. I suppose the same is true for cpanel and plesk, although I dislike them for other reasons. Or it could be the fact that I'm firmly entrenched in the "Commandline Admin" camp with no intention of moving. I've seen far too many "Admins" click a machine to death with lack of understanding. In fairness, they do this on the command line also with --force or --nodeps etc.. but in smaller numbers.
-- "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety'' Benjamin Franklin 1775
On Mon, 2006-02-06 at 10:34, Jim Perrin wrote:
Webmin scares me more from a security perspective (as do the others) mostly because I don't like the idea of a "one interface to rule them all" type of approach. There have been several privilege escalation type holes found in webmin, and if someone gets access to it they can do whatever they want to your system. I suppose the same is true for cpanel and plesk, although I dislike them for other reasons. Or it could be the fact that I'm firmly entrenched in the "Commandline Admin" camp with no intention of moving.
The same is true for ssh... And would you rather have a tool where problems have been found and fixed or where they haven't been found ...yet?
I've seen far too many "Admins" click a machine to death with lack of understanding. In fairness, they do this on the command line also with --force or --nodeps etc.. but in smaller numbers.
Webmin generally imposes a syntax sanity check before saving a change so you don't kill the server by omitting a quote somewhere, which is really the worst problem with command line administration.
If you want something more extreme in web-managed servers, look at SME server from www.contribs.org. The version currently in pre-release is based on centos 4.x and the fill-in-the form administration won't let you do it wrong. It's fairly safe to give remote office administrators the admin password to add and remove users even it they know nothing about normal system administration.
On 2/6/06, Les Mikesell lesmikesell@gmail.com wrote:
The same is true for ssh... And would you rather have a tool where problems have been found and fixed or where they haven't been found ...yet?
Circular argument here. Are you saying that ssh has holes, or that because webmin has had known holes in the past that were fixed that it is hole-free now? Both ssh and webmin could have unpatched holes. Track records for security speak a great deal about a product <insert Anti-microsoft comment HERE>.
I don't see ssh as a "one program to rule them all" any more than vim is, because you are still required to know the syntax, configs, location, options etc whereas in webmin they're all laid out with a consistent ui. Like I said, it's my personal opinion. Logical or not, I stick by it.
More than anything I think it's an option for me of "The admin should know what he's doing", and interfaces that allow J. Random User to point, click, and call himself an admin worry me from a security standpoint. Nearly all the problems I see during the course of a given day are the result of poor administration. Yes, things should be easy to administer. Yes doing it from the command line makes it more challenging and you can spend hours looking for a missing semi-colon or bracket. But NO there is no substitution for someone who knows what the hell they're doing when it comes to security. </rant>
I'm not really sure a reply is warranted. I'd rather not start a flamewar/OT discussion. If you get the urge to reply anyway, we can continue offlist.
-- "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety'' Benjamin Franklin 1775
On Mon, 2006-02-06 at 11:11, Jim Perrin wrote:
The same is true for ssh... And would you rather have a tool where problems have been found and fixed or where they haven't been found ...yet?
Circular argument here. Are you saying that ssh has holes, or that because webmin has had known holes in the past that were fixed that it is hole-free now? Both ssh and webmin could have unpatched holes. Track records for security speak a great deal about a product <insert Anti-microsoft comment HERE>.
I meant that ssh has also had problems in the past, so the same track record logic applies.
More than anything I think it's an option for me of "The admin should know what he's doing", and interfaces that allow J. Random User to point, click, and call himself an admin worry me from a security standpoint. Nearly all the problems I see during the course of a given day are the result of poor administration. Yes, things should be easy to administer. Yes doing it from the command line makes it more challenging and you can spend hours looking for a missing semi-colon or bracket. But NO there is no substitution for someone who knows what the hell they're doing when it comes to security. </rant>
Agreed - if you don't basically understand what you are doing, webmin won't fix that.
I'm not really sure a reply is warranted. I'd rather not start a flamewar/OT discussion. If you get the urge to reply anyway, we can continue offlist.
I just wanted to mention SME server as something of an exception to the admin needing to know anything. It is sort of an appliance setup and may or may not do everything you need. If it does, then the fill-in-the-form approach takes care of you. If it doesn't, the template-built config files make it harder than a normal system to customize unless someone else has already done it.
Hey everyone... I have been going over the replies this morning, and I know there is a lot of opinion regarding what a sys admin should know and so on. The PRIMARY reason we are looking at these packages is not for our selves (the sys admins), but rather to offer an interface to hosted customers for some basic functions like adding mail users, and managing their own database, etc. We our selves do want (and need) to be able to admin from the CLI as normal, and we are looking for a package that does not "take over" the machine. It reminds me too much of the old raq4's we have sitting on the shelf =-). And those were a nightmare in certain instances when you edited something via CLI and then the web gui blows it apart. At any rate - I am generally just lookign for an interface for clients to do the basic hosting type stuff.
Thanks!
:::::::::::::::::::::: Dustin Krysak Backbone Technology ::::::::::::::::::::::
---------- Original Message ----------- From: John Hinton webmaster@ew3d.com To: CentOS mailing list centos@centos.org Sent: Mon, 06 Feb 2006 09:22:35 -0500 Subject: Re: [CentOS] works best with centos 4+? CPanel or Plesk?
Jim Perrin wrote:
On 2/5/06, Dustin Krysak mailinglists@backbonetechnology.com wrote:
Hi there i was wondering if anyone on this list has any comments on CPanel vs Plesk on Centos 4+? Looking for the one that best work with the "out of the box" RPMs for Centos.
Knee-jerk response I'd say "neither". The cpanel people seem to generally be good folks, but I don't approve of how they handle packages because.. well, they don't. They have you build custom cpanel software such as mysql, apache etc, and they seem to be perpetually behind the latest security updates with respect to what they do support in the distro. If you decide to use cpanel, be prepared to be told to ask them for help, because they don't use the distro supplied software. I have no real opinion of plesk, because I've never used it, nor have I heard of others using it. The task of administration is best left to admins, and best done from the command line (in my opinion). With gui tools such as cpanel, webmin, and plesk you're only able to configure the software as well as the person who wrote the gui understands it and was able to script for.
I can say that Webmin, and yes, I know, that wasn't in the original post... But, Webmin is very good about first not taking over anything and it is also pretty darned happy about admins working directly from the command line or from within the GUI. It is however a bit of a geeky interface. In many intances the interface provides direct access to the config files as an alternative. Using Webmin has saved me countless hours of time. It takes a lot of time to set up the module configs so that things are done the way you want to do thing and one needs to be careful to understand what gets stored within Webmin with regards to users, vhosts, etc. as somethings sort of do need to be done from webmin or you'll not have access to deal with them from webmin later.
I have no direct experience with cpanel or plesk, but was a bit involved with a plesk machine from the user side and found it to be very frustrating. There was a lot you simply couldn't do from the interface that was provided in that situation, but maybe it was there to turn on if the sysadmins had set it up on the other side?
Again though, Webmin is pretty geeky and really is a tool for existing admins with knowledge, not a tool to replace that knowledge. It is a timesave as it is faster at things like adding a new virtual hosting account.. once setup, just a few entries in a form and absolutely everything is done for you, from bind through email. No way I can be that fast via the command line.
Best, John Hinton _______________________________________________ CentOS mailing list CentOS@centos.org http://lists.centos.org/mailman/listinfo/centos
------- End of Original Message -------
On Mon, 2006-06-02 at 10:10 -0800, lists wrote:
At any rate - I am generally just lookign for an interface for clients to do the basic hosting type stuff.
How about ispconfig? Check it out: www.ispconfig.org.
I've never used it, and I have no idea if it's any good. But, I came across it on a mailing list, and added it to my bookmarks. I might have another link or two that's useful - if I do, I'll send 'em over.
HTH,
Ranbir
lists wrote:
Hey everyone... I have been going over the replies this morning, and I know there is a lot of opinion regarding what a sys admin should know and so on. The PRIMARY reason we are looking at these packages is not for our selves (the sys admins), but rather to offer an interface to hosted customers for some basic functions like adding mail users,
isnt this more of a reason why you would want to have a system in place that, alteast, lets you update the machines with security fix's as soon as they are available ? cPanel and Plesk both have major issues in this regard. Are you sure you want to leave control of major functions upto the users, on an unpatched machine - live on the internet ?
If its a question of managing email accounts, mysql db's etc you should mostly be ok with pretty much any system that works with config's and packages from the distro - that way you can use the update system included in CentOS ( Most of your security concerns will be the code that these users run on your machine, which - lets face it - no matter how you admin the box, they are going to run anyway ).
To illustrate my point ; what is the latest version of CentOS4 and CentOS3 supported by either cPanel or Plesk ? What is the present situation with the CVE's from the last few months on machines that run these systems.
Now would be a good time for someone with an @cpanel.com and @swsoft.com email address to join the thread.
- KB
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Dustin Krysak -
Jim Perrin -
John Hinton -
Jure Pečar -
Kanwar Ranbir Sandhu -
Karanbir Singh -
Les Mikesell -
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