We're looking to migrate to either Cpanel or Hsphere. We have over 10,000 clients so we need something that will scale.

I really like Cpanel, but the problem is that it does not have customer or billing management built in. I've looked at ModerBill+Cpanel and together they seem to be a good solution. Another problem is that Cpanel servers have to be managed one by one and when you have 20+ Cpanel servers it can be a pain looking through all of them to find where the client is actually hosted on.

On the other hand Hspehre looks like it handles everything right off the bat and I wouldn't need outside billing or customer management software like ModernBill to manage our clients.

What do you guys/gals think ? Which one is a better product for my needs ?

I would suggest that you look into the cPanel + ModernBill solution heavily. ModernBill integrates almost flawlessly with cPanel (minus the slight learning curve to ModernBill). Within ModernBill you can find which server a customer is located on, their IP, username & initial password.

If you keep cPanel on the stable builds you will almost never have stability issues and/or broken features.

With both ModernBill & cPanel in active development, fixes and tweaks are completed almost daily. I don't think you can go wrong with this combo.

..yup cpanel + modernbill :) they go together :D

Originally posted by serial
I would suggest that you look into the cPanel + ModernBill solution heavily. ModernBill integrates almost flawlessly with cPanel (minus the slight learning curve to ModernBill). Within ModernBill you can find which server a customer is located on, their IP, username & initial password.

If you keep cPanel on the stable builds you will almost never have stability issues and/or broken features.

With both ModernBill & cPanel in active development, fixes and tweaks are completed almost daily. I don't think you can go wrong with this combo.

Does Modernbill allow our users to update their billing and contact info right from within cpanel or do they have to log into a seperate Modernbill control panel ?

Originally posted by Aznabala
Does Modernbill allow our users to update their billing and contact info right from within cpanel or do they have to log into a seperate Modernbill control panel ?

They have to log into a separate ModernBill interface, where they have the ability to view invoices, update their CC info, billing address, contact email, etc.

Some users who are being converted over to a cPanel + ModernBill setup may find it a little awkward to start with, however it's a very easy to use solution for both you & your customers.

Originally posted by serial
They have to log into a separate ModernBill interface, where they have the ability to view invoices, update their CC info, billing address, contact email, etc.

Some users who are being converted over to a cPanel + ModernBill setup may find it a little awkward to start with, however it's a very easy to use solution for both you & your customers.

Is it possible to set up an icon within all users cp's so that it would automatically log them into their modern bill account ?

Personally, for that many customers I would say use HSphere, it's got integrated billing, trouble ticketing + KBase, and customer management and it also allows you to have finer grained control over packages and charges - With HSphere your customers can upgrade to extra transfer, web space etc. without your intervention and they get billed for it without your intervention too. Overall it's a much more automated system.

Thanks,

Greetings:

H-Sphere provides complete shared (and soon to offer dedicated) hosting automation.

It is not just a control panel system.

So comparing H-Sphere to "just control panel systems" like Cpanel is not a fair comparison.

H-Sphere scales very well allowing you to add physical servers to handle mail, database, and other tasks as your company grows.

Thank you.

Originally posted by dynamicnet
Greetings:

H-Sphere provides complete shared (and soon to offer dedicated) hosting automation.

It is not just a control panel system.

So comparing H-Sphere to "just control panel systems" like Cpanel is not a fair comparison.

H-Sphere scales very well allowing you to add physical servers to handle mail, database, and other tasks as your company grows.

Thank you.

WHM bundled together with CPanel is an automated solution as well - except it does not offer billing and crm functionality (yet.)

Originally posted by KDAWebServices
Personally, for that many customers I would say use HSphere, it's got integrated billing, trouble ticketing + KBase, and customer management and it also allows you to have finer grained control over packages and charges - With HSphere your customers can upgrade to extra transfer, web space etc. without your intervention and they get billed for it without your intervention too. Overall it's a much more automated system.

Thanks,

Can't Cpanel bundled together with ModernBill do the same ? Won't users be able to upgrade their packages and add extra tranfer and be billed automatically ?

Not without having to swap between what systems they are logged in to. WHM + CPanel does not equal on automated system, as it ships, out of the box it does not offer:

Customer Management
Integrated Billing
Sign-up Scripts including a multitude of rules to control moderation of signups etc.
Trouble Ticketing and Knowledgebase
It does not offer the same level of granularity over hosting packages - to remove certain items from packages with CPanel you have to edit the skins, with HSphere, you don't.

HSphere and CPanel are two different items, HSphere is a hosting automation sollution, like Helm, CPanel is not.

Greetings KDAWebServices:

Excactly. H-Sphere is total hosting automation out-of-the box.

You don't need to determine what packages you need to put together that might fit the pieces of the puzzle. You don't have one system here, and another there.

H-Sphere is a complete system and not patch work.

Thank you.

P.S. No, we don't work for H-Sphere; we are just an extremely satisified H-Sphere user, consultant, etc.

Originally posted by KDAWebServices
Not without having to swap between what systems they are logged in to. WHM + CPanel does not equal on automated system, as it ships, out of the box it does not offer:

Customer Management
Integrated Billing
Sign-up Scripts including a multitude of rules to control moderation of signups etc.
Trouble Ticketing and Knowledgebase
It does not offer the same level of granularity over hosting packages - to remove certain items from packages with CPanel you have to edit the skins, with HSphere, you don't.

HSphere and CPanel are two different items, HSphere is a hosting automation sollution, like Helm, CPanel is not.

But from what I see Cpanel+WHM allows our end users to have many more features than Hsphere. If I'm not mistaken Cpanel now allows all servers to be managed from one WHM interface.

I can't think of any features CPanel has (Apart from automatic updates) that HSphere doesn't. If anything it's by far the other way round.

Interesting thread.

:subscribed:

Greetings:

"If I'm not mistaken Cpanel now allows all servers to be managed from one WHM interface."

If you research H-Sphere at http://www.psoft.net/ you will find that you hook up all of your servers into H-Sphere, and they provide management through their interface system.

Complete automation without a bandaid here and another there; you don't have to worry about what packages to try and tie together.

Thank you.

I agree that Hspehere is a better total package but don't you think that Cpanels end user control panel has so many more features and users like it quite a bit more than Hsphere's control panel ?

Also, Hsphere doesn't allow you to create packages your resellers can resell. You can only give them resources and they can make their own packages. Cpanel on the other hand allows for both options.

There aren't really any useful features I can think of that CPanel end user GUI has over HSphere, certainly none of our customers complained that they were missing anything when we moved them over.

Greetings:

"Also, Hsphere doesn't allow you to create packages your resellers can resell. "

1. In the most current version, you can go into the reseller area, and create packages for them to resell.

2. In the near future, upcoming version, you can create packages your reseller can resell easier.

Thank you.

How many of you converted from cpanel to Hspehere ? Was the move easy ?

Doing 10 000 clients the cpanel way with all services
on one box would be to put it mildly insane.

The way hsphere does it is truly scalable and works very well
for the use you mentioned here.
You would set up say 5 database servers.
a load balanced mail setup. about 30-40 web boxes.
It would be a very good setup. And, I believe cheaper than what cpanel could do. Tho, the startup costs for hsphere would be *huge*.

Hsphere if you have the money, and several servers. The best part is you can designate say... one mailserver, and a few database servers, and everything is auto-configged to use those servers. No need to run a mail server on every box, etc.

Originally posted by KDAWebServices
Personally, for that many customers I would say use HSphere, it's got integrated billing, trouble ticketing + KBase, and customer management and it also allows you to have finer grained control over packages and charges - With HSphere your customers can upgrade to extra transfer, web space etc. without your intervention and they get billed for it without your intervention too. Overall it's a much more automated system.

Thanks,

With 20 servers, what would happen if the hard drive on the main H-Sphere server died? All servers = dead?

By main HSphere server I assume you mean the control panel server? All the other servers would continue to function as if nothing had happened, the only thing that would change is that customers could no longer access their control panel to make any changes. But of course if one hard disk went wrong and it caused your main control panel server to go down then you want your head checking because you should know better than to run with one drive :)

Is H-sphere completely customizable ?

Can resellers bill thier own clients through H-sphere ?

Its *very* customizable, yes but the learning curve is steep.

Resellers can bill their own customers.

Also, hsphere is working towards XML/SOAP integration from what I have heard.

If I could get my hands on a H-sphere server, I'd really like to try my hand at customizing it. I tried to see how you could customize it from the demo's but I was having bad luck, plus it's late. :c( I looked at an h-sphere template site, but they really didn't show that much customization. I really want to see one jazzed! The orginal design that it comes with drives me nuts. :c)

Interesting post

Originally posted by whoppe
Doing 10 000 clients the cpanel way with all services
on one box would be to put it mildly insane.

The way hsphere does it is truly scalable and works very well
for the use you mentioned here.
You would set up say 5 database servers.
a load balanced mail setup. about 30-40 web boxes.
It would be a very good setup. And, I believe cheaper than what cpanel could do. Tho, the startup costs for hsphere would be *huge*.

We would never put 10,000 users on one server. If we'd use Cpanel we'd use about 25-30 servers.

If we'd use H-sphere you mentioned that we should use load balanced mail servers. Don't you think a dual Xeon server with lots of ram and drive space can handle all users ? We'd have a secondary mail server running as well.

I've heard of people doing the "single-server" install and not having any problems. They were running like an 800mhz pIII with 512mb of ram. Hsphere does require more power because it's driven using java, but the single server installation, from what i've heard, works flawlessly with up to 200 users. There are several different schemes you can use to setup your hsphere network. I use it and i love it.

Interesting thread guys. I'm going to check out HSphere now.

Also might i add that the hsphere support is by far the best i've receieved with anybody on the net. Submit an email if you're having problems, and literally 10 minutes later you'll notice a psoft employee logged on your server fixing the problem.

Ok i'm done boasting about hsphere.

Greetings:

We've had similar positive experience with Positive Software Support.

It is not always 10 minutes (sometimes); but almost always the same day unless you hit them with something towards the end of a Friday.

Then depending on the issue it will be Friday night, some time over the weekend, or Monday morning.

In any case, all answers has been within our time line expectations.

Thank you.

We also use HSphere and would recommend it to you. The way it's designed is quite good in my opinion. Karl (KDAWebServices) had brought up all very good points about HSphere.

I guess both hsphere and cpanel works fine and does the job. It's just that with HSphere:

- It supported FreeBSD when we had to make our decision long before CPanel had a FreeBSD version. We exclusively use FreeBSD on all our Unix servers.
- It supports Windows Hosting
- You get billing system and customer database all in one place (this is very important to us)
- You can login to customer's control panel (as if you are the customer) to check how they have configured a certain thing to be able to provide better support (not sure if cpanel allows this?)
- It supports postgresql (does cpanel do this?)
- It has documentations that works for me. Provides all the details on how to recompile apache, php, mysql and other subsystems for tweakability.
- Centralized upgrade procedure. Logon to one box, upgrade all the boxes (of course cpanel can auto upgrade individually but I think being centralized is better).
- The support is OK.
- Allows me to create my own sign up form - but it has its own built in form as well.
- Supports Shared SSL Certificate across your entire web servers. Easy installation and deployment.

There are many more reasons.

Hope this helps.

I must say the only downside to using hsphere is the complicated interface. It's a little cryptic to a new user, but once you understand how it works, it's easy.

me, being a BSD monkey loves hsphere because it is suggested to run on FreeBSD.

ok i'm REALLY done now.

Originally posted by itek-hosting
I must say the only downside to using hsphere is the complicated interface. It's a little cryptic to a new user, but once you understand how it works, it's easy.

me, being a BSD monkey loves hsphere because it is suggested to run on FreeBSD.

ok i'm REALLY done now.

For people used to CPanel maybe yes, but for people who aren't used to anything, I suspect the learning curve will be the same. What do you think?

I also added the point about FreeBSD in my post above! :) almost forgot that #1 reason why we chose HSphere too :)

I think the majority rules. Hsphere is simply....the best.

Greetings:

On the interface issue, we've found the Flash tutorials from http://www.demodemo.com/ to be extremely helpful.

The written documentation provided by Positive Software is also easy to follow 99% of the time.

Thank you.

Originally posted by dynamicnet
Greetings:

"Also, Hsphere doesn't allow you to create packages your resellers can resell. "

1. In the most current version, you can go into the reseller area, and create packages for them to resell.

2. In the near future, upcoming version, you can create packages your reseller can resell easier.

Thank you.

Hi dynamicnet :)

Are you sure in the upcoming version PSoft will add this? How about restricting the resellers to only sell the added packages and can not create their own ones? I need this as soon as possible ...

Regards,
Zaki

Greetings:

"Are you sure in the upcoming version PSoft will add this? How about restricting the resellers to only sell the added packages and can not create their own ones? I need this as soon as possible ..."

1. Igor stated they would be adding this feature -- to be able to create plans for resellers to sell, but not change the plan features.

2. There was no release date mentioned.

Thank you.

I've never used ModernBill, but I'm starting out with cPanel+phpManager which allows for the staff members to see what server a client is located on just by selecting that client from the list. With very little effort, if you know PHP, you could make a search feature that checks taht database. I'm sure ModernBillis a lot more advanced than phpManager and will most likely have this feature too.

I just wanted to give my experience on H-Sphere. I'm running a single server setup, and have been doing so for about a year. For the most part it is a great program and does everything it's supposed to.

However, lately I've been kind of feeling like people at PSoft have a bad attitude and I'm getting uncomfortable with situations that should not be such a big deal to correct. A lot more lately their support accuses me of modifying something when I *never* modify anything. Or they just tell me how to restart a service, such as Site Studio. Well in that Site Studio example, I had already stated that I knew how to fix it and it was happening about once a day.

Another really big annoyance is they won't get rid of "ezmlm" the mailing list software that they use. This software does not allow users to easily create a "newsletter" style mailing list, and even worse you can not respond to a message in a mailing list by simply clicking Reply, as any other mailing list software I've ever seen does. They're response was "we do not write ezmlm software". True, but they CHOSE it.

It's just the little stuff that adds up and makes me frustrated, biggest being their attitude lately. Also you need to put *a lot* of extra effort into security, as this is not something they designed their software to handle much. If I had to do it over again, I would perhaps go with Ensim and Modernbill. The reason why I say Ensim over CPanel is it appears to be the most secure CP available. Also it has the most features if you want to scale up to Virtual Private Servers and large data centers with ServerXchange. However, ServerXchange is Very expensive.

Thanks,

Neofree

Oh and I forgot another big annoyance:

They're sign up e-mails *suck*. (The e-mails sent to new customers after signing up.)

You can change them only by modifying a file on the system, but this effects all users, even resellers. They keep offering a way to do it from control panel but it never happens. This can't be that hard to do. And how is it they have someone who is capable of making a professional looking website (psoft.net), but almost always has hard time writing the texts that are in the control panel itself.

Again, just the little things that add up frustrate me.

Neofree

*/ in a satanic chant

H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere! H-Sphere!

:D

I have been using their software for past 6 months now , and for me support has been great . I also love the varioous features it provides , and so do my customers :)

Hsphere customer for 18 months now, not enough space on WHT's hard drive for the praise :)

I used H-Sphere about two years ago but had some troubles so never used it anymore since then. I'd like to know how much they've been improved, especially with the GUI. Anyone has a live demo with a cool H-Sphere skin?

So far I've been using CPanel and Plesk on all my boxes, love them very much! :D

Psoft support is really great. And also Psoft guys listen to hosts and keep improving HSphere and adding new features to it.

sitestudio is a definet plus to hsphere also. so easy to use for new users and nice to advertise.

Is there any ecommerce functionality built into sitestudio ?

No, not yet, but they are going to add ecommerce features to Site Studio as well.

Greetings:

"Is there any ecommerce functionality built into sitestudio ?"

As answered, "no;" but H-Sphere allows you to provide OsCommerce to your customers and resellers.

Check out http://www.oscommerce.com/

Take care.

Oscommerce has been integrated into HSphere but not Site Studio.

The earlier complaints about PSoft support's "we didn't write that" are things we ran into every few months as well. That said, I'm about to start a new decent-sized company, and we'll be choosing HSphere hands down :)

J

I run a web development, web hosting company in Australia.

I've currently got a reseller plan with Vortech using H-Sphere for my web hosting.
http://www.matrixreseller.com/plans/index.php

While I very much like H-Sphere, I'm not convinced that Vortech are the best company to use.

I'm looking for a reseller program I make use of, and can provide both UNIX and Windows solutions to my clients - as well as Cold Fusion.

Can anyone recommend a good reseller?

At the moment I'm looking at http://www.webhosting.net/6321.html (bases their disk space on allocation not usage)
or http://www.genuvia.net/reseller.asp (bases their disk space on usage not allocation).

Genuvia also has ColdFusion
where as Webhosting.net doesn't.
This is something for me to take into account, as some of my clients require this.

many thanks for any assistance.

Barnaby De Palma

Don't know if you can find anyone really "Better" than Matrix. They are probably one of the largest resellers of HSphere. All host have problems.

Oh, and HSphere has pre-released their VPS software!

Thanks for the comments
and what is their VPS software?
What does that do?

Prereleased? It's part of the latest stable build, isn't it?

Oh, and HSphere has pre-released their VPS software!

What's that? Never heard.

All host have problems.

What problems? What do you mean?

Originally posted by Jeremy W.
Prereleased? It's part of the latest stable build, isn't it?

Nope, it's the new beta.
They want people to try it out on non-production servers.

Originally posted by 2gmc
What's that? Never heard.

VPS == Virtual Private Servers

It's basically like taking a server and "splitting" it up, so it acts like multiple servers, each with their own management, but they actually share the hard drive and CPU, and so forth.

Greetings:

See http://www.psoft.net/promo/vps.html

Take care.

My hosting companies are leaving the CPanel and WHM combo and going solely with HSphere. The integrated site builder, billing, ticket system, and the upcoming VDS system simply ROCKS!

CPanel has poor to little support from my experience and are slow to resolve imminent bugs in their software.

Go with PSoft - You will be very happy that you did!

Hi guys,

I sent an email to psoft yesterday with some questions about their product and haven't recieved a response yet. I was wondering if maybe somebody here could help answer some of these questions?


Hi, I have been watching your product for quite some time now and I am thinking about buying some licenses. I have a couple of questions though:

1. do I get any kind of free upgrades for xx amount of time after I purchase?

2. If I decide that I don't want to pay the 20% per user license after spending the money to buy the licenses, but a year from now I want to upgrade, can I pay the 20% and get the current version? Your licenses are pretty expensive when you already have a customer base of any size so I am looking for a way to spread out the cost.

3. On that note, do you guys have any kind of payment plan where I can spread the cost of my licenses over a few month period or something?

4. Do you have any kind of jail in place for users where they cannot go beyond their home directory?

5. Do you have any way to limit the Linux commands such as wget, etc that they are allowed to use?

6. As I understand it, a user can use a cgi script to emulate an SSH terminal. Will they still be boxed in under that type of script?

7. Do you have any plans to add to or have some kind of structure in place for us to add to your one click install for cgi scripts? Actually, I know you allow people to change the look and feel of the panel, but from an administrator's standpoint I would like to be able to add my own custom links to the control panel to run custom scripts. Is this possible/complicated?

8. I understand that you have a reseller program. Can I sell licenses to myself and if so can I have them count towards the 500 license quota for the year that you have in place? What penalties do you have in place for if I do not reach the 500 mark for the year?

I am coming from Ensim and I love their security and have actually grown kind of paranoid about hosting. I really love your panel though from what I've seen and I think it will be a value to my hosting business.

Thanks in advance for helping me work through these issues and hopefully I can begin to use your panel very soon.

Jon

1. do I get any kind of free upgrades for xx amount of time after I purchase?

Free upgrades are for lifetime as far as I know. You pay by the number of accounts, and you pay more if you get more accounts.

Accounts are sold in 50 or 100 blocks.


2. If I decide that I don't want to pay the 20% per user license after spending the money to buy the licenses, but a year from now I want to upgrade, can I pay the 20% and get the current version? Your licenses are pretty expensive when you already have a customer base of any size so I am looking for a way to spread out the cost.


The 20% is for premium support and you don't have to even pay for this to get basic support / help from psoft.

3. On that note, do you guys have any kind of payment plan where I can spread the cost of my licenses over a few month period or something?


They don't, as far as I know. I'd recommend just getting 50 account license to start with. Some resellers (including us) will allow this.

4. Do you have any kind of jail in place for users where they cannot go beyond their home directory?

No. You need to properly secure your box, chmod as necessary. We use FreeBSD and can limit users ability / memory usage / processes etc, so they can't see critical files (due to chmod), they can't run fork bomb or hog our whole server by using up memory.

5. Do you have any way to limit the Linux commands such as wget, etc that they are allowed to use?

This is just a simple chmod. Standard unix stuff. Yes it's doable.

6. As I understand it, a user can use a cgi script to emulate an SSH terminal. Will they still be boxed in under that type of script?

They will have no more privilege than if they connect through ssh directly, as CGI is run as user through suexec.

php runs as apache so it has a different security scope, however it's not too bad. Same as cpanel or anything else.


7. Do you have any plans to add to or have some kind of structure in place for us to add to your one click install for cgi scripts?

This is probably possible but not very easy to do. They have a "skeleton" directory from which an account get created. To fully interface this with the control panel is not currently possible.

That above assumes you mean a custom additional cgi scripts that you wish to provide from the control panel.

hsphere itself comes with variuos add-on scripts: counter, guestbook, web chat, phpbb2, oscommerce all of which can be turned on by the customers through their control panel.



Actually, I know you allow people to change the look and feel of the panel, but from an administrator's standpoint I would like to be able to add my own custom links to the control panel to run custom scripts. Is this possible/complicated?


This is possible, but complicated.


8. I understand that you have a reseller program. Can I sell licenses to myself and if so can I have them count towards the 500 license quota for the year that you have in place? What penalties do you have in place for if I do not reach the 500 mark for the year?

You can sell licenses to yourself as for penalties... not sure.. what happens if you don't fulfil the quota.


I hope that helps.

Actually, that helps a great deal. Thank you.

A couple of comments/questions...

1. Regarding the licensing and upgrades, the web site states that the fee is a one time fee per user btu then when it talks about the 20% support fee it states the following: "This fee covers free technical support coverage & free upgrades for a year" - Note the phrase "free upgrades for a year." That si what confused me and what I am trying to settle before purchasing.

2. Coming from Ensim, they had the chroot environment in place for you. Are there any good resources out there that would help me understand (easily...) how to set up a chroot environment properly? Security is a major concern of mine and I want it done right, for obvious reasons, so any help is very much appreciated.

3. Is there any way to get 75 user licenses? 50 is not enough but 100 is slightly out of my range at the moment. What about if I signed up as a reseller of theirs, would they allow me to sell myself a pack of 75 licenses?

Thanks for your help. H-Sphere look like a great product, it's just hard when you are still somewhat green in the industry, if you know what I mean.

Jon

1. I can say that you'll get free upgrades forever without paying for support fee. The upgrades are even publicly downloadable anyway.

2. chroot - there's no such easy way. As I explained above, proper chmod and system protection (regardless of whether you run hsphere for web hosting or run a unix shell server at a university, the same security precautions should be taken)

3. As far as I know psoft sells minimum of 100 licenses for $4.5 each. We will sell you 75 licenses at lower price - pm me if you want to know more.

Other resellers may also give you 75 licenses although price varies.

The advantage of getting one from a reseller is you get second "support" from the reseller in case if you want to ask questions although ultimately psoft will be the main support.

cheers

I'm a reseller for Vortech/hsphere and I find it extremely useful to offer an automated sign up for a free hosting trial.

My problem with hsphere is the $4 licence fee for each client. If i set hsphere to allow free trials, I definitely get more customers, but for each new customers I get severall unused free trials, either from abusive people or from mistakes.

That means for each genuine customer that I sign up, I'm being charged 4,8, 12 or $16 or more in licence fees for duff free trials.
I can't get refunded for this.

I don't see how I can get around this problem with hsphere.

I think with a Cpanel/Modernbill set up there is a cap on the total licence fee, but not with hspere. So maybe I should get a cpanel/modernbill setup.

Anybody got any suggestions/comments?

don't offer trial :)
We found that 99% of trial-ers are spammers or warez dump...

offer money back guarantee instead.

Originally posted by govereeter
I think with a Cpanel/Modernbill set up there is a cap on the total licence fee, but not with hspere. So maybe I should get a cpanel/modernbill setup.

Anybody got any suggestions/comments?

HSphere can be set up to do this too. It's just perhaps your plan that isn't being set to this scheme

Greetings:

H-Sphere resellers can sell blocks less than 100. Some resellers will sell blocks at their cost if you co-locate or rent dedicated servers through them.

There are H-Sphere resellers that are comfortable with the system to help you migrate to H-Sphere, and get set up so you are secure and can offer a reliable hosting service.

The initial license fee does cover free upgrades and free basic support for one year.

The free basic support appears to be extremely good to the point where our company doesn't know what more Positive Software can do in terms of "premium" support. Meaning, their basic support is like premium support from other companies.

H-Sphere account licenses are re-usable. So when a customer cancels all of their services associated with their user id, you get the license back to use with another customer.

H-Sphere also uses this feature for Miva and other 3rd party licenses you install through their system. The re-use ability means you minimize your costs and maximize your revenues.

After the 1st year, you have the option of paying 20% based on the licenses you have installed for free upgrades and support. I think “true” premium support is extra per http://www.psoft.net/h_sphere2_pricing.html.

Positive Software has extremely reasonable pricing if you ever need to go on a time and material basis.

H-Sphere provides a control mechanism which allows the provider to provide SSH or not provide it. If providing SSH, to allow users to request it, and then for the support department of the provider to grant it or not grant it on a case-by-case basis. Their system even allows you to get revenue from your customers who want SSH access, should you want to give it to them.

H-Sphere does come with a number of pre-installed CGI scripts including a PHP-based forum – phpBB – that users can install with a click of a button, and potentially filling in a form.

Lastly, we work with Ensim and have done integration work for Ensim customers. We have found H-Sphere to be as secure as Ensim, and security updates and patches to come out as fast (if not faster) than Ensim.

Thank you.

This statement interests me on sooo many levels beign a current Ensim user myself and looking to switch. I'll break it up and address my questions...


Lastly, we work with Ensim and have done integration work for Ensim customers.


1. How would you recommend that I switch from Ensim to H-Sphere for a single box install? I need to be able to bring my current clients over quickly and as easily as possible without loss of data, web or email or otherwise...


We have found H-Sphere to be as secure as Ensim,


2. Can you expand on that? Ensim boxes in each site so that they can not go outside of their own directory and even look around. Because of this I am more willing to give out SSH access to clients who request it because they are boxed in and they are limited on what linux commands they can run. How does H-Sphere compare to this and what could I do to have the same comfort on an H-Sphere system?


and security updates and patches to come out as fast (if not faster) than Ensim.


3. Well, Ensim has only recently started providing semiquick updates to their software. Now they are committed to a 10 day policy after the exploit is patched by Redhat or whatever the case may be. I've heard many complain that even 10 days is too long for an exploit to be patched. What, if any, committment or policy does H-sphere have in this area? Anybody know?



I'm really looking at H-Sphere seriously after Ensim's 3.5 version came out and the associated craziness with that. But, I will say that Ensim has been good to me with security and so I am looking at this seriously. Any other comments, information is moch appreciated.

Jon

I must say: H-Sphere is NOT as secure as Ensim!!

1. I've been hacked
2. It's easy to see other peoples files with CGI and you can cd .. to see who else is on server.
3. PHP does not run in Safe mode
4. Updates are poorly managed by PSoft, you will need to do them yourself
5. Shell has access to way more commands
6. Ensim automates the install process making sure every Ensim server is loaded the same.
7. Check out Ensim's Virtua File system feature in Ensim Pro, it chroot's each users folders.
8. PHP is ran as suexec by default

Do I need to go on? We are seriously considering switching to Ensim because of H-Sphere's lack of security and little bugs here and there they will never fix or blame somoeone else on.

Neofree

To be fair, if you check out Rackshack's forum, which is known to be the biggest Ensim forum around, you will find that Ensim hasn't done everything they could have to be secure either. In fact, on Ensim 3.1 I had to install a hack provided by one of the users there in order to chroot cgi scripts as they were left wide open, even though the shell was chrooted.

So, Ensim is not the solve all to security. But I know that they have some proprietary stuff in place that helps a lot. What i wonder is if it is possible to do that same thing on H-Sphere by the admin? I have read on the H-sphere web site that they have a jail implementation now, which I admit still isn't the best, but it's a step in the right direction. I wonder how possible it is for the admin to secure it further chrooting each user to their home directory.

I actually think that it would work better on H-Sphere as each user can have their domains under their one user account whereas if you have a user on Ensim and you box them in then they cannot use scripts from their other sites or anything. It seems like H-Sphere has put more thought into that implementation.

Just a few observations....

Jon

H-Sphere doesn't have jail support. And the only type of jail support coming is for FreeBSD, and Igor just said it will probably be a year before FreeBSD gets jail working good enough, and then Psoft would just add support in the panel. But that's only FreeBSD, not RedHat.

Well, every company is going to have their faults. But I wonder how much more secure WEBppliance Pro is since one of the biggest things they are saying about this new version is the security enchancements.

Another thing is that Ensim just looks more professional. Although I agree with others that their skin could of looked a bit better, it does look better then what they had before. And more importantly I am talking about spelling erros/typoes/grammitcal errors that I just can't beleive PSoft never fixed over a year of using their software. Sure minor, but it looks bad to customers and sure I can fix them, but every update I'd have to fix it again since the templates get overwritten. And I wouldn't stop them from getting overwritten because then they wouldn't have updates in them.

Also, ModernBill looks so much nicer then H-Sphere's billing system. Plus it supports billing of dedicated servers and VPS, which is where our business is moving. And about Site Studio, I have one customer using it, it's my DAD. I offered to write his site for him. Problem solved.

You get what you pay for, I'd much rather pay for modules (pick my own billing, pick my own panel, pick add-ons) then get an all in one solution where you can't upgrade easily and things aren't as good as they could of been. If anyone remembers, in the BBS days people went with simular issues with BBS software. Oh and an even bigger example. Why get an integrated motherboard? What if you want to upgrade the video card? :)

Thanks,

Neofree

Greetings Doobla:

“How would you recommend that I switch from Ensim to H-Sphere for a single box install?”

That’s the type of consulting we do for a living <smile>.

I said => We have found H-Sphere to be as secure as Ensim.

“Can you expand on that? Ensim boxes in each site so that they can not go outside of their own directory and even look around.”

If you are looking at it from an SSH-only perspective, then H-Sphere’s VPS product will match Ensim from a security perspective.

Otherwise, from a non-SSH perspective, H-Sphere is as secure or more secure than Ensim.

“Ensim has only recently started providing semiquick updates to their software. Now they are committed to a 10 day policy”

Our personal policy is within three business days. I don’t know if H-Sphere has a published policy, but I’ve seen them provide most updates within that time frame.

==

Greetings Neofree:

“I've been hacked”

And your point? There is no such thing as a hack-free box unless you put it into a sealed room, and don’t connect it to a network.

“PHP does not run in Safe mode”

Funny, it does on our H-Sphere servers.

“Updates are poorly managed by PSoft, you will need to do them yourself”

You must be thinking of a different company than Positive Software as they have provided all of the updates to the software on our servers within the same business day of requesting the update at no charge.

“Shell has access to way more commands”

That’s Unix for you <smile>.

“Do I need to go on?”

Only if you want to keep digging <smile>.

Seriously, as you put it in your own words, “Well, every company is going to have their faults.”

Thank you.

Well that was kind of rude. But hey here goes:

>“PHP does not run in Safe mode”
>
>Funny, it does on our H-Sphere servers.

Are you running 4.3.1? If not you're still running that really crappy WebShell. And if you are then you are not running in safe mode because WebShell3 requires it to be off. And another brilliant mistake they made is not to upgrade IMP also to keep up with PHP 4.3.1. Now I get errors at the top of the page, their answer to me was upgrade to CVS version. Yeah Right. They shouldn't of gone to PHP 4.3.1 unless they tested everything. And they shouldn't of released a version of WebShell that requires PHP safe mode to be turned off, as it is going to be the standard version that everyone will wind up using.

>If you are looking at it from an SSH-only perspective, then H-
>Sphere’s VPS product will match Ensim from a security
>perspective.
>
>
>Otherwise, from a non-SSH perspective, H-Sphere is as secure
>or more secure than Ensim.

Can you explain how you came to this conclusion? Positive Software has said themselves that it is still possible to read other peoples folders through CGI.

And have you read Ensim's site? They say that their software does protect CGI from seeing other sites, so no, it's not just SSH.

And H-Sphere VPS is just in a first Beta. Sure it has potential, and sure it may eventually bring more security to the whole server. But it doesnt make me feel any more comfortable about the security within the VPS, and it's features are still way behind that of Ensim or SWSoft.

>“Updates are poorly managed by PSoft, you will need to do
>them yourself”
>
>You must be thinking of a different company than Positive
>Software as they have provided all of the updates to the
>software on our servers within the same business day of
>requesting the update at no charge.

For the things they say they take care of, like OpenSSL, Apache, PHP, etc, sure they manage those. But everything else, including the OS kernel you're on your own. With Ensim you get everything done, fully managed. Sure you may wait a little while longer then RedHat releases the fixes, but the whole design of Ensim is much more secure from the beginning. With 10 day commitment, that should bring them as good as H-Sphere. People have had to remind PSoft that security alerts are out there in their forums.

>“Shell has access to way more commands”
>
>That’s Unix for you <smile>.

Sure but why not limit but only the ones they will actually need and decrease security wholes. Makes since to me anyway.

The overall point it is Yes it is Possible to secure H-Sphere boxes on your own and make them just as secure. But this is if you do it yourself. If you don't understand how to do it or if you don't have the time to do it, you are left with an easy to hack system. I wont tell you the amount of rootkits I have found on my system because of the false impression I got that H-Sphere/PSoft manages security issues.

Neofree

Greetings Neofree:

I apologize if you felt my reply was rude; you were making statements that as if they applied to the universe <smile> rather than just your own experiences which may or may not coincide with the experiences of others.

“Are you running 4.3.1?”

Yes.

“Positive Software has said themselves that it is still possible to read other peoples folders through CGI.”

If you have system administrators installing Ensim and H-Sphere, both are secure.

Given that Positive Software allows you to recompile the components (PHP for example) yourself while Ensim forces you to wait until they provide things, I believe it is more secure.

“People have had to remind PSoft that security alerts are out there in their forums.”

Funny, I continue to think we are talking about separate companies, Neofree.

You stated they don’t install updates, and we get them within one business day of requesting.

Then you state the above, when all you have to do is go to http://www.psoft.net/ to see the update posts as well as be on their security update list to get such notices via email.

“Sure but why not limit but only the ones they will actually need and decrease security wholes.”

That’s what system administration is about <smile>.

On the serious note, I believe any provider should have system administrators (in house or outsourced) who can set things up correctly without relying on a company whose core focus is in another area.

Take care.

>I apologize if you felt my reply was rude; you were making
>statements that as if they applied to the universe <smile>
>rather than just your own experiences which may or may not
>coincide with the experiences of others.
>

Yes I am making my opinions and comments available to others. I agree that H-Sphere is a good program with a lot of features a great value. But I do not think it is as secure as you claim it is.

>If you have system administrators installing Ensim and H-
>Sphere, both are secure.

My system was configured by PSoft and my server provider. For the most part it has worked out good, except for security and a few things that PSoft never wants to fix or blame on me or one of their software vendors.

>Given that Positive Software allows you to recompile the
>components (PHP for example) yourself while Ensim forces you
>to wait until they provide things, I believe it is more secure.

I agree it's easier to recompile things for H-Sphere, but an advanced admin/developer should be able to do the same for Ensim also. The point of Ensim's way is standardation and automation. When you start having many servers, it's easier to maintain them if they are all standardized and done in a controlled fashion.

>“People have had to remind PSoft that security alerts are out
>there in their forums.”
>
>Funny, I continue to think we are talking about separate
>companies, Neofree.

I've seen this happen at least once. And the mailing list used to never be used right after it came out until recently. And in the time I have been with H-Sphere (a little over a year now) they have done a few updates to OpenSSL, PHP, and Apache. Where as about once a week I am getting new updates from RedHat's up2date, not PSoft. Sure I know that Ensim isn't doing this either, but they have already realeased a 70MB update to their just released Ensim Pro, with another right around the corner.

>You stated they don’t install updates, and we get them within
>one business day of requesting.

I've always done updates myself. PSoft usually takes 24 hours to do something, but that is not bad, I'm not complaining here. If I put in a request early morning, then yeah it sometimes gets fixed same day.

>Then you state the above, when all you have to do is go to
>http://www.psoft.net/ to see the update posts as well as be on
>their security update list to get such notices via email.

I see the updates and apply them as soon as they come out. But trust me my box would be a lot more insecure if I hadn't also managed other updates myself.

>On the serious note, I believe any provider should have system
>administrators (in house or outsourced) who can set things up
>correctly without relying on a company whose core focus is in
>another area.

I agree 100%. But doesn't it make since to start off with something that is more secure in the first place? This gives you something more solid to work from. I really think that H-Sphere has a lot of potential and is by far the best value. I just don't think that it is as stable and secure as it needs to be, and plus some of it is just sloppy, combersome and confusing. Most of my customers don't understand all the control they have and DON'T WANT TO. They want it to be simple. We are here to help them do more difficult tasks.

I vote for hsphere :D

I think it is like comparing apples to oranges IMHO

David

So what do people think about hspere in the new year 2004? I hear so much good stuff about it

Greetings:

We've been running H-Sphere for approximately 18 months now.

It is extremely secure (granted, you do need to know security; but there are free how-to's).

Support has and continues to be awesome. The community forum is filled with very helpful, friendly people.

H-Sphere is extremely well documented - http://www.psoft.net/HSdocumentation/

Overall, our operating costs for hosting are down and very much under control thanks to H-Sphere.

Thank you.

I stand by most of my comments. I do not think trusting security to one of Positive Software's customers is a proper way to do business, but that's only my opinion.

I otherwise think that Positive Software has made a lot of improvement on their upcoming version. I may even be convinced it's the best panel some day if they take security more seriously.

Thanks,

Neofree

Originally posted by twrs
I used H-Sphere about two years ago but had some troubles so never used it anymore since then. I'd like to know how much they've been improved, especially with the GUI. Anyone has a live demo with a cool H-Sphere skin?

So far I've been using CPanel and Plesk on all my boxes, love them very much! :D


DITTO!

Greetings NeoFree:

I don't understand how you can stand by comments when there is proof the comments are incorrect.

You state PHP Safe Mode doesn't work on H-Sphere. It does work on H-Sphere.

You state H-Sphere is insecure. It is secure; and, if you are a security administrator, you can make H-Sphere even more secure than Ensim, Cpanel, or Plesk.

Thank you.

I've just moved from Plesk to Cpanel seems cool apart from the multi server management which cpanel doesnt have

Sorry, but that's not true.

Not only does cPanel support clustering, but they're already starting to obslolete some of their old systems in favor of the clustering system.

Thanks,

Neofree

Originally posted by neofree
Sorry, but that's not true.

Not only does cPanel support clustering, but they're already starting to obslolete some of their old systems in favor of the clustering system.

Thanks,

Neofree

It has some DNS issues with it on occasion though. Thats been my experience anyway.

dynamicnet:

You state PHP Safe Mode doesn't work on H-Sphere. It does work on H-Sphere.
I don't recall what this is and don't have time to figure it out now, so I'm not going to say anything about it.

You state H-Sphere is insecure. It is secure; and, if you are a security administrator, you can make H-Sphere even more secure than Ensim, Cpanel, or Plesk.

This is my biggest beef with H-Sphere. If I go to *YOUR* site and follow *YOUR* instructions I'll have a chance of being secure using H-Sphere. Positive Software should be making these efforts, and they should be built into the software. You should not have to be doing it for them. EVERY other major panel makes better efforts for security, including cPanel.

The thing is most H-Sphere hosts seem to forget that there is an entire SEA of small hosts out there. H-Sphere is infact the hardest to secure of the bunch. Most small hosts are far better off with cPanel, Ensim or Plesk as most efforts, such as hardening, are done in the basic install of these products.

It is my strong opinion that while all systems require active adminstration, the software needs to be more secure out of the box. Although no one will be 100% secure, they still need to make effort on the subject. The only effort I've seen recently by Positive Software is that they started to make a chroot/suexec environment that they never seemed to finish. There is so much more needed to be done, such as encrypting their DB for example.

Thanks,

Neofree

Greetings NeoFree:

"This is my biggest beef with H-Sphere. If I go to *YOUR* site and follow *YOUR* instructions I'll have a chance of being secure using H-Sphere. Positive Software should be making these efforts, and they should be built into the software. You should not have to be doing it for them. EVERY other major panel makes better efforts for security, including cPanel."

1. There are other sites, and other instructions.

2. You will be more secure with those, or similar, instructions applied than with Ensim.

3. WRONG. Most of the security measures are on the operating system with some tied to the applications.

As a security administrator, I don't need my hands tied because some one who is AWESOME at making a control panel decides they know security today!

One of the major reasons I love H-Sphere is the system gives me flexibility to apply my education and expertise and that of others in meaningful ways to have a more secure system.

For example, Dale Morin of Meridian Hosting and I have been collaborating on automated firewall and intrusion detection measures.

H-Sphere's current open frame work allows us to collaborate, and to come up with technology that makes H-Sphere even more secure.

“It is my strong opinion that while all systems require active administration”

Exactly, and such an administrator could read the well written documentation to set up PHP in Safe Mode on H-Sphere (that’s been in the H-Sphere documentation second for how long??). And such an administrator wouldn’t even need our how-to articles or if they would, could follow them.

Thank you.

Does HSPHERE still have that stupid problem where a user can delete his service domain?

Just curious if that issue was ever resolved.

Interesting how you dodged my issue. Positive Software should provide this support or documentation, not you or the others. When a program lacks in something, often the community steps in to help the weaknesses. But that doesn't mean they should be ignored.

You speak of designing your own security... But what that means to me is that H-Sphere systems worldwide will not have standard security measures. If Positive Software was to take initiative and secure the system more, many hosts wouldn't need to spend so much money designing security systems. Hosts could use tested methods, instead of every host out there basically being in a Beta status of security standards.

Thanks,

Neofree

Greetings NeoFree:

All, I can state is "sigh." ;-)

God Bless.

All I can say is that it's not the control panels job to secure your servers, if you can't do that yourself, then what can I say?

I am still interested in finding out if HSPHERE has repaired the problem with clients being able to delete the service domain and screwing up they account still exists.

Has this been fixed yet?

Anyone?

Originally posted by centrahost
I am still interested in finding out if HSPHERE has repaired the problem with clients being able to delete the service domain and screwing up they account still exists.

Has this been fixed yet?

Anyone?

I really don't understand what you are talking about.
Can user delete his domain - of course he can. And he can add it back again. It is multi-domain system.
It is like asking: was the bug where user delete files in his accounts was fixed?
Doesn't really make sence.

BTW: users don't have access to service domains. Service domains are for admins, to run 3rd level domains/instant aliases. You can have several of them, and you can delete them - if you don't need them any more.

Originally posted by iseletsk
I really don't understand what you are talking about.
Can user delete his domain - of course he can. And he can add it back again. It is multi-domain system.
It is like asking: was the bug where user delete files in his accounts was fixed?
Doesn't really make sence.

BTW: users don't have access to service domains. Service domains are for admins, to run 3rd level domains/instant aliases. You can have several of them, and you can delete them - if you don't need them any more.

It seems I recall resellers having the ability to delete thier primary service domain.

If that is not true than I stand corrected.

Your product has come along way since I purchased it in 2000. Maybe it's time for me to give it another serious look.

Thanks for clearing that up.

It's good to see psoft active on WHT.

Originally posted by centrahost
It seems I recall resellers having the ability to delete thier primary service domain.

If that is not true than I stand corrected.

Your product has come along way since I purchased it in 2000. Maybe it's time for me to give it another serious look.

Thanks for clearing that up.

It's good to see psoft active on WHT.
Oh, I don't even remember that bug :) It was cleaned up long time ago. I think the reseller side of our business (private label reseller component) is the most popular one at this moment.

Greetings Igor:

You and your team continue to do great work!

"I think the reseller side of our business (private label reseller component) is the most popular one at this moment."

It could be made even more popular if you allow a provider to have resellers who basically purchase pre-made plans at discounted prices where as those resellers are still private label to their customers.

Meaning, we -- the provider -- sell specific plans to resellers at discounted prices. Those resellers sell the same plan (as is feature wise) to their clients in a way their clients cannot see us.

NOTE: Yes, it has been discussed in the past; and I believe it is on the feature request list.

Thank you.

Yes, I hear a lot of that. Based on voting - it has pretty good chance to be included in 2.5. I don't know which one: dedicated servers billing/provisioning or pre-made plans will make it in the next release. Maybe both of them will.

Well... based on these poll results so far, It looks like it's time for me to reactivate my HSPHERE licenses! :D

Man I really like Cpanel, but I do want to take a look at hsphere. Sound like alot of people like Hsphere. It's just that I would always just here about Cpanel and not that much on Hsphere.

to neofree, would you considerate to sell you H-sphere licenses?

howdy,
I have been browsing this thread, and have to say, right now i don'd use cpanel nor h-sphere. And I originally started looking at new reseller plans and the control panels offered back about 3 months ago...read what I could on all the control panels, but before i could really get into the details of h-sphere, helm, ensim, i just really got attached to CPanel and Fantastico and I guess got suckered into the nice skins it had. What can i say, I'm a designer and looks mean alot to me. But... just recently, after really trying to get the scoop on CPanel and this one webbhost (reading forums exhaustively, googling, etc) that was offering CPanel, i got frustrated in reading all billing problems with ModernBill (this was on this one forum, and admittedly didn't research anywhere else on these problems), and all the problems with the DNS and having trouble setting up domains in CPanel (saying the weren't available to set up, etc), and just propogation in general...anyways, after i got tired of reading all this, i got nervous and started searching for other solutions again. Now that I know more of what's going on, H-Sphere looks REALLY good. Like everyone on this forum has said, I just don't think you can beat the all-in-one package that H-Sphere offers. I think I can finally breath easier cause i think h-Sphere is my ticket.! :-)

One minor question I have... Does H-Sphere offer anything like Fantastico (for CPanel)? And are there places anywhere that offer good looking skins for H-sphere.?

Wait for 2.4, it's got an absolutely brilliant skin, courtesy of Carlos.

abox:

I do not have any for sale. Presently I work with H-Sphere quite a bit still as I primarily work with whatever my customers want me to.

For this scale i'd stick with H-Sphere. Its multiserver support is far superior to cPanel, in my opinion atleast.

Originally posted by KDAWebServices
Wait for 2.4, it's got an absolutely brilliant skin, courtesy of Carlos.

I thought Everaldo did a skin for Hsphere. Can anyone confirm that?

Originally posted by centrahost
I thought Everaldo did a skin for Hsphere. Can anyone confirm that?
Yes, that is the case.

Originally posted by iseletsk
Yes, that is the case.

That's great. Where can I see it at? Everaldo is a talented artist.

Originally posted by centrahost
That's great. Where can I see it at? Everaldo is a talented artist.

http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?&threadid=244669

i wish there were an open source hsphere. It rocks.

Open source h-sphere would suck.. Open source is ok but in commercial world someone has to support it. When you buy h-sphere you are buying TWO things, the product and support. Both rock. Without the two together it'd suck.

since when is there no support for open source?

Honestly, I get more support from open source communities than I have with paid applications.

you can get support.. but can you get the support you need in a good time frame consistantly? sure you report a bug and someone in the open source community fixes it and wala fixed. but what if you need someone to do your install? or answer a bunch of howtos or answer a more advanced question then an open forum would do? and lets not forget... programmers need to make money to. i'm all for open source, there's a place for it. Linux is a perfect example. but it hasnt proven successful for a control panel.

well, i could do it myself, or I could hire someone. Just because it's open source, doesn't mean 1) you can't find the solution yourself, or 2) hire another person to do it for you (at a lower cost).