Hi,

I would like to start a small hosting service. I'm not interested in hosting hundreds of sites/customers, since I want to be sure that I can provide proper support (not to mention not overloading the server). I'm not planning on big advertising, I prefer to use my current contacts to establish hosting agreements, and possibly offer other value added services. If things go well, and I feel that I can handle a bigger load, I'll expand gradually.

Anyhow, even though I want to start off small, I want to do it right. I realize that there are some basics that are required:
- billing
- disk quota monitoring
- bandwidth monitoring
- control panel for user
- user's email admin (aliases, forwarding, etc)
- admin control panel
- user control panel
< Did I leave out anything? Am I on the right track? >

I don't want to invest a bundle. Is the above list possible to do with free scripts and software? How about for-pay software at a reasonable price? (I prefer PHP scripts if possible, but I'm open to other suggestions.)

I have a ded server with Red Hat 7.1. Perhaps I already have most or all of the software I need on my system and don't even know it?

Any advice concerning required software or scripts would be greatly appreciated. Any other insights are also welcome.

Thanks in advance.

webCP (http://webcp.can-host.com) -->


< Did I leave out anything? Am I on the right track? >
- Reseller Control Panel
- File manager
- DNS managment
- Statistics
- Auto install of some free scripts (coming in 0.5 I think)
- Choose to give PHP, ASP, CGI-BIN, MySQL ... to user
- SSL Support
- Billing / Support system
- Client CP Template

hmm, hope that I have not forgot anything ;)

just check out the webCP (http://webcp.can-host.com) site

Originally posted by NORRITT
just check out the webCP (http://webcp.can-host.com) site Thanks. But is it usable? This is from their web site:
Please note that THIS IS NOT A PRODUCTION VERSION. The files given here DO NOT CONTAIN any type of INSTALLATION SCRIPT. If you need help with it, use our mailing list (see above) & search through the [growing] archive.
Does this mean that it's only an experimental version and it may or may not work? Or does this just mean that the installation may be a bit difficult?

Anyone have experience with this? I'm currently using webmin on my box. How does webcp compare? Seems that webmin lacks in a number of areas for web hosting. It's fine for admin work, but I haven't been able to figure out how to use it for all the hosting functions. Maybe I'm just stupid?

Thanks

My suggestion would be to invest on something like cpanel or plesk. This would make your life as well as your clients life easier. Also, I feel that all these control panels are reall worth the price tag they offer.

free is not always the best solution.

Have a great ay :)
regards
amar

Originally posted by Abu Mami
Thanks. But is it usable? This is from their web site:

Does this mean that it's only an experimental version and it may or may not work? Or does this just mean that the installation may be a bit difficult?

Anyone have experience with this? I'm currently using webmin on my box. How does webcp compare? Seems that webmin lacks in a number of areas for web hosting. It's fine for admin work, but I haven't been able to figure out how to use it for all the hosting functions. Maybe I'm just stupid?

Thanks

I have just installed webcp a few days ago. The installation could take you some time, but its possible. There is some very impressive features, but also some big obmissions. I wasn't able to get it up and running completely to the point of hosting. But I did manage to access the panel and create some domains.

You have to understand, webmin is primarily used for admin work , while webcp is hosting centric. Webmin is very useful as an admin tool, but doesn't do hosting much. Webcp is good at hosting, but is currently in development.

Peter

What do you think about ensim? it seems to be quite good but I'm not sure if it's best to choose plesk or ensim (ensim being the cheepest). At the moment I've got a raq and I use the autosetup script + a small php script that sends all the info from 2checkout to the control pannel, would I be able to do the same with ensim , it says somewhere something about having a commandline function...

Originally posted by ckpeter
You have to understand, webmin is primarily used for admin work , while webcp is hosting centric. Webmin is very useful as an admin tool, but doesn't do hosting much. Webcp is good at hosting, but is currently in development.
Peter I do understand. That's pretty much the reason I was looking for some other way to control the hosting. Webmin lets me do pretty much what I need to get done for my own purposes and it lets me set up accounts, but it's certainly not automatic.

If I want to be serious about hosting, I realize that I need some way to easily control and monitor the environment. Many issues are still unclear: how to keep track of disk and bandwidth quota, ensuring that the sites don't have illegal material (warez, xxx, etc), and so on.

It looks like webcp is pretty close, but not ready for prime time yet.

Thanks.