Now that I got your attention, No I am not stating Cpanel sucks, the title is idential to a thread that is in the cpanel forums, under the thread "Cpanel sucks!" started by Nick Koston, which is the primary developer of CPanel. He asked "what would you improve on cpanel in its current state"

Heres what I wrote, which got deleted by someone that seemed to not like my suggestions, because I did not save the post locally, I am forced to go off what is in my head, so this thread below is not word for word but cuts it close on the basics of my post. I have also added alot that has come to mind as I type this.

It just makes me upset how I posted a some simple honest suggestions to the cpanel team and they turn around and delete my post without justification, if you cant take the heat, get out of the kitchen, or they deleted my thread because it had so much justification that they would never allow such a post in their forums.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

First off I would change the way you handle support issues, you rely way to much on the distributors, which on some instances, know less about the problem then you do. I had to leave Burst for another distributor because Burst for one, can take up to 1 week to reply to a ticket, in which by the time they answer, the issue is already closed. I am not sure why you bother having AIM...YAHOO...etc when you are never on, even when I was with burst, which you are a burst employee, you still wouldn't answer emails...answer ims, I think I just IM you on a daily basis just to amuse myself.

Now you are probly asking, (and as your post implied that was put in the place of mine)


Please refrain from making post about lack of support when you do have have a support contract with DarkORB... DarkORB does provide limited free support via email and AIM, however this support is limited. We will not fix every single problem on your server. Cpanel is not a replacement for a sysadmin; its only there to make things easier. I'm really sick of people who think it is....you know who you are.


Who ever said I was contacting Darkorb for total support? I can handle my servers quite well and I think I do a great job of managing my network. The problems are CPANEL RELATED, If the distributor has no clue, then who do you turn to? the makers right? Great example is a new car, if its got problems, you bring it to the "distributor" you got it from, in this case the local car salesmen's service shop, if they cant fix it, they will contact (Ford) directly, the problem is, Your a one man team with 5 or more distributors, alot of these companies TELL ME to contact you DIRECTLY. "We can only assist with basic issues when it comes to cpanel, you will need to contact Darkorb directly" is a DIRECT QUOTE FROM BURST.NET on a issue with bind that was failing every hour, I posted a response to another post that was from SEPTEMBER 2001, where other cpanel hosts experienced the SAME problem, there was NEVER a response from Darkorb on it, all the customers of cpanel basically had to help each other, still to this day, I still have servers that I have set a cron on to autorestart because I go to bed in fear that I wake up the next morning and bind having failed and checkservd did not automatically restart the service.

You can see "how do I fix this...how do I do that" plastered ALL OVER the cpanel forums area. Take a hint.

Second why bother submitting bug reports, sending emails when they are going to sit there in bugzilla for 1-2 months without a reply OR when they are replied to, nothings stated on why the bug was closed other then "IT WORKS FOR ME" well, it may work for you, but each machine is different, stand in case, Changing the root MySQL password in WHM, with each server, I had a problem, these were all different servers, in different NOCs, with different providers, I would also get an ERROR 145 (gezz I even remember it in my head...)

Third, the pricing, I would see a great option to add such pricing where I can pay a 1 time fee, and pay extra for support options. I see other panels such as HostGUI coming out with a one time fee, as I stated in other posts on WHT, I will defiantly be dropping cpanel down the road and moving to a more stable comparable panel such as HostGUI.

Forth, give us a CLUE on what you change, will change or have changed, I see this comment is sorta useless now as it looks like you are finally using it, it has been in more or less terms sporadic. There was one post in there dated 9/13/01 then finally almost 2-3 months later, there was finally another update. Now it looks as if your finally posted what has and has not changed, there's way to many "has this been incorporated yet" posts in the forums.

Cpanel to Cpanel move scripts. Of all companies, Cobalt seen all the ($)#_$# going on in their user forums about moving a raq to raq, they finally bit the bullet and created a set of scripts that a person/host can follow to move a server from one raq to another, it was a godsend when they created the scripts. I have posted numerous times in WHT and Cpanel about even hiring someone to create such scripts, to no avail. But thanks to CRego3D, we have at least some clue on what files/ folders to move. (thanks CRego!!)

If you don't want to backup your software, then get out of the business. We along with 2,000 other hosts or more rely on cpanel, but when there's a problem, we have NO ONE to turn to.

5 months ago, I had a resellers customer hosting illegal content, files being downloaded by httpd, we got cpanel notices that the user reached 80% of their allocated bandwidth and unknowingly what the customer was doing, we figured it was a popular website, well after a week, we were contacted by our upline, the site had burst twice the normal levels, after looking at cpanel, it had the capped bandwidth there, and it stated the user used 600 gigs of bandwidth in 1 week.

Sure its our fault for not realizing what was happening, but heres a classic example of cpanel failing. Can I ask, why have a feature when it doesn't work? I can go on and on but I think I ranted enough.

Now come all the flames and bad mouthing.....

What i am very happy to see is finally new panels that can either equal or outpreform Cpanel in terms of support, pricing and stablitly, such as HostGUI, and AUCC. HostGUI looks like its in a league of its own, and by the high standards that everyone at Jag has set, you could even say HostGUI will be in a league of its own. One major plus that I see is that you can get HostGUI for free, JagPC will install it all any of their dedicated and colocation clients free of charge. It will costs if its used outside of our network.

I would like to say good luck to both Jag and Willam and hope that both of you have the qualitys of support, and stablity that us hosts need today in a control panel.

AlaskanWolf,
Well, what you are posting is so explosive, cpanel forum just can't let it stay there.

And no, its not affair/right/good, but your wording make them look terrible. And they have no choice.

On the other hand, even though I am not a cpanel user, I have to say the issues you raised are very reasonable.

Peter

Originally posted by ckpeter
[Bbut your wording make them look terrible. And they have no choice.

On the other hand, even though I am not a cpanel user, I have to say the issues you raised are very reasonable.
[/B]

Not only are his points valid, his attitude is justified. I would be rampant if I were a CPanel customer - luckily I steered clear of that route.

Plesk, Ensim, AUCC, HostGUI

All great alternatives... if only they could ALL create cpanel move scripts - CPanel would be out of business!

No No No, brandonk, you are completely missing the point.

I didn't say his complaints were unjustified, on the contrary, even though I am not a cpanel users, all that I have heard told me his complaints are reasonable.

I am merely stating that, it is not surprising for the cpanel forum to have deleted his post, because the post make them look so bad. I am not defending cpanel, I am just stating why they deleted the post.

Ideally, they would post an apology, and completely turn themselves around in a day. But we are not living in an ideal world, that's why his post was deleted.

Peter

I am going to avoid CPanel like the plague.

Originally posted by AlaskanWolf
Now that I got your attention, No I am not stating Cpanel sucks, the title is idential to a thread that is in the cpanel forums, under the thread "Cpanel sucks!" started by Nick Koston, which is the primary developer of CPanel. He asked "what would you improve on cpanel in its current state"

Heres what I wrote, which got deleted by someone that seemed to not like my suggestions, because I did not save the post locally, I am forced to go off what is in my head, so this thread below is not word for word but cuts it close on the basics of my post. I have also added alot that has come to mind as I type this.

It just makes me upset how I posted a some simple honest suggestions to the cpanel team and they turn around and delete my post without justification, if you cant take the heat, get out of the kitchen, or they deleted my thread because it had so much justification that they would never allow such a post in their forums.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

First off I would change the way you handle support issues, you rely way to much on the distributors, which on some instances, know less about the problem then you do. I had to leave Burst for another distributor because Burst for one, can take up to 1 week to reply to a ticket, in which by the time they answer, the issue is already closed. I am not sure why you bother having AIM...YAHOO...etc when you are never on, even when I was with burst, which you are a burst employee, you still wouldn't answer emails...answer ims, I think I just IM you on a daily basis just to amuse myself.

Now you are probly asking, (and as your post implied that was put in the place of mine)



Who ever said I was contacting Darkorb for total support? I can handle my servers quite well and I think I do a great job of managing my network. The problems are CPANEL RELATED, If the distributor has no clue, then who do you turn to? the makers right? Great example is a new car, if its got problems, you bring it to the "distributor" you got it from, in this case the local car salesmen's service shop, if they cant fix it, they will contact (Ford) directly, the problem is, Your a one man team with 5 or more distributors, alot of these companies TELL ME to contact you DIRECTLY. "We can only assist with basic issues when it comes to cpanel, you will need to contact Darkorb directly" is a DIRECT QUOTE FROM BURST.NET on a issue with bind that was failing every hour, I posted a response to another post that was from SEPTEMBER 2001, where other cpanel hosts experienced the SAME problem, there was NEVER a response from Darkorb on it, all the customers of cpanel basically had to help each other, still to this day, I still have servers that I have set a cron on to autorestart because I go to bed in fear that I wake up the next morning and bind having failed and checkservd did not automatically restart the service.

You can see "how do I fix this...how do I do that" plastered ALL OVER the cpanel forums area. Take a hint.

Second why bother submitting bug reports, sending emails when they are going to sit there in bugzilla for 1-2 months without a reply OR when they are replied to, nothings stated on why the bug was closed other then "IT WORKS FOR ME" well, it may work for you, but each machine is different, stand in case, Changing the root MySQL password in WHM, with each server, I had a problem, these were all different servers, in different NOCs, with different providers, I would also get an ERROR 145 (gezz I even remember it in my head...)

Third, the pricing, I would see a great option to add such pricing where I can pay a 1 time fee, and pay extra for support options. I see other panels such as HostGUI coming out with a one time fee, as I stated in other posts on WHT, I will defiantly be dropping cpanel down the road and moving to a more stable comparable panel such as HostGUI.

Forth, give us a CLUE on what you change, will change or have changed, I see this comment is sorta useless now as it looks like you are finally using it, it has been in more or less terms sporadic. There was one post in there dated 9/13/01 then finally almost 2-3 months later, there was finally another update. Now it looks as if your finally posted what has and has not changed, there's way to many "has this been incorporated yet" posts in the forums.

Cpanel to Cpanel move scripts. Of all companies, Cobalt seen all the ($)#_$# going on in their user forums about moving a raq to raq, they finally bit the bullet and created a set of scripts that a person/host can follow to move a server from one raq to another, it was a godsend when they created the scripts. I have posted numerous times in WHT and Cpanel about even hiring someone to create such scripts, to no avail. But thanks to CRego3D, we have at least some clue on what files/ folders to move. (thanks CRego!!)

If you don't want to backup your software, then get out of the business. We along with 2,000 other hosts or more rely on cpanel, but when there's a problem, we have NO ONE to turn to.

5 months ago, I had a resellers customer hosting illegal content, files being downloaded by httpd, we got cpanel notices that the user reached 80% of their allocated bandwidth and unknowingly what the customer was doing, we figured it was a popular website, well after a week, we were contacted by our upline, the site had burst twice the normal levels, after looking at cpanel, it had the capped bandwidth there, and it stated the user used 600 gigs of bandwidth in 1 week.

Sure its our fault for not realizing what was happening, but heres a classic example of cpanel failing. Can I ask, why have a feature when it doesn't work? I can go on and on but I think I ranted enough.

Now come all the flames and bad mouthing.....

What i am very happy to see is finally new panels that can either equal or outpreform Cpanel in terms of support, pricing and stablitly, such as HostGUI, and AUCC. HostGUI looks like its in a league of its own, and by the high standards that everyone at Jag has set, you could even say HostGUI will be in a league of its own. One major plus that I see is that you can get HostGUI for free, JagPC will install it all any of their dedicated and colocation clients free of charge. It will costs if its used outside of our network.

I would like to say good luck to both Jag and Willam and hope that both of you have the qualitys of support, and stablity that us hosts need today in a control panel.

AlaskanWolf, I second every one of your points - they are all extremely valid, and are issues that need addressing.

I'm looking forward to see if DarkORB responds to this post.

Regardless of what anyone says, our experience has shown that the end user prefers CPanel to other popular control panels by a large margin. Our users LOVE our CPanel. Sure there are occasionally annoying bugs. I have to say, however, that Nick is making a LOT of improvements and I've been fairly pleased with how quickly he takes care of a bug when I call him or send it up the ladder in a way that gets to him quickly.

If you hate CPanel so much, AlaskanWolf, then use something else. It's real simple. :-)

Now, is CPanel perfect? no. Do I know of a Control Panel with as many features for the end user that is perfect, no. Do I constantly evaluate other options, sure. We are seriously considering another panel right now in fact.

I guess my point is that if you want to see some change, learn how to go about getting things done in a constructive rather than flamatory way...

in a perfect world kwimberl, we would be more then grateful to move to a company that actually replies to support requests, fixes bugs sooner then later, and everything else I raised in my points. We are not saying we hate cpanel, please re-read the post, our customers like it, we like it, after all, we liked it so much we created a billing program to integrate with it.

But at this time, there is no alternatives to Cpanel. We are happy to see VirtualCP...HostGUI...ACUPP finally coming out of the wood works and once they are released you can count on it that we will be moving to another option.

It seems cpanel might be finally realizing that yes, there are going to be panels out there in the coming future that will be competing DIRECTLY with cpanel on the same level, or even a step above their level.

As you can see in their forums, they finally have some activity in regards to what changes are being made on a daily basis, as I brought up in my thread, there were times when they went on for months without the slightest update in their changelog, so you lived in fear that a feature that worked great one day, didn't work the next.

Glad to hear your happy with cpanel.

I would have to agree with kw here.

Cpanel from our study over the last year, the end user(customer)

prefers it over all of them out there

Joe

Of course Joe, what customer doesn't like cpanel? you guys are really taking this thread off course here. I am not in any part of my post stated that my users do not like cpanel.

We are not talking about END USER likeability, we are talking about ADMIN/TECH/OWNER level here.

So if this thread is going to continue with "my users like it" then I would suggest to the mod's to please freeze this thread.

Originally posted by AlaskanWolf
Of course Joe, what customer doesn't like cpanel? you guys are really taking this thread off course here. I am not in any part of my post stated that my users do not like cpanel.

We are not talking about END USER likeability, we are talking about ADMIN/TECH/OWNER level here.

So if this thread is going to continue with "my users like it" then I would suggest to the mod's to please freeze this thread.
Well, since you asked, I can say from personal experience that I have no problems with Cpanel from an administrator's standpoint. ;) However the secret is that Cpanel does not do EVERYTHING for you. You still have to know quite a bit about running a server if you are going to be able to handle all issues that come up while operating a production web server. Granted, not all Cpanel users know that much about system administration (although in an ideal world, anyone running a hosting company would have some basic, if not extensive knowledge of UNIX/Linux/Apache/etc.), but that's why we have distributors.

You keep speaking of Cpanel as a "one man team" but that's not entirely accurate. The development of Cpanel is done primarily by Nick and also me when I have time to contribute--but the support should almost all be handled by the distributors. That is the whole allure of the distributor system: distributors provide support and make money for doing so. It's not some scam we setup to mark up the product twice before the end user gets it. Believe it or not, Darkorb does NOT make that much money per license (I believe we (Darkorb) get an average of $27 per license). It's the distributors who are responsible for providing you with support--not Nick. We (Site5) almost never refer our Cpanel users to Cpanel.net for support (of course, they are welcome to visit the support forums if they like). In fact, if we find a bug, we will almost always go and report it ourselves. Cpanel customers should not have to deal with the development team--that should be left to the distributors to handle; it's what you pay us for. That's the way the Cpanel distributor system should work--but as you so astutely point out--it's not a perfect world.

To be honest, your post makes it seem like Cpanel is fraught with bugs--so many that it is nearly impossible to run a reliable company on the platform. I'm not sure what the exact circumstances are in your case, but I just don't see the same issues on our end. We (Site5) use Cpanel for all of our own shared hosting purposes, as well as most of our dedicated server customers. If it were bad as it is made out to be in your post, you can rest assured that we would have cut all ties with the system by now. We (Site5) are not going to blindly support Cpanel just because we are a distributor or because I am on the development team--that would be utter nonsense. We support and continue to use Cpanel because we truly believe that it is better than any other system out there--especially when price is considered.

Also realize that end-user's opinion of the system does count for quite a lot. If the end user doesn't like your control panel, you don't have to worry about what the admin thinks. You don't need an admin when you don't have any customers. :)

Our (Site5's) system admins are all extremely well-versed in Cpanel/WHM based servers (in fact, two of us are/were on the Cpanel development team at one point). That being the case, we do occasionally find bugs with the program. Such is inevitable. It averages out to around one--two, max, per month. Other than that, we hardly ever have to contact Nick or Darkorb for anything (and no, I don't fix the bugs myself when our staff finds them--we use the same bugzilla system that everyone else does). So something isn't matching up here. Either you're just utilizing this system so extensively that you are somehow finding more bugs that our entire staff of system administrators and our users combined, or you're running into issues that aren't really bugs--even though they may relate to the software that Cpanel installs automatically and maintains settings for (DNS, Exim, Apache, etc.). While these things relate to Cpanel (almost everything on the server does), they are almost always issues that are specific to a given system. Cpanel can't prevent problems from occurring on a server--no software can. The systems are simply too complex to guarantee that your server will be 100% problem and bug free as long as Cpanel is installed. Server-specific issues like this are, for the most part, matters that Darkorb isn't really responsible to resolve. It is in these cases that you should be contacting your distributor for support instead of Darkorb. If for some reason, your distributor is sending you to Darkorb for issues that they should be able to fix, then it may be time to look for a new distributor. One of the benefits of having a handful of distributors available is that you aren't forced to rely on one entity for support. You can go elsewhere if you feel you aren't getting the service that you need/deserve.

That being said, I have recently become re-involved in the development cycles at Darkorb. I would like to see quite a few changes made in the way things happen there. For starters, I am going to be implementing nightly reports of what exactly was added and or updated that day. A common complaint seems to be that Cpanel customers have no idea what's included in the "updates" that automatically impose themselves upon their servers. A second focus that I am shooting for is cleanup of the existing WHM code, as well as a new, "skinnable" WHM theme. Believe it or not, the code for the Cpanel interface is actually extremely clean and well-written (despite the somewhat chaotic look/feel of the default theme). The WHM could stand some work: we are aware of this and are planning to do something about it. And of course, we do have plans to implement some new features that have been in demand for quite some time--but first things first, right? ;)

On a related note, I am certainly aware of Darkorb's up-and-coming competition (HostGUI, AUCC, etc.). I will certainly be looking into each product and evaluating their merit (don't forget, while Site5 is a Cpanel distributor, we are an end-user as well, and have absolutely no qualms about switching to a "better" system if one should become available). I think a viable alternative to Cpanel would be a welcome addition to the industry, as each customer has their own taste, and may prefer one system over another for whatever reason. We (Darkorb) are certainly anticipating that some current Cpanel customers will switch to HostGUI, and even AUCC when they are released--that's called business. That doesn't, however, mean that development is going to stop or be impaired in any way. Cpanel development began when there were zero customers utilizing the product, and you can rest assured that it will continue until every last Cpanel license has been dropped (God forbid that would ever happen). But the point is, Cpanel has been around for many years, and is here for the long haul. Darkorb will continue to improve and develop this product as long as the market for such a product exists.

Well, that's my opinion on the matter. Take it for what it's worth. If anyone has any specific questions, feel free to post them/email me and I will do my best to address them.

Best Regards,
Matt Lightner
mlightner@site5.com

Very well put Matt !
These systems and software packages are supposed to be tools for system admins they are not meant to replace a system admin completely.

Sure Cpanel has it problems but surely not all problems are related to Cpanel.... I think Cpanel ran over my dog, by the way. :)

Good thing I had a Admin handle my FP issues... :) But did ya see the OpenPGP feature in CPanel? I guess they saw HostGUI's SS and decided to add it to Cpanel as well :)

Originally posted by Synergy
But did ya see the OpenPGP feature in CPanel? I guess they saw HostGUI's SS and decided to add it to Cpanel as well :) Actually, this feature had been planned for Cpanel for quite some time (well over 3 months ago). Nick hadn't even seen the HostGUI website/screenshot until just a couple days ago when I showed it to him--at which point he had already completed the gpg frontend.

But really... the two systems have many similar features. Who came up with the which idea first is really irrelevant. Each development team is responsible for adding features that they believe will benefit the end user--which thie feature obviously does.

Matt

Well its good to see that feature :) I wonder how many CPanel licenses are really out there in cyberspace right now. :)

In the wise words of AlaskanWolf:

"Your a one man team with 5 or more distributors, alot of these companies TELL ME to contact you DIRECTLY. "We can only assist with basic issues when it comes to cpanel, you will need to contact Darkorb directly" is a DIRECT QUOTE FROM BURST.NET on a issue with bind that was failing every hour"

The following is to provide insight to others and I am only using your problem as an example...

What does BIND really have to do with CPanel? Sure... CPanel installs a good amount of software, in fact, it installs the key software ingredients to any hosting company. As far as I know, the only thing CPanel does with BIND is to:

1. Add dns zone entries
2. Modify zone entries
3. Report the status of the service
4. Restart the service

I honestly don't think this would amount to a CPanel issue, thus requiring support. Unless, of course, you were willing to pay the cpanel distributor $X/hr for their "abnormal" support fees and i'm sure they would spend a few hours and tell you it is a CPanel problem to collect your money :)

(Stat: Of all the distributors listed on cpanel.net, only one does not list an abnormal support fee (JTLNet).

Would supporting the services which were installed with CPanel (Apache, MySQL, Exim, Bind, etc) be basic support? That almost sounds like CPanel customers get a System Administrator for $99/month - That just sounds like abuse waiting to happen.

As stated by DarkOrb:

"We will not fix every single problem on your server. Cpanel is not a replacement for a sysadmin; its only there to make things easier. I'm really sick of people who think it is....you know who you are."

Conclusively I feel that there are a number of CPanel customers who feel that their $99/month license entitles them to recieve support (for free mind you) for everything and anything that CPanel touches without regards to whether it is a CPanel problem or if it is not, just as long as CPanel is on their server they can blame it on the software and have it fixed in doing so.

Just as an interesting afterthought;
I think CPanel should do 2 things:

1. Remove all 3rd party software (exim, mysql, formmail, mailman, etc) and let the user install them as a requirement.

2. Write up some proper documentation (HOWTO) on the software. That would, for sure, eliminate some support. Can you say RTFM? :)

The only problem with #1 is that, perhaps, that would be too much of a, for a lack of a better word, pain for some people to deal with. Having to go get the rpm/source for Exim, compile/install it - rinse, repeat with all the other requirements to.

On the bright side, by them removing all the 3rd party code, they wouldn't be liable in the eyes of the CPanel customers when it came to that software eh?

Originally posted by Site5-Matt
Actually, this feature had been planned for Cpanel for quite some time (well over 3 months ago). Nick hadn't even seen the HostGUI website/screenshot until just a couple days ago when I showed it to him--at which point he had already completed the gpg frontend.

But really... the two systems have many similar features. Who came up with the which idea first is really irrelevant. Each development team is responsible for adding features that they believe will benefit the end user--which thie feature obviously does.

Matt

True, and besides, a lot of this stuff is pretty common, generic stuff, feature wise. If we went by what product had what feature implemented first, then everything would be a copy of something, and people would pretty much assume HostGUI is a copy of Cpanel, and Cpanel is just a copy of Alabanza, and so forth. It's all about trying to create a product that has the features people want and/or at least need from a user perspective. Moreover, to save user's time from having to request the administrator commit changes or modifications, wherein they can do these things themselves, especially from a dummy interface -- as we can't expect every user to learn all about system administration, etc., just to use the services they pay for. The admin side of it all is just to save the administrator time, and also to have more people be able to run web servers without many years of knowledge and experience to be able to do it well. So, who used what feature first, is irrelevant, I agree.

Originally posted by clockwork
In the wise words of AlaskanWolf:

"Your a one man team with 5 or more distributors, alot of these companies TELL ME to contact you DIRECTLY. "We can only assist with basic issues when it comes to cpanel, you will need to contact Darkorb directly" is a DIRECT QUOTE FROM BURST.NET on a issue with bind that was failing every hour"

The following is to provide insight to others and I am only using your problem as an example...

What does BIND really have to do with CPanel? Sure... CPanel installs a good amount of software, in fact, it installs the key software ingredients to any hosting company. As far as I know, the only thing CPanel does with BIND is to:

1. Add dns zone entries
2. Modify zone entries
3. Report the status of the service
4. Restart the service

I honestly don't think this would amount to a CPanel issue, thus requiring support.

Well, I'd have assumed he meant that in regards to when a zone file was added, removed or modified, that it somehow caused a problem. That would have to do with it, even if that's all it did. Though it would be easy enough to fix anything in regards to DNS, the zone, named.conf, whatever. Though at the same time, if he had to worry about clients on his service using the control panel to add a sub domain and have it somehow create a malfunction in the named file, for example, that would bring down DNS on that system. So, assuming it doesn't have anything to do with it, might not be the most accurate outlook or opinion, as I didn't get the impression that he meant that any bugs or issues with named/BIND/DNS itself were contributed by the Cpanel software. I suppose one could go about removing the subdomain/domain addition option from all the clients control panel themes, so you don't risk any issues such as my assumptions above, but that risks causing problems with the clients not being able to. So, this isn't just something he can necessarily just shrug off and say "Well, it must be named, I can't blame Cpanel", if Cpanel is indeed creating the problem at hand. I understand people's points, and sure, I assume that people do blame Cpanel when things go wrong and do so unjustly -- in fact, I know that's been said about a few hosts that run Cpanel, and I've been accused of that myself by some people that would rather assume and complain, but hey, there's not much you can do about that.

Simply put, and I'm not making any claims here, but if the interface provided is causing problems or breaking things, then unless that issue is fixed, you'll have to deal with the problems (which can be significant), or you have to somehow remove access to that feature that is causing significant problems, and just going on about how you can't blame one program for the faults of many, isn't really relevant, if you're complaining about how that one program causes these problems, nd not any issues with these programs themselves that would _otherwise_ have nothing to do with it. I see a lot of animosity about this, like some sort of childish war. People argue both sides... I know I've been attacked for simply stating my dissatisfaction, only to have people yell nonsense and say "if you don't like it, don't use it". Well, that's certainly a reasonable view to the person saying it, but doesn't instill much encouragement for the people that are sometimes stuck with these problems, only o be told to drop the program, which would require a lot of changes to the system, or change to something else, like it's a simple task to change from a Cpanel based system to something else. Let's be realistic. Some people have problems with it and some don't. Some people whine about everything and blame Cpanel for everything and have no valid or true cause. Let's face it, some people do. Let's also face another fact, because of those people that wrongfully do, people that have legitimate claims are often attacked. Let's face reality here and realize that just because people point out problems, doesn't mean they are on some mindless mission to just attack a person or product.

This user's complaint about how Cpanel/WHM interacts with his name service, may very well be true and valid, so why question it? Instead, maybe ask him to explain the details of the problem, so some of us here can offer him some reason/cause of the issue and how it is or is not likely to be Cpanel related. It's not a big deal, it doesn't have to be people pushing to prove it one way or another. This sort of nonsense gets everyone nowhere, confuses people, gives people outlandish and bogus reasons to assume untrue things about people and why they re posting and just does no good. I'm just having trouble understanding why people can't post about problems with Cpanel, without a huge argument coming up and people questioning their motive for posting, or go out of their way to try and act like the person is just trying to play it off to blame Cpanel for their own faults or lack of knowledge of software or server issues. Fact; If Cpanel/WHM is improperly adding, removing or editing data in named.conf or zone files and causes failures or errors, it's Cpanel not doing something right. If this guy is editing the zone's or named.conf manually or with another tool or has done something to make it incompatible with Cpanel, then that's another story.

If this is about some other problem, that needs to be made clear too, so people don't have to wonder, but since Cpanel interacts with so many of these programs, it's certainly possible that it could be causing a problem somewhere, for someone... that's all. I'm not saying it did. I've been down that road and gave details and saw that it didn't matter one bit and people just don't like hearing bad things, which is fine, but it's no reason to doubt someone and I didn't think AlaskanWolf's post somehow indicated he was making any excuses, and I don't think it's right to ridicule someone as if they are just trying to cause trouble. Maybe he is, for all I know -- shows you what I know -- but none of us at this point, do know, other than himself and people's he's explained the details of the problems to, to assume either way. So, let's all just be polite and try nd figure out if there's a problem and if it's related. This isn't just to you, but I just got the impression that the post had a hint of sarcasm and belittlement, but what do I know. I mean, it looked like valid points to me if that is the case, so I'm wondering why it went into any other directtion? Though, there are those that wish to believe I've made a life's mission out of trying to knock Cpanel for some reason, so I'm sure those people will take my post the wrong way, as usual... but that's fine, none of that matters.

Originally posted by clockwork
Just as an interesting afterthought;
I think CPanel should do 2 things:

1. Remove all 3rd party software (exim, mysql, formmail, mailman, etc) and let the user install them as a requirement.

2. Write up some proper documentation (HOWTO) on the software. That would, for sure, eliminate some support. Can you say RTFM? :)

The only problem with #1 is that, perhaps, that would be too much of a, for a lack of a better word, pain for some people to deal with. Having to go get the rpm/source for Exim, compile/install it - rinse, repeat with all the other requirements to.

On the bright side, by them removing all the 3rd party code, they wouldn't be liable in the eyes of the CPanel customers when it came to that software eh?

Many people buy the software because it is easy to setup. If I had to install all of the services myself, I would consider that a major pain in the rear, and simply not use Cpanel and go with a panel that does not require this.

Originally posted by clockwork
In the wise words of AlaskanWolf

AlaskanWolf has been around here for a while. I've seen his posts... he's no dummy when it comes to server administration. I think what he is eluding to by the quote above is that the distributors are telling him to go to darkorb, and darkorb is telling him to go to the distributors! Now, if you have 5+ servers, paying $500+ per month for a piece of software, and start to get the run around like that, I'm sure you would be complaining too.

"Many people buy the software because it is easy to setup. If I had to install all of the services myself, I would consider that a major pain in the rear, and simply not use Cpanel and go with a panel that does not require this. "

That is my point... what if DarkOrb started making their own, custom, redhat install cd that installed CPanel and its components? Would DarkOrb be responsible for supporting the ENTIRE server (software wise) then?

What has come from simplicity has come to people (from what my lurking self has seen) demanding support for Exim or Apache or anything else CPanel interacts with.

As for the BIND issue, doesn't Bind, at least v9, reject any malformed zone files during a start/restart?

Letting clients edit named.conf or a zone file is dangerous to begin with, but I honestly don't see how a client error would become a CPanel problem. We can't blame vi for every typo its user has made, can we?

I'm not trying to be a troll or start a flame war, it just seems like everyone looks at one side of the spectrum and sometimes I need to speak for the other side.

Also, Tim -- I am NOT a CPanel supporter.
I still think it's beta software at the best.

Originally posted by clockwork
Also, Tim -- I am NOT a CPanel supporter.
I still think it's beta software at the best.

I'm not assuming you are or are not a supporter, and if you are, that's fine. I just don't want to see any irrelevant arguing about it and whatnot. I'm not saying you are, of course, but I just see it a lot.

Further, no one lets any client's edit any zone files, nor named.conf. Look at the control panel sometime, you simply type in the sub domain you want to add, for example, and that's it. There's no way a client can input anything that would crew anything up. Even if they were allowed, the input should be checked to prevent that. Refer to above where an error could be related to Cpanel, I'm not sure why or how that could be argued -- assuming that is the case. I'm not saying it is or isn't, I'm simply saying "assuming that is the case", it can't be argued, so I'm not sure how valid, realistic or valuable these points are? That's like saying because Cpanel mangled a text file or didn't write the complete content to a file it should have, to blame the vi editor. That has nothing to do with it.

Let me be clear; This is in regards to the functionality of the product in question and nothing more. Indeed BIND 9 will not start or restart if you have a significant error, but that very well may be the very problem that this person faced and what their post was about. I mean, this is like someone saying a road is bad and has pot holes, and you come in saying "Look at it from this point of view, maybe they are just a bad driver?" Or "maybe they should get a big truck with big tires and good shocks?". This isn't logical.

I'm not saying Cpanel is to blame, but if Cpanel didn't do checking of input properly, or say it just flat out had a typo or mistake or oversight in the code that deleted a file that should have been appended to, instead of being overwritten, that would indeed qualify as a Cpanel problem/cause and comparing it to a user's typo to the vi editor or something else, makes no sense at all. If someone has a real problem, really caused by a program, then there's no reason to have people look at it any other way... and I'm not sure why you are posting what you did? Did you mean something else or to say it another way or something? If Cpanel screwed up and wiped out your passwd or some important system file, are you going to compare it in the same way? How could you?

Just because this is about DNS, doesn't change that it could be the interface or program that is the cause. Again, I'm not saying it is, I never said it was, but you are acting like it can't be and it's BIND at fault, not Cpanel. Well, come on. If Cpanel wipes out your named.conf file or completely mangles it because it didn't parse it properly or something, you can't blame that on anything but Cpanel. Not BIND, not the user and not the vi editor or any other irrelevant thing. Again, unless we know the exact problem and circumstances to this user's problems, it's ridiculous to compare it to such things as that and I do inevitably question some poster's motives.

This is why I made it clear, that I'm not making any claims, but just trying to be clear that from the post, it is a valid point and until we have more information to make any further assumptions about this (we shouldn't be assuming, is the point), I don't think we should make mistakes of stating things, unless they are just theory and made clear that "Well, if this, then", and I haven't seen any logical debates about that.
Therefore, let's wait for more information and see what he was talking about and in what manner, is all I'm saying -- because at this rate, it's all rhetoric anyway and it'll only turn into an argument. I know I personally find my intelligence and knowledge questioned or insulted if someone dares to compare a programs faults with such things as typo's and editors, for example. That's ridiculous and is not at all what this is about, I can tell you that by the little information that was provided and that should be obvious to everyone. Note; that's not an insult to you and if you end up saying I'm trying to insult you for not agreeing with me or something, then we can just save the trouble of posting to each other again. I'm not assuming you'll do that, but this seems to be the reaction to any post I've ever seen about Cpanel, so forgive me for being upfront about that now.

Originally posted by clockwork
"Many people buy the software because it is easy to setup. If I had to install all of the services myself, I would consider that a major pain in the rear, and simply not use Cpanel and go with a panel that does not require this. "

That is my point... what if DarkOrb started making their own, custom, redhat install cd that installed CPanel and its components? Would DarkOrb be responsible for supporting the ENTIRE server (software wise) then?

What has come from simplicity has come to people (from what my lurking self has seen) demanding support for Exim or Apache or anything else CPanel interacts with.

I'm not saying DarkOrb should or should not support bind or exim or any of the other programs installed by redhat. It is their software / company , they can do whatever they want with it. I am saying that IF they do not, well I will just choose not to use their product.

Why don't they just not offer cpanel at all? Then they won't have to support ANY of it. I don't think you'd see many people paying upwards of $100 per month for their product if they did that.

Well,well,well!

I have used but CPanel and WHM as a reseller for about 3 months now and you can see the experience in my signature; I haven't used any other control panel except fiddling around with webcp and FreeVSD but in my 12 years of software experience I can tell you all that the problem lies not in developing panels but in the actual engineering of it...

CPanel surely leaves a lot to be desired and if we deliver any commercial software with such an interface we will be bankrupt in next to no time...

Software engineering, as pioneered Watts Humphreys and institutionalized by the SEI has unfortunately not made much impact on open source

I have spent several hours [or close to two hundred hours] going thru the technical and security issues forum and have also gone thru a number of posts here and various mailing lists and the majority of the issues stem from bad software engineering practices - if a commercial product that has thousands of users is developed by one individual [who I am sure will be no less than a genius] and there is no quality assurance in place , and the documentation [as seen by the pdf files called manuals] is minimal then these kind of problems are only to be expected. Infact I am amazed the software works!

In my foolish and humble opinion, since web hosting depends very heavily on free software, unless we change the way we write software [our engineering discipline that is] these things are going to be there forever.

I am willing to offer my time and help manage the development of a totally free control panel if a few programmers would offer their time and web hosts who have seen it all will help in the requirements specifications & testing - and we can release a stable, predictable and well-behaved control panel ; but this kind of a project will take a minimum of 5-6 months for the first version if we do time-boxing and in an year we will have something tangible to show the world. or as Chicken said in the other post we can all be complaining about one panel or the other till the cows come home

Again this is just a fool's opinion - take it for what it is

Cheers
Balaji

I would rather have mediocre software with a strong support team to stand behind it, than godly software (though its far from godly) with a team of idiots selling/supporting it.

Originally posted by bombino
I would rather have mediocre software with a strong support team to stand behind it, than godly software (though its far from godly) with a team of idiots selling/supporting it.

Good point, as no one would want some idiot's supporting any software -- and if they were idiot's, they'd likely not have good software either. I'd personally not settle for either. However, I'm not sure how your comment is relevant to this thread, and who are the idiots, what is the mediocre software, etc., as no people or product has been mentioned onther than someone's complaint about Cpanel, let alone no mention of what you meant about which, if you were in support of the mentioned product or not. Nonetheless, none of us would likely want to have to face that choice and would prefer something quality with good support as well. Cheers.

Subscription Based Software Sucks.

8===3:o

(Please don't get offended anyone)

It's like renting a car for years at a time.
Spending $100 dollars a month for CPanel amounts
to $1200 a year if you host it somewhere else.

$1200 dollars can get you two decent 1U servers.
(http://www.interpromicro.com)

or 3-4 nice AMD White boxes, which make nice clusters for
webhosting.

This licensing is even WORSE than Microsoft's.

<<The licensing issue has been discussed at length before, and I don't think we need to rehash all old discussions about cpanel.>>

How did this go to a licensing issue? be it you agree that sort of contract or license is not worth it, that shouldn't refect on the qualiy of the program or the bugs it might present -- assuming this user that complained was correct about it effecting his DNS. There's plenty of posts about people complaining about how they don't like licensing and never owning products, including Cpanel, but even though this thread has gotten off track (when don't they? :-), let's try and keep it on track, before people assume this is a thread specifically to knock Cpanel (even if the threads title indicated that and said that), it's gotten more into a "prove it has or hasn't been the cause", and that's all I'm waiting for. We've already discussed how it can be, even though no one claimed it is. Let's wait for more information about that, as a search will provide all the other threads with what you brought up. Thanks.

I'm not going to even bother to edit the above post to fix the incomplete words.. geez, my keyboard sucks to get used to... (seriously, it's one of those virtually indestrcutable keyboards that are made of material you can roll up... ).. it takes a while to get used to it. (excuses, excuses -- like I ever could type well.)