Hi,

I'll preface this by saying I am usually not the kind of person who posts (obviously from my posts per day stat) here as I never have been in the hosting industry.

I was about to embark on a colo project, but was concerned about the number of posts in this forum relating to administrative front ends that folks use. I currently run a Slack 8 web/email server for 10 or so domains (with more to come on line far too soon) and never really thought of using anything much beyond command line stuff to configure apache/qmail/vmailmgr/mysql/ipchains/ipmasq/accounts/etc. Are those 'control panels' necessary or more efficient to conduct business more timely for a small beans web host? Am I missing far too many brain cells to comprehend this? ;) No really, at what point did these frontend tools become something that you (as a person in the business) needed?

Thanks for the great information one can find at this forum!

Jeff

Originally posted by Jeffyt
at what point did these frontend tools become something that you (as a person in the business) needed?



I dont think web hosting companies NEED these control panels, it just makes there lives alot easier, as well as caters to the needs of newbie site owners. Also, the control panel has brought down prices because now hosts do not have the need for a workforce to attend to ever need of a site owner.


Jim

I think Jim hit the nail on the head. A control panel is not necessarily any faster for an experienced admin, but many users expect a control panel, and not having one could be a detriment to attracting customers.

There are several advantages of using control panels, ones that matter most to me are:

- Less manual editing of server configuration file. Manually editing configuration file can be a very tedious, error prone process. Especially if you have a lot more than 10 domains.
- Most customers expect a friendly control panels for themselves.

- There are some features that would require sysadmin assistance when used without a control panel, such as adding subdomain, or creating databases. It is not practical to offer those features without using a control panel.

I also agree with the above posts, personally I prefer the command line also however the Control Panel does make things easier on the end user who may know little to nothing about *NIX systems which in turn makes supporting them a little less time consuming. I kind of look at it like this, when you go and purchase a new car you really dont need power windows, cd player and leather seats, however they are nice features to have.

I kind of look at it like this, when you go and purchase a new car you really dont need power windows, cd player and leather seats, however they are nice features to have
Well, I always liked driving VW buses. I'm not sure if my passengers like riding in them, but I felt like I was in control of my own destiny. I counldn't say I have ever operated a cd player while driving, seems dangerous. I guess I will look for something that only helps the end user out. Thanks for the replies! :)

Jeff

Pasenger's think it is cool riding in my '67 Westy!

Nice web page btw! :)