Hello,

Just writing to let you WHT folks know how rediculously unhappy I am with cPanel. It's just screwed install after screwed install after screwed install. Total waste of my time and money.

Infact, my doctor tells me my blood pressure has been way too high in the past 2 weeks ... Why? Because I can't get cPanel to work properly ... After many many previous broken installs on the many cPanel servers we own, this is just the final straw - I've had enough!

Firstly after a clean panel install, MySQL and Apache wouldn't work nicely together, something that eventually got fixed (without cPanel's help). I can now copy accounts over no problem, but when actually creating a new account I'm getting "An error occurred processing this directive", "Warning, fpfakeout.so failed to build. Please discover the reason!" ... it then goes through the normal setup proceedure and then when trying to log into the account - surprise surprise it won't even let me in.

That's not to mention the huge bugs in the last year, such as the constant Apache restarts that affected nearly every cPanel host in the world ... infact the cPanel bug list just goes on and on.

I don't have hours and hours of time to sit and troubleshoot software that is PAID FOR - at rip off pricing might I add.

Thoroughly pissed off, you think Microsoft are bad - try cPanel first.

Dan

It's not perfect but it's the best of a bad bunch. Write your own :).

Have you considered alternatives i.e. Plesk ?

Originally posted by AdamSmith
It's not perfect but it's the best of a bad bunch. Write your own :).

I have to disagree, my definition of a good panel is one that actually works.

cPanel might have more features than Plesk, DirectAdmin, etc ... but at least they work.

We have been using cpanel for many years and are very happy with it, especially the user-friendliness for the customers. Very rarely we encounter a problem and login to the cpanel forums and instantly fix the issue. You obviously have alot more problems with your servers than just cpanel.

Originally posted by RazorBlue - Dan
I have to disagree, my definition of a good panel is one that actually works.

cPanel might have more features than Plesk, DirectAdmin, etc ... but at least they work.

In our experience, when cPanel 'breaks' it's something minor and easily fixed by a competent admin. When Plesk 'breaks', it really breaks :p.

I've never had a problem with CPanel, unless you count be running Edge once and it causing a kernel panic by breaking glibc >_>

RazorBlue - Dan,

Forgive me.. But this is almost exactly the same as a situation of this:

"I don't like this blender from XYZ Company, because I can't find the on button, so it sucks, don't buy it".

There are many, many, many people, myself included, who've been able to get CPANEL (Blender from XYZ Company) to work (find the on button).

Just because you've had a problem installing it, doesn't mean CPANEL Sucks.

Could it possibly be you aren't doing something right?

They always say, 75% of the time, the error is on the other side of the keyboard.

Just a thought.

I think cPanel is running well on too many servers to call it crap.

Obviously, there is more to this singular incident.

As an old boss of mine used to always say when someone would say the other guys product was this or that... and ours was crap.

"That is why they make Ford and Chevy's boys, so eveyone has a choice."

Cpanel is running great on lots and I do mean LOTS of servers out there, if you are unhappy consider using Plesk or DirectAdmin then hopefully you can get your BP back under control and live a little longer.

OK let me ask you a question, when you buy software do you normally have to debug/hack it to make it work? Or does it just install and work?

IF this was open source software I would have no problem sitting and messing with it, but when you pay a fortune for licenses, I expect it to work out of the box.

I have plenty of competent admins working with me - their solution to this one was a reload, something simple that evolved from a fresh cPanel install - nothing complicated, is now going to cost me more money and time.

I am going to have to lend some agreement to what Dan has to say here. We have major issues with cpanel. The question isn't whether we can make it work., but how much time we have to spend making it work.

We are competent at making it work. But with upwards of 40 or more servers that we own/admin, it seems that we have something break almost daily that is not a result of our intervention but some upgrade-related/upcp issue that happens without our intervetion. Yes, we can get it fixed. Yes we open tickets with cpanel from time to time. The issue is, we shouldn't have to fix issues on a daily basis.

One that is poping up recently is one mentioned above where creating accounts yields a "directive" error. We have found that it is due to a missing or failed upgrade on a perl module. This wasn't an upgrade we initiated. However, we spend hours each day debugging something that was generated by cpanel itself.

All that said, yes, it is the best out there. I don't believe there is anything better available. My point in posting this is I would like to see cpanel work a little hard at testing/debugging.

We offer any control panel a customer wants, but we always push Cpanel because it has consistently been the most stable and has created the fewest support tickets. This rule has applied across multiple types of systems. We've had very few issues with Cpanel.

Originally posted by dandanfirema
One that is poping up recently is one mentioned above where creating accounts yields a "directive" error. We have found that it is due to a missing or failed upgrade on a perl module. This wasn't an upgrade we initiated. However, we spend hours each day debugging something that was generated by cpanel itself.

So who initicated the upgrade? If you dont want upgrades, disable cpanel upgrading, simple.

Upgrades are set to manual. However, cpanel still runs a nightly process that upgrades some files.

It's getting tiring seeing people who can't get software to work due to their own incompetency complaining about how much it 'sucks'. There are literally thousands of admins that have NO problem installing CPanel at all. Just because you can't figure it out doesn't mean it sucks.

Buy a book or something.

Typical mob mentality here. Lets beat on the ones we disagree with. I don't think the complaint here is that the OP can't get it to work, but rather that it SHOULD work after the initial installation, rather than spending an extra couple of hours debugging all the things the installation failed to do properly the first time.

Originally posted by dandanfirema
Upgrades are set to manual. However, cpanel still runs a nightly process that upgrades some files.

Only if you have the little check box checked to allow perl updates under tweak settings. The problem you are referring to was not a cpanel upgrade problem but one from a perl upgrade if you uncheck that box Allow perl updates from rpm based linux vendors then that issue would not happen.

Now I understand cpanel can get your blood boiling at times I have over 75 servers running it and it gets me sometimes and I want to scream but of all the other panels I have tried so far Cpanel is still the best.

As an avid seller of cPanel over the years, my option is probably biased here, but in any event, I'll try to chime in as best I can. I haven't yet come across a control panel that somebody didn't like, had bugs / issues, and resulted in increased support. They all have their fair share of problems, but the support levels client side, have been significantly less required time intervention and direct panel support requirements from cPanel vs. the leading competitor. As previously mentioned, if cPanel bugs creep up, typically they're able to be resolved by an admin, if another CP bug creeps up, I've seen it result in far more damaging results. Additionally, we've reported bugs to other control panels, to be told that they plan to be fixed in 2-3 months with a new release. That's hardly a good response to a vendor let alone having to go back to a client and tell them you're issue will be resolved in a few months.

But I do agree, and often quote the infamous SWR (slightly modified here), "there's no best CP, only the best CP for you" If there's another CP that both meets you, and your clients needs better, by all means make the switch. The problem is that end users are far more inclined to go with cPanel vs. competitors CP's and prefer to seek out those suppliers more often.

just my .02

Originally posted by dandanfirema
Typical mob mentality here. Lets beat on the ones we disagree with. I don't think the complaint here is that the OP can't get it to work, but rather that it SHOULD work after the initial installation, rather than spending an extra couple of hours debugging all the things the installation failed to do properly the first time.

This is my point exactly, incompetency doesn't even come into this, IF I wanted to I could have this fixed in an hour costing me extra time and money.

My point is, if I pay for software it should work out of the box without me having to hack around with it and troubleshoot it - this is what is expected of every other piece of software - why not cPanel?

Occasionally things do go wrong with installs, but they should be no where near as frequent as the problems we've been seeing.

Dan

Originally posted by AdamSmith
In our experience, when cPanel 'breaks' it's something minor and easily fixed by a competent admin. When Plesk 'breaks', it really breaks :p.


I hate to say this, but I 100% agree with you on what you said.

Given the large amount of daily installs that we all do with cPanel, I would have to think there's perhaps different circumstances causing the install problems. I know we hit this issue introducing another CP, installs would take days, and caused a lot of internal problems given that our build teams were backlogged on orders because of long install times well beyond your normal expectations. I'd think cPanel would do close to at least 200 installs per day (probably well underestimated assuming re-installs) and that if all of them showed improper installs, they would be fast to rectify the matter. Contacting them may be a good way to go as well, setup an identical server, reproduce the errors, and let them have at it, to see if there's something they can identify as the cause of the problems as well.

Almost every cpanel server we took over from the DCs, I had to go in and fix eximstats and sometimes mysql.

Is this because the dcs do not know how to do cPanel clean install or the bug was there for I think 3 years already.

cPanel is definately popular - but I think the main reason is that it's easier for the end-user to run; not because it's stable or reliable. We've been a Plesk company for quite some time - that is ever since they stopped developing vSacs. We recently took over a free cPanel host; and at this very moment we're migrating the entire mess over to Interworx. Never again will we attempt the cPanel thing, it's been a horrible, horrible mess.

Originally posted by efarmer
Almost every cpanel server we took over from the DCs, I had to go in and fix eximstats and sometimes mysql.

Is this because the dcs do not know how to do cPanel clean install or the bug was there for I think 3 years already. Sounds like you and qwidjib0 both just picked up some poorly managed servers.

I can't honestly see, with the amount of cPanel servers online in todays world, that having to do such hard-maintenance on a server just to get CPanel to install.

I've got a 13 year old friend, who was able to install it on his own. And this kid barely had any cPanel or Linux knowledge, aside from the great resources Google opens to the world. :)

Honestly.. It just doesn't sound right.

Dan.

Cpanel is there to assist you and your customers but it cannot replace or do normal admin work for you. You have to keep it updated and make sure that your system is maintained and secure, if the account restore feature isn't working you can either try the bleeding edge tree of cpanel to see if there's a fix the possibilities are all there.

To me sounds like you want it to do everything from A to Z that ain't going to happen and if it did I'm sure it would cost a hell lot more than it costs.

* Edit: What OS are you using cpanel on?

RazorBlue - Dan, completely agree with you. I though I'm the only one who hates Cpanel :)

In my opinion CPanel is the ugliest panel out there... from users and admins point of view. buggy and insecure. CPanelXP interface is unfriendly too. Wonder how people still use it. DirectAdmin, Plesk or H-Sphere are much better panels.

PS: and don't tell me I don't know how to use/install Cpanel.. I can write an apache/bind/postfix configs from scratch without any panels.

I totally and utterly agree with Dan's original post on CPanel.

IMO, CPanel is buggy and uses way too much resources for a backend hosting control panel. I also think they tried to cram in too many "server setup" and "server admin" tasks into WHM, sure it's easier for newbies, but at what price? Answer: A total mess of a control panel which likes to break things...

It is much more hardwork to maintain a CPanel box than a controlpanel-less box.

CPanel has lots of features, but in my opinion, I think it has way too many features that are actually built into the control panel. I personally find DirectAdmin much nicer to use. (Then again, Iv'e only ever used CPanel and DA from an admin point of view, iv'e only used other CP's as a client).

The problem is the popularity of CPanel amongst end-users. It's one of those buzz-words that most people look for in a host, not dissimilar to those "unlimited bandwidth" problems a few years ago.

We use an in-house control panel for our shared hosting platform and it works great. We use CPANEL for our reseller hosting - I have many complaints. There are so many little bugs (IE in the reseller center, one of the links is wrong), there are spelling errors, random odd text showing up, it won't list any IPS inside our virtuozzo vpss in the reserve IP manager, since it's compiled perl it takes much longer to load than it should (Don't blame the server specs because they're Dual 2.8GHz, 4G Ram and hardware raid) - some of the templates are missing links - in the contact manager the icons show different contact methods than those actually selected and the list goes on

as said before though, these are nothing that a good sysadmin can't get around (IE editing /etc/reservedips manually etc)

Originally posted by shockuk

It is much more hardwork to maintain a CPanel box than a controlpanel-less box.

The problem is the popularity of CPanel amongst end-users. It's one of those buzz-words that most people look for in a host, not dissimilar to those "unlimited bandwidth" problems a few years ago.

Just taking out a few things from this. I would agree to some extent on most of the things, but from a providers standpoint, the sheer amount of people who come into the hosting world don't have the necessary skills to properly admin a non control panel server regardless. Nor do they have the skills to properly admin a control panel server either. The common belief I still see everyday is that the hosting / adult world are an unlimited supply of customers and cash flow. But it's also the reason that server admin outsourcing has become popular, and with the ease of use of control panels for shared hosting clients, it's almost mandatory.

I really think it comes down to the always present debate everywhere: which CP is the best, which OS is the best, everyone can argue something different, but in the end it's what's best for that person, their needs, their clients needs, and that's it.

Originally posted by RazorBlue - Dan


I don't have hours and hours of time to sit and troubleshoot software that is PAID FOR - at rip off pricing might I add.

Thoroughly pissed off, you think Microsoft are bad - try cPanel first.

Dan

From experience, if you are going to host any control panel on an Open Sorce platform, you better have a compent administrator a phone call or email away.

It's really not so much the control panels themselves, but the never ending, constant updating that is required to make your system stable and secure.

This is just the nature of the beast.

Originally posted by J-P
Dan.

Cpanel is there to assist you and your customers but it cannot replace or do normal admin work for you. You have to keep it updated and make sure that your system is maintained and secure, if the account restore feature isn't working you can either try the bleeding edge tree of cpanel to see if there's a fix the possibilities are all there.

To me sounds like you want it to do everything from A to Z that ain't going to happen and if it did I'm sure it would cost a hell lot more than it costs.

* Edit: What OS are you using cpanel on?

No normal admin work required, if you install it and it doesn't work without actually having to hack through it, I call that buggy software. I'm perfectly aware of how to admin a system - this hasn't got anything to do with it.

The OS is CentOS 3.4 x64 (which works absolutely fine on some cPanel machines I installed last week - not a problem at all, and they are still running fine).

I've contacted cPanel and their solution was to ask me to format the machine and they're going to reattempt the install for me. So the question still lies, how did cPanels basic installer manage to screw my server up to the point where not even cPanels own techs can fix it.

Dan

Originally posted by RazorBlue - Dan
No normal admin work required, if you install it and it doesn't work without actually having to hack through it, I call that buggy software. I'm perfectly aware of how to admin a system - this hasn't got anything to do with it.

The OS is CentOS 3.4 x64 (which works absolutely fine on some cPanel machines I installed last week - not a problem at all, and they are still running fine).

I've contacted cPanel and their solution was to ask me to format the machine and they're going to reattempt the install for me. So the question still lies, how did cPanels basic installer manage to screw my server up to the point where not even cPanels own techs can fix it.

Dan

Well, I've seen you around enough to see your admin abilities. Those out of the question, the x64 stability is something I've questioned with cPanel installs. Granted though, most CP companies if an initial install got corrupted somehow want a fresh OS install, or any CP install for that matter typically needs a fresh one as well. Do let us know though what cPanel comes back with, though they'll probably have no problems at all, just like our other CP installs we had issues with, we always got errors, they never got any :) oh well, what can you do really?

cPannel has flooded the web hosting market with admins and users who have no clue how to actually interact with the OS's they are running. That is a bit off topic, but the title drew me. :stickout:

Originally posted by sagomatt
the sheer amount of people who come into the hosting world don't have the necessary skills to properly admin a non control panel server regardless. Nor do they have the skills to properly admin a control panel server either.

we all piss on MS for their bloated ware and i'm afaird that's what cpanel have come to...

You got FUNCTIONALITY VS STABILITY.

are you willing to trade in features rich panel (function) for simple work out of box panel (stable)?

Originally posted by PSFServers
It's really not so much the control panels themselves, but the never ending, constant updating that is required to make your system stable and secure.

This is just the nature of the beast.

disagree. if you need to fix a control panel on almost daily. then it's time to switch.

no body going to spend their time all day long to fix MS Office. the nature of the beast is to update your system (software, os...etc.) when there is patch/fix/service pack

not to fix when a software break something. OP's point is that. cpanel break almost daily with unkown issue. kinda like making you their beta tester and they charge you a premiue price for it!

i don't think admin work involved beta testing a piece of software that you pay for and i think that's OP's point. he feel like he is not getting his money worth because the software require too much tweaks, fix by himself when he pay good money to get it work out of box.

Originally posted by ScreamingEaglePC
Sounds like you and qwidjib0 both just picked up some poorly managed servers.

We manage our own servers. We'll also manage our customer's servers - but we won't manage cPanel servers. I have a long list of cPanel issues that have nothing to do with management. But, if any of the issues did - we tried cPanel support for a number of things too, and they had no help for us.

Our Plesk / vSacs setups, experienced zero downtime of any services over the time we've used them due to control panel issues. The cPanel servers we've used, while we admittedly push them a lot harder - have needed to be babysat pretty much round-the-clock.

I thought I'd chime in here.


First of all, the main problem I personally have with cpanel is the inconsistant install. Depending on the OS, or maybe even time, it may request some information in the prompt, thus you can't just let it sit there and install. Also, once on awhile there is a bug in the install scripts, not allowing us to do installs for 12 hours or so... Also, the upgrading through cPanel, are very often buggy, causing all sorts of unusual problems for us to fix.

cPanel is also the control panel we get the most support requests regarding. I honestly can only think of one time we've needed to fix Plesk, when a client deleted the Plesk database, and no issues with either Interworx or DirectAdmin other than standard usability issues. cPanel just breaks every once in awhile. There are scripts that seem to fix most of the issues, but does that really give you confidence, they have scripts that fix common problems, why can't they just make the software work so those common problems don't occur??

It is true, most of the problems are small and easy to fix, but as we need to support them, I'd prefer that those problems don't happen in the first place, as it is generally us, not the user of the server, who ends up fixing it. Considering that cPanel is also the most expensive CP out there, I would think it should have most of those issues worked out...

Note: Some of the issue may also be that more of the newer, less knowledgable, clients pick cPanel which thus leads to more issues, as they aren't used to admining a cPanel box. Also, the amount of software it installs and the amount of resources it consumes by default is crazy, this is most noticable in smaller VPS plans, where all the other CP's definitely out-perform cPanel.

We had an issue yesterday with a bug in the latest install of cpanel messing up new accounts being created but honestly in over two years there hasn't been anything that couldn't be fixed in less then a few minutes...

If you are having that many issues with your server I would think something got messed up or overlooked during the installation. You might want to consider saving alot of time and just reinstalling it from scratch and going from there.

I think the upside of cPanel majorly over-rides the downside. A few people angry with it compared to several thousands who are very happy with it.. isn't a very good point.

Thousands of hosts use cPanel, and are very happy with it. Having a very small number of complaints about it, does not make it crap.

I would have to recommend H-Sphere. Billing/Invoicing/Signup totally and completely integrated.

Originally posted by ScreamingEaglePC
Sounds like you and qwidjib0 both just picked up some poorly managed servers.

These servers are from reasonably sized DCs that are popular here and not those tiny ones or resellers and they are fresh new servers.

My thoughts on cpanel are these:

1. They added to many features on top of bugs
2. The fix cycle; Fix bugs and create more bugs and then patch bugs to create more bugs. Its never ending loop...
3. They try to support too many platforms
4. They should switch to a package management system for maintaining their releases based on the OS, rpm, deb etc..

Yes, cpanel does work for 95% of the companies that use it and when it works it is great. However, I think they need to re-think their position and focus more on certain aspects of their product instead of the broad range they are doing now. my 2cents.. take it as you will..

On a related note, www.interworx.info this control panel really has some future ahead of it.

Originally posted by RealtorHost
I think the upside of cPanel majorly over-rides the downside. A few people angry with it compared to several thousands who are very happy with it.. isn't a very good point.

Thousands of hosts use cPanel, and are very happy with it. Having a very small number of complaints about it, does not make it crap.

Based on this argument I would guess Internet Explorer is a lot better then every other browser due to its market share.

My take on cpanel is it tends to overtake the system so the procedure to have another go is format, the procedute to uninstall it is format. It isnt just a frontend for end user's which is what I would expect a control panel to do but instead it handles server administration tasks, causing the scenario monkey mentioned.

Of course they have jam packed it with so many features that are just not needed in a control panel they will end up with increased amount of bugs.

Bottom line is people still like cpanel because they might not like the sight of a command line, or they are just used to it and like the way it works, everyone to their own way of doing things.

Well I've just handed details over to cPanel, and interestingly enough they "can't see" the server.
My last e-mail sent 35 minutes ago was to inform them of another box in London they can use to "proxy ssh" through ... haven't heard anything since, are they trying to get out of it?

Anyone who's got a spare minute care to query 69.90.120.10 port 22? I can see it from almost anywhere ...

cPanel is like buying a Jaguar. Great cars to own - but you better know a good mechanic :).

I can SSH to your IP.

I just recently went to hosting controller and I couldn't be happier so far. I realise it's linux vs windows however as far as the control panel itself I find hosting controller to suit my needs much more than cpanel.

Also, rebuildXpress is really nice. It runs in the background and constantly backups your data so if you have something go wrong you won't lose days or weeks worth of clients data. It will even restore the last known good configuration.

Like everyone says, there is no best control panel. However, I've been using CPanel for two years now and I find myself liking hosting controller a whole lot more.

dan there is a password prompt but then the server doesnt respond? possible dns issue perhaps.

ahh responded after small delay.

what if there is only one version of Linux thus it's easy to manage and update? like Windows and Mac OS, one version of Linux, opensorced and release by one non profit group 'cause it sound like cpanel also have problem with different version of linux. maybe it's time to release just one distro for all.

Anyone who thinks software out of the box should just work is a dreamer. No offence.

I deal with a lot of enterprise software on a daily basis, like WebSphere, WebLogic, Vignette etc.... Not ever will you see these applications just magically work out of the box. Each requires tuning, customizations and in a lot of cases "special tricks" from the vendor's to get them working on the different supported O/S's and DB's. These are 5 and 6 figure costing applications and they have these issues, and you expect a $65/mth software like cPanel to be better? Not likely.

Originally posted by dgbaker
Anyone who thinks software out of the box should just work is a dreamer. No offence.

Any software you purchase should work. Period.



I deal with a lot of enterprise software on a daily basis, like WebSphere, WebLogic, Vignette etc.... Not ever will you see these applications just magically work out of the box. Each requires tuning, customizations and in a lot of cases "special tricks" from the vendor's to get them working on the different supported O/S's and DB's. These are 5 and 6 figure costing applications and they have these issues, and you expect a $65/mth software like cPanel to be better? Not likely. [/B]

There is a difference between installing software and then having to edit some configuration files and put local customizations in place or refer to the vendors additional install steps for divergent platforms.

If you purchase a software package for XYZ platform and the vendor says: Just install it and you are done.
Then you should just have to install it and be done. End of story.

Refer to the PC video game market. How many of those games require: tweaks, hacks, or "special tricks" to just make them run? That is a big ticket industry and they know their software has to just work. Period.

I don't think Dan is expressing frustration over having to CONFIGURE cPanel as much as he is frustrated that cPanel will not even install as it as advertised too. From his experience that is.

CPANEL has over-extended themselves trying to support 11 distributions, 2 different platforms, and are developing Mac, Windows and Solaris versions. I'm 100% sure that this is why there is a major lack of quality control and testing before releasing software to their customers - I'm sure their bug list is dozens of pages long - I can't even begin to imagine supporting such a wide veriety of setups and expecting to put out a good solution to run on all of them.

Originally posted by Naes
Any software you purchase should work. Period.



There is a difference between installing software and then having to edit some configuration files and put local customizations in place or refer to the vendors additional install steps for divergent platforms.

If you purchase a software package for XYZ platform and the vendor says: Just install it and you are done.
Then you should just have to install it and be done. End of story.

Refer to the PC video game market. How many of those games require: tweaks, hacks, or "special tricks" to just make them run? That is a big ticket industry and they know their software has to just work. Period.

I don't think Dan is expressing frustration over having to CONFIGURE cPanel as much as he is frustrated that cPanel will not even install as it as advertised too. From his experience that is.

Granted, but even those software that I mentioned, they have at times failed to even install on "supported platforms". So it can and does happen.

In cases were I have seen cPanel having install/running issues, it was mainly due to something foreign on the server or a version issue of a needed component (perl, compiler, etc...). I don't recall any O/S particulars being given so cannot comment further.

I tend to agree though as MaB stated that cPanel may be over extending themselves and hence these types of issues are becoming more of the norm.

As you said, "Any software you purchase should work. Period." well, in cPanels case that holds true to the majority, but like anything nothing is perfect. ;)

The people swearing by cpanel almost remind me of my parents and their obsession with vinyl records. They simply will not listen to music on cd or mp3. no matter the proof of better quality, convenience, flexibility, reliability - they swear by their old 45's - and theres no way they would consider anything else - we are used to them, they work, they have worked for years - why change now? Honestly, who can blame them. So, if you like cpanel, you are used to it, and it works - keep using it. But, dont hold the fact that some are realizing just how much further away from ideal cpanel is then other options, against them.

Originally posted by RazorBlue - Dan
Well I've just handed details over to cPanel, and interestingly enough they "can't see" the server.
My last e-mail sent 35 minutes ago was to inform them of another box in London they can use to "proxy ssh" through ... haven't heard anything since, are they trying to get out of it?

Anyone who's got a spare minute care to query 69.90.120.10 port 22? I can see it from almost anywhere ...

I can see it just fine.

Yeah as cPanel haven't replied we have been forced to reinstall it ourselves, however it seems to of gone better this time than the previous attempt.

It's all fun and games.

Chris

One constant problem we run into right after installation is no config file for squirrelmail. YES, i know how to fix it...yes its easy. The point is, I shouldn't have to.

Yes, software should work out of the box.

No, it does not happen very often in the real world.

Reality bites.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going.

I dont like cPanel either, but its what most expect from a shared host.

Originally posted by dgbaker
Anyone who thinks software out of the box should just work is a dreamer. No offence.

I deal with a lot of enterprise software on a daily basis, like WebSphere, WebLogic, Vignette etc.... Not ever will you see these applications just magically work out of the box. Each requires tuning, customizations and in a lot of cases "special tricks" from the vendor's to get them working on the different supported O/S's and DB's. These are 5 and 6 figure costing applications and they have these issues, and you expect a $65/mth software like cPanel to be better? Not likely.

MS Windows and Office work out of box. Firefox work out of box. Quickbook entperise work out of box.

there are a lot of software work out of box. you can't expect me to buy a car and it require me to be a auto tech so i can get my car running. what's a point of buying a piece of software if it require daily fix/tweak or tweak it for just install.

Originally posted by datruesurfer
I dont like cPanel either, but its what most expect from a shared host.

Actually, this is the best, most accurate post in the thread.

I have experienced a few issues in my time with cPanel , but everytime I put a new box online for myself I put cPanel on it too. So I cannot complain.

normally we have no issues with cpanel installs but we found it a nightmare to install it on 64bit version of centos, which it clearly states on website is support... Hours up hours correcting problems and then we finally just gave up.

Dan,

You mentioned have problems with MySQL on a fresh install. FYI, Their is a known bug in the cpanel setup script.

http://bugzilla.cpanel.net/show_bug.cgi?id=2633

Originally posted by jt2377
MS Windows and Office work out of box.

Depends on what you call working. MS Windows blue screening is not what I would call working. It also depends the hardware and drivers you use.

Again, like cPanel it works for the majority and some have issues with it. That is the reality of software.

I can most definitely agree with the OP's statement on cPanel. Where I work, we've been dealing with cPanel installations, and seen it get hosed up in assorted ways - one of my favorites being where MySQL doesn't get installed because the packages containing the MySQL binaries aren't accessible.

Also, on x86_64 systems, the cPanel installer installs i386 binaries of MySQL - but it still wants to build DBD::mysql from source (with the x86_64 compiler, against i386 libraries). This was one of several reasons that we reported bugs to cPanel telling them that Fedora x86_64 *did not work*. I still to this day wouldn't trust it on x86_64 systems, no matter what cPanel says. As others have mentioned, they are certainly overreaching with their "supported" platform list.

As well, I've seen it half-install Exim and the mail components, I've seen it install a non-functional Stunnel setup (which is such a ghetto-rig job anyway, but...) - I just don't see how cPanel can justify the much higher price given the rickety nature of the package. Sadly, as bad as the internals are, people want it - but boy, do they howl when it begins eating itself for some unknown reason, as it tends to do.

Well after 8 hours of hacking and messing around, it's now working. Time wasted that I could have been on other jobs and charged $400 for my time.

The only remaining problem which is puzzling me being the lack of frontpage extensions when an account is created, a missing "fpfakeout.so" is mentioned. cPanel forums say it'll be fixed in the next build - but I have no idea when that will be, all of the edge and release builds are completely wrecked.

Infact when this server finally gets clients on it, I'll be scared to upgrade cPanel...

Originally posted by RazorBlue - Dan

Infact when this server finally gets clients on it, I'll be scared to upgrade cPanel...

have you experenice update will break cpanel before?

cPanel Update has broken a variety of machines i have privately used, but not our production machines as of yet.

Thank god :)

DirectAdmin is the Best Control Panel with reasonable price.

Well, I disagree with DirectAdmin being the best control panel. cPanel has much more features, and so what its not perfect but you could have changed the features to where it didnt auto do what you didnt want it to do, and does DirectAdmin have so many billing systems made to configure with it and WHM? No, they don't. I have no cPanel problems, Most people who are looking for a host are looking for cPanel and Fantastico.

I think cPanel should have some technicians on 24/7 emergency on-call. It would make sense in case of any major emergencies given that it seems that much of the product is constantly updated and that there is fairly hefty reliance on rsyncing with the official servers and whatnot. However, this does not seem to be the case.

For example, a particular issue is preventing me from installing cPanel from scratch on my server and there is at least another 6 hours before I can actually talk to somebody from cPanel about it. And the only time I ever contact cPanel is when there is a big time serious problem preventing me from using the product. I'm good (usually) at fixing my own problems, but when the issue is with a third party then it gets exceedingly frustrating if you cannot contact them. And right now that's the problem. I cannot contact them.

M.

I've not read the complete thread, so I don't know if anyone else has said this, but I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest you look closer to home for problems i.e. Your hardware, your OS choice/install. We've not had any problems (touches wood) with CPanel for about 2 years now, it just works, and it's been a long time since the updater ever broke one of our many machines - The last case being a broken Exim, because the rpm binary was segfaulting.

Nothing wrong with the hardware, OS or any other components. Despite running on an Opteron, I wouldn't even consider going 64-bit as I just don't need it (as well as maintaining both 32-bit and 64-bit libraries and so forth - it's just too messy right now even if it is supported by cPanel). I'm using a standard Opteron 246 with 1Gb RAM, SATA and Centos 3.5. Never had an issue with it during the time I've been running cPanel (which has been since sometime early last year). The only issues I've ever encountered were licensing issues and they were dealt with by my license supplier very efficiently.

Today, in this instance, it is definately a cPanel issues as confirmed over on the main cPanel forums. However, how long it's going to take them to fix it is anybody's guess. Another 3 hours before their technical support office opens. I've been waiting to do this install since 8am this morning. 6 hours to wait for a fix - possibly longer depending on how quickly they can fix it.

M.

Was actually refering to the OP not yourself ;)

I actually agree with CRAP. Only reason we are using the cpanel on our servers is demand from customer. Otherwise it is so stupid software which can not seperate the domain-uk.com from domain.uk.com

i m getting the same sort of problem "Using Frontpage 5.x!
Warning, fpfakeout.so failed to build. Please discover the reason!
No such file or directory "
my cpanel version is cPanel 10.6.0-R137"
any idea i have a 64 bits server 3000+ any idea what so ever and using centos 3.5 version.. let me inform any solution or any idea??
thanks
From
Kamran Iqbal

we have FC2. CPanel won't run on FC3 or just too many errors. OnFC2, some bugs initially but after a couple tweaks it runs fine. But just last week, we got a message in the main whm regarding 10.6 version. Our boxes are set to manual update, but evenso we were surprised cpanel updated to 10.6. we got it fixed tho...but yeah too many bugs. there should be a competent admin manning the servers.

IMO, I have tried H-Sphere and would like to migrate to their control panel, but most of my customers are already used to cpanel....such a dilemma....

IMO, I have tried H-Sphere and would like to migrate to their control panel, but most of my customers are already used to cpanel....such a dilemma....

The largest problem you would face is the migration itself - which from cpanel to hsphere is a manual, and time consuming process. We have found that clients, once they have tried hsphere, generally are quite happy and quickly get used to it. Lots of flash demos, walkthroughs for resellers and documentation usually facilitate the process. We have purchased several smaller hosting companies, and the percentage of clients we lost based on the control panel change was very very small.

nice to hear that with H-Sphere.

Personally, we have received awesome support with cpanel. The only cocern we have is that we get errors here and there from time to time, nothing that can be fixed tho, just a tweak here and there, and support is there.

One thing we like with H-Sphere is it can span multiple servers to split services and server load. I don't believe cpanel can do that or I might be mistaken. And H-Sphere has a built in billing system, which is a plus to them.

But then again I don't know how support goes with H-Spere as I haven't really dealt with them. And I'm not too sure also with their pricing, if it's better. With Cpanel, just a flat monthly. With H-Sphere it's a per account pricing....

Personally, we have received awesome support with cpanel.

If the support is there, and the product works for you, it must really be a tough decision if thinking about a change...

One thing we like with H-Sphere is it can span multiple servers to split services and server load... And H-Sphere has a built in billing system, which is a plus to them.

Yes, clustering, integration, automation and Windows/*nix support are the key value statements with h-sphere.

But then again I don't know how support goes with H-Spere as I haven't really dealt with them. And I'm not too sure also with their pricing, if it's better. With Cpanel, just a flat monthly. With H-Sphere it's a per account pricing....

The support from psoft directly has been better then average, especially in the last 8-14 months, where it has shown consistent improvement (not that they were ever "bad", but, they are certainly alot better now). However, you really should look at having an hsphere admin in house or picking up an additional support contract from someone like dynamicnet - at least until your internal staff are up to speed.

Every which way that we have crunched the numbers, h-spheres total cost of ownership over 12-18 months is significantly less then other control panels - especially when taking into account secondary costs associated with billing, etc...

can you point me to h-sphere distributors or resellers? the pricing on h-sphere main site is a bit expensive if i were to deploy them to new servers..

thanx

--Francis

I dont understand cpanel at all. Im new to all of this and I need help. How do you make a complete site out of cpanel with templates and pages? all I see is folders in cpanel. Please help.

Originally posted by bangsters
can you point me to h-sphere distributors or resellers? the pricing on h-sphere main site is a bit expensive if i were to deploy them to new servers..

thanx

--Francis

Hi Francis,

Here is a list of providers that resell h-sphere licenses.

http://www.psoft.net/resellers.php

Hope this helps...

Andrew