Hi all - a brief history..

We are a small web design company with about 300 sites under our belt - they are currently hosted on 4 small vps' & 1 large vps.

I have decided to to bite the bullet and get a dedicated (linux box with red hat rpm license)

The vps' have been great - I can add a user & setup a host in 10 mins (using Imanager and the command line).

Its been great having a managed solution as I have very little time to admin the servers, the vps' have been ultra reliable, stable and easy to use etc...
I shall use the dedicated to host all the sites from the 4 small vps' and add any new ones.

I am trying to decide what control panel to use....I have looked at several of the posts here and gleened a bit of info...

My questions are:

Can I run Cpanel & Webmin (with Usermin & Virtualmin) together on the same server?

I have read several posts saying how good Direct Admin is - If I installed the above, could I install demos of Direct Admin & Ensim to try - would it cause
any conflicts...

Which of the above is the simplest to use and offers the simplest host and user setup? - I dont want to spend ages trying to sort user perms and ftp access
etc..

which is the most stable?

I was rather keen on Ensim until I read a post here that mentioned server load probs as site no.increased.

I shall not be offering commercial hosting (may do later), the dedicated is for our website customers

Customers will need to be able to login to a control panel change a few variables - email aliases for example - will it cause a prob if im logged in with
Webmin and a client logs in with Cpanel?


NB
The server is live and costing me money - need a solution asap - if there is anybody out there looking for abit of freelance setup work and a bit of hand-
holding please contact me - im not as thick as i sound, once I understand something im fine..

Thanks in advance for any advice..

Dave

I highly recommend DirectAdmin. It is one of the easier to use control panels available and is not as resource intensive as other commercial CPs.

I'd have to highly recommend cPanel, it's very established... and there "shouldn't" be any problems running webmin also.

I don't think you will need usermin, but I don't know what your exact needs are...

I'm certain you can run Webmin with anything without a problem. Unless you go into webmin and change a server's configuration that then breaks the CP, you'll be fine.

Most control panels will install their versions of software - DA will compile apache, exim, mysql and php for you. You don't get the choice of the softeare they use. If you're converting domains, you might want to check what you currently use to see how much of a pain conversion might be. Generally you'll be fine, your users will just get a new server to login to.

If you currently use scripts, you might be better off with just Webmin, Usermin and your scripts.

CPanel, there shouldn't be any other choice on this matter.


Blessed.

I'd have to highly recommend cPanel, it's very established... and there "shouldn't" be any problems running webmin also.

I don't think you will need usermin, but I don't know what your exact needs are...

I do not recommend running Webmin + cPanel. It's okay to run together, but any changes you make through Webmin can cause issues with cPanel. What features of webmin do you need that cPanel does not provide?

CPanel, there shouldn't be any other choice on this matter.


Blessed.


Why not? What so bad about the other panels that makes you say that?

Pick HSphere (http://www.psoft.net). Very scaleable, very easy to maintain. Complete hosting solutions as well with integrate support ticketing system and billing system. Not to mention you can offer both *nix and windows hosting!

You will be happy I recommend you HSphere :)

CPanel, there shouldn't be any other choice on this matter.


I feel sorry for you already ....

Hi - thanks for the comments and advice.
i will not be offering commercial hosting - server is really for our clients websites - so just want to be able to setup users, sort mail and ftp access and setup virtual hosts as quickly as poss and be able to give the client the ability to add / edit / delete email forwards etc...most of my clients will never login at all.....

Some sort of billing ability would be good for the yearly hosting renewals..not essential tho.

At the mo i'm thinking CPanel - but will have a another look at Ensim and Direct Admin (had a look at Hsphere - looks vgood and if I was going to offer commercial hosting i would give it some serious thought) - Setup speed and ease of use are the main criteria...

Thanks again

Dave

I do not recommend running Webmin + cPanel. It's okay to run together, but any changes you make through Webmin can cause issues with cPanel. What features of webmin do you need that cPanel does not provide?

I stand corrected.

... just go with cPanel, it's the best. :D