I'm leaving school this month and i'm taking a year out before going to university to study 'Internet Technology'. I've been reselling hosting for about a year and I'm looking to co-locate a server somewhere now. I cant really find any reasonably priced control panels that support resellers.

I'm thinking of spending a few months developing a control panel for IIS but was wondering if any of you people experienced any major problems when doing something similar. I'm looking to have three levels of access - system, reseller, and individual sites.

Do you think there would be demand for such a product if i was to get it working ok?

I'd be interested to hear what you have to say....

I think there's a demand for this!
I've been looking for a controlpanel for IIS5 a while now and havn't found any working.
I've been trying to make one, but to make it work all my customers needs to have an administration account on the server, and that's something I don't want to give them!

If you make one, be sure to make it easy to add customers that's allready on the server!

thanks for your input.

i've got a few ideas flying around in my head... :-)

Let me know if you need any help, I got servers ond good knowledge in ASP, VB and a little in ADSI

I have been testing the new CP from Ensim for windows and have to say that it is a very good product. I had some teething probs but the tech support guys helped me out and we got it working (they called me from the states to get me sorted).

I am interested if anyone else has had any experiences with the Ensim CP for windows (not linux) I am now in the mood to buy.

chrisbyrd: It does support reseller packages very well.

I am also leaving school and having a year out and going to make a control panel for winodws :-)
I want to start a compnay selling windows hosting.
I have been writing asp for over 2 years and know if quite well.

I tried to install Ensim at my server at home.
It installs to much crap! I already got Merak mailserver and I don't want to change! The only things I want installed is Activeperl, PHP and MySQL.

So thumbs down for ensim!
Tried to login to the controlpanel, but it didn't work :(
It took me half an hour to remove all of it.

A good controlpanal contains:

Customers can...
Add and remove subdomains.
Add, edit and delete ftp accounts.
Add, edit and remove email accounts.
Add and remove Frontpage2000/2002
View statistics
Support tickets

That's the most important things(might have missed something), resellers are in second place.

You should also have support for the most used mailservers and ftpservers like Merakmail and Serv-U.

hi guys.

I've just had a go at installing the demo of ensim. First of all, it'd only let me install it on win2k server and then it wouldnt install it with active-directory.

I know this shouldnt be a problem for most people but its just annoying because i've gotta do a lot of fiddling with my servers

By the way, you guys may be better off collaborating on an existing windows CP rather than a new one. No reason to have 3-4 half-finished CP laying around, when you can collect forces and do it.

I think there is a free windows CP call ADNS4NT (not sure about the spelling). And I think there may be a few more, so search the forum archive.

Peter

I will look at the existing onse already but i want to make one that i can sell.
If im going to spend 3 months developing one then im not going to give it away for free. As i charge arround £2000 per month for coding now.
Anyone here interested in sharing the cost of coloing a win2k server please email me
jbuckle@clara.co.uk

Sorry, I was under the impression that you wanted to make a free panel.

Even so, you may be about to get a free open source panel and customize it. You can still sell it, you just have to make the source available.

Or better yet, microsoft has a script which I believe is free either way(check on that). It is very bare bone, but that's a start.

Peter

I might make a free version with minimum functions and then sell a version with loads of cool features.

That's very nice of you. And I think it is also a very good busines plan/promotional tactic.

Peter

Originally posted by ckpeter
By the way, you guys may be better off collaborating on an existing windows CP rather than a new one. No reason to have 3-4 half-finished CP laying around, when you can collect forces and do it.

I think there is a free windows CP call ADNS4NT (not sure about the spelling). And I think there may be a few more, so search the forum archive.

Peter

http://www.adsi4nt.com/ :)

Thanks. I knew it had something to do with active directory. (Active Directory Service Interface). :)

Peter

..do checkout www.iisfaq.com. There's tons of goodies over there. Though the bulk of it is in VBS

cheers

Originally posted by jbuckle
I will look at the existing onse already but i want to make one that i can sell.
If im going to spend 3 months developing one then im not going to give it away for free. As i charge arround £2000 per month for coding now.
jbuckle@clara.co.uk

Well, I guess Linus could have sold Linux for 100's of dollars for the years of work he put in (mabey 10000's which is what it's worth) - or mabey apache could sell their apache server, or mysql, or bind, or sendmail,, or redhat, or freebsd, or mabey microso - oh wait, they already sell it.

The point is, I'm not against making money on it, but I just like the sharing mentality. :) I guess a pay control panel is just another one on the long list...

This also reminds me, if you plan to just release a commercial panel, you will be competing (at least) against ensim and hostingcontroller. It would be a smart idea to release a free (lite?) version, and an even smarter idea to release it as open source.

Of course, maybe you have enough creative power to overcome ensim's might, but that's your call.

Peter