Hello,,

I was wondering what type of features people would be interested to see in a linux control panel.

Please give me a list of features you would like to see so that i can try and get them worked into this new panel.

Thanks..

Ok, I think a nice basic but functional control panel would interest me most.

Opening screen is account summary...

username
password
bandwidth usage
space usage
mailbox usage
sub domain usage
ftp user usage

then...

- a page for managing email aliases and catchall
- a page for creating and removing sub domains
- a page for creating and removing ftp users
- a web based file manager
- MySQL control panel
- web based email

I think that would do the job nicely, and incidentally im in the market for a control panel, so please keep me upto date with how you get on..

Currently i use qmailadmin for email control panel and then customers submit support tickets for sub domains.

First things first.

On you website Matt what is the status page using to pull such information. Is that MRTG or what?

Secondly

I would be interested in this panel (JDP) also please keep me up to date. I am also interested in taking on or (partner up) with a few designing and programmers to make an open source (free) panel. Seems like everyone is promising the world but never comes up with the goods. If anyone is interested in doing such a thing let me know.


If only the guys at redhat (interchange dept) would make one. LOL

Im also interested in helping a team to create or develope a free panel.. I have kept an eye on a lot of CP projects like this and none seem to be going anywhere :)

I think its best to start off simple, email management and sub domain management.. then develope more advanced features later.

My status page is basically some fancy php pulling information from scripts such as MRTG ;)

So you do have MRTG installed on the server. Did you write the script yourself or do you have a link to the site where you got it?

I installed MRTG myself, its easy to install - the config file is the thing you have to get right. Im measuring eth0 instead of a router. If you want my config file i dont mind emailing you it.

Please if you would then what about this php script. I tried the MRTG a while back and it comes with it's own scripts if I remember right are those the ones you are using?

http://mrtg.unitedhosting.co.uk

is what the output of mrtg looks as standard.

My service status page is simply taking the top image from that page and displaying it. nothing fancy really.

Matt,

Can you send me a copy of your config.

Thanks

http://unitedhosting.co.uk/mrtg.cfg

above is the config i use, you should only need to change the "WorkDir" to where you want the html output and the titles at the bottom to your server name.

Setup a cronjob to run mrtg with this config every 5 minutes and you should be sorted.

P.S. also set the timezone to your time. If you are in the UK then use "GB" not "GMT" because we are currently 1 hour ahead. :)

Well i need more ideas for features, but let me explain one thing. This panel will not be free, not for the price it is costing me to have it programmed. However i may strip some features and offer a free version of the panel without all of the advanced options that a large company would need.. and maybe allow an upgrade from the free version to the advanced version...

But im afraid i couldnt offer it free at this time, but im just looking for suggestions on features,etc..

I still think that if we could get about 10 or so developers to devote a few hours a week to a panel that we could some great features and stability also. I will never pay for software that is my rule of thumb. jdp how much are you paying to have this designed and what is it for?

You will never pay for software?
Thats a hackers rule of thumb isnt it? j/k!

It started at $3700.00, went to $5k, now quickly going to $10K and im told its not likely to stop there.... thats why i CANT give it away free...

However, if some how i could raise the money to cover the cost of the panel then i could.. but ive yet to find a way to do this.. We are reaching a stopping point in the development process soon as im running out of money,, but it will none the less be completed as soon as i get additional funds...

The panel is for linux only , but is being designed for linux, windows, unix.. only linux is being completed at this time..

All features are standard with the exception of how the panel deals with multiple servers.. in a sense it is being designed to look at multiple servers as one machine, there was many issue's with this at first and the only solution was to have a control server.

MrWebHosting, although im not a software developer i do know PHP and MySQL pretty well and I would be more than willing to get together with you and a few others to maybe start something.

There are already a lot of opensource programs we could maybe use as a starting point to get a basic control panel into development.

I would be interested in integrating qmailadmin and some dns scripts to create a basi control panel. this could be a goo starting point.

matt@unitedhosting.co.uk is my email address if you want to contact me.

jdp,

Not a hacker just believe in open source.(sort of)

Those prices with rule of thumb are completely out of the question for me. When do you need this panel done by and who is the designer?

Matt,

This is the error that I am getting while trying to load mrtg:

[root@dufus mrtg]# mrtg /home/thecompu/www/htdocs/mrtg/mrtg.cfg
1454649119
1795675673
1
eth0 traffic
gd-png: fatal libpng error: Invalid filter type specified
gd-png error: setjmp returns error condition
[root@dufus mrtg]#

Any ideas as to why?

I just got done grabbing gd.rpm, libpng.rpm w/devel, zlib.rpm, and mrtg.rpm and no errors occured while installing them?

Thanks in advance

What do you mean when do i need it done by? Its already being worked on,, im not looking for someone to do project, im looking for features that i might use for the project that is being worked on now..

jdp29053

you could probably just take the features list from a panel such as cpanel, hostgui and some others.. combine them into 1 big list... then remove what you dont like... and build on the good ideas ?

yes

Hey Matt,

Do have any ideas why i get that error or maybe i didn't post it here it is again:


[root@dufus mrtg]# mrtg /home/thecompu/www/htdocs/mrtg/mrtg.cfg
1469946465
1823587845
1
eth0 traffic
gd-png: fatal libpng error: Invalid filter type specified
gd-png error: setjmp returns error condition
[root@dufus mrtg]#


Any ideas I think it has something to do with :


Target[eth0]: `perl -e '@a=split(/[:\s]+/,qx(grep eth0 /proc/net/dev));$f="%.0f";$fmt="$f\n$f\n1\neth0 traffic\n";$s=sprintf $fmt,$a[2],$a[10];print $s; print STDERR $s;'`;


But I have no idea what the hell is going on with it?

Thanks in advance,

Nope the config is fine, its writing your data correctly..

1469946465
1823587845
1
eth0 traffic

That error is to do with the creating of the images (png files) have you got the correct things installed for mrtg, there are several packages it needs installed for mrtg to run properly.

MRTG needs the following installed if you dont already have them:

GD: http://www.boutell.com/gd/

LIBPNG: http://www.libpng.org/pub/png/src/

ZLIB: http://www.gzip.org/zlib

thats most likely to be the problem, you could be missing 1 or all of those.

i seemed to have tried tars and rpms but no luck.

I guess it was a bad idea

I think we have hi jacked this control panel thread enough :)

PM me for further help. All you need to do is go through the mrtg documents and make sure ALL the things mentioned are installed... your mrtg is isntalled correctly because it is logging your bandwidth. its just not drawing the graphs up.

One last post.

OK I will try to redo the gd,libpng,zlib with tars and go from their if I need anything I will pm you

Thanks for all your help.