Hello,

Do anyone here use VDI's CPanel Mailman the mailing list system?

I setup everything but seems like all of my members didnt get email

What the hell all Host doesnt have manual, gee

Hmm whats next? the manual the mailman has is crap, nothing

Sign, Im pissed

Originally posted by myDeafCities
Hello,

Do anyone here use VDI's CPanel Mailman the mailing list system?

I setup everything but seems like all of my members didnt get email

What the hell all Host doesnt have manual, gee

Hmm whats next? the manual the mailman has is crap, nothing

Sign, Im pissed

The only way I know how to solve these type of problems with Cpanel, is: rm -rf / ... Then, install FreeBSD and find a good control panel or write one.

Originally posted by Tim_Greer
The only way I know how to solve these type of problems with Cpanel, is: rm -rf / ... Then, install FreeBSD and find a good control panel or write one.
You know, I've heard some kids in Finland did just that, and it worked great

Are you trying to steal their Idea ?

I agree with you.. I was sold on the control panel at first becuase the demo that was installed on our server worked great. But now that we have switced over to VDI, it's been pure hell. I'm not really sure what the problem is, all I know is that they can't seem to fix it. I've had the same complaint about the lack of documentation, cpanel access speed, in fact all of the complaints that we have focus around the control panel and our inability to "control" it.

Originally posted by yvette
I agree with you.. I was sold on the control panel at first becuase the demo that was installed on our server worked great. But now that we have switced over to VDI, it's been pure hell. I'm not really sure what the problem is, all I know is that they can't seem to fix it. I've had the same complaint about the lack of documentation, cpanel access speed, in fact all of the complaints that we have focus around the control panel and our inability to "control" it.

I don't think the Cpanel alone, has anything to do with the fact of being on VDI. I realize people need to offer a control panel for their hosted client's and I agree this is needed for client's. However, I've seen far too many problems with what I believe is a poorly designed control panel. Unfortunately, there's very few control panels out there. Cpanel offers features that a lot of other's don't (well, out of the other's there actually are), even though these are very basic things.

I don't like how Cpanel decides to take control and use certain files, how it sets things up and doesn't set things up right or securely. I don't like that it doesn't just update and use the files it should and not it's own 'special' files. I don't like that it has to check a remote site to validate the license, because it causes access to be very slow often. I don't like the bugs, the errors, the way it screws things up, the problems it creates, problems that can't be fixed manually, because the Cpanel won't be able to read the changes unless the changes were done BY Cpanel, which most fixes and proper changes can NOT be done via Cpanel, since Cpanel only does basic things and doesn't do those things right at that!

I don't like that it doesn't do things that would be done manually. It doesn't just update the relevant files as it should, it uses a lot of other things for the Cpanel database and whatnot, that have nothing to do with a common or normal or well thought out file structure that's relevant to the functions it's supposed to be updating or working with. There's no reason why it shouldn't be completely portable from/to any system, BSD to Linux, etc.

The use of this, setting up accounts with it, you don't have the control you need, or should need. Once things are set up, it makes them a hassle to move from a Cpanel server to a non-CPanel server, so it forces you to be stuck with the product, unless you want to go through a hassle or spend a few hours writing code to take all the relevant information from the Cpanel server and convert it to a real format that's not dependent and solely set out to work with Cpanel.

I don't know if that was the intent of the function of Cpanel, or if it was just a big mistake that was over looked and never changed or never recognized, but it's horrible! And, try moving from one server to a Cpanel server some time, it's ridiculous! There's absolutely no reason for a lot of the design and the poor manner in which it works. I personally don't see why this product is so desirable, but then I remember how there's not a lot of other options available. Still, for how much it costs per month, at least outside of VDI's network? I don't get it at all! Some of the things it does are not bad or not a bad idea, but it's nothing original, at least not for tasks any web host system administrator would be doing anyway. It's all basic things, nothing complex. And, for what it does, again, it doesn't do like it should. There are bugs, errors and problems involved.

There's other things, like what it does to Apache's configuration files, how it adds SSL, CGI wrappers!? Try enabling and using SuEXEC sometime and have the user's scripts run under their UID/GID! Now, try and access the Cpanel -- you can't, because it will give 500 errors, because the call to the redirect.cgi script, not being owned by their user! So, you *have* to use some inferior wrapper to avoid these errors and still let user's run CGI scripts under their user -- but only within a certain directory! There's simply too many things to list. These are just general things and I'm not paid to develop or advice the Cpanel coders on how to fix the problems or what problems exist.

I have recently come to the realization, that the only way to have a quality, well written control panel, is to write my own version. Something that does things properly. Something that doesn't just do basic things. Something that doesn't just include a lot of GPL/GNU free scripts to do the meat of the work for things like file manager, etc. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but this is part of a package that people are paying too much money to use as it is.

Basically, something needs to be designed better, coded better and do better checking and not make people that use it become dependent on it, to limit them from making manual changes and not having the changes take effect due to the Cpanel (or if they take effect, Cpanel doesn't know or read the changes). Some things aren't affected and don't have to go through Cpanel or be read by it, but some things do and are, that ought not to be, or be that way.

I see very little that's actually useful, that's not already incredibly simple to implement, and do it without any errors, bugs or problems, as well as things that aren't already available even in free control panels. So, in reality, there's little to do to get it where it is, and it can definitely be improved upon in too many ways to count. There's not only the fact of doing these things and actually having them work better or well, as they should, but there's no reason to experience any errors or bugs! Few things change, and if the underlying software changed so much, a simple update to change the syntax or values passed, would be very quick and simple, not some big BETA test! Further, there's many things it's lacking, beyond just billing, etc. too. Far too much to list.

My plan is simple, as I have time, over the next few weeks or month or so, as time allows, I will be developing something and it will be something that's actually quality and offers all the features people could want/need, and do them properly, without these problems or dependency. I will either license it out for much cheaper, and/or I'll sell it for a one time free per server or to allow a company a one time fee to use it on all their servers. I will consider sponsorship, investors and whatnot. This will come about sooner or later, but I do have work in the meantime, and I can't just quit my long term, stable job to do this project and have to seek new employment after the fact. So, this will not be ready this week (although it's possible), but should be available within the next month or about.

[Edited by Tim_Greer on 04-01-2001 at 07:55 PM]

Tim you got sponsership right here but then again you already knew that ;)

I could go on all day with our cpanel experiences and as Tim will tell you they are still on going. I think Tim's novel above my post covers about everything anyone could say.

Tim is right. Not only Cpanel, but also its companion WHM as well. One thing that pissed me off is that WHM didn't like this one reseller of mine for whatever reason! It kept on refusing to setup his new accounts under his own nameservers. Just this one reseller! Whenever I setup his nameservers (through WHM) they will be reset a few days later... Finally, I entered the nameservers in WHM's own database file and for the past 3 weeks things are runnign fine. It couldn't even update its own files correctly!

Your cpanel idea is a great one. It will sure push hosting prices down down down :) But if you are going to do a control panel, please remember the host's back end (like WHM for the host and resellers).

Make it affordable enough Tim, and we will definately take one. (that is if ya do manage to put your hackin where your typin went. No offence, but I've seen a lot talk a good game, if ya produce you be the 1st.)

Bug free, featureful, user friendly -and- affordable. Good!

Keep us posted.

Tim I hope to see something new and that works as you say it should work...

Keep as posted and not waiting for too long :)

Yeah.. well Tim is really a Typing Addict as his title says. ;)

The Typing Avenger has returned! Bwahahahaaa! Yes, definitely affordable, much more so and will have everything and more. I need to shut up though and spend my extra time doing, rather than talking about it! So, I'm off! I will keep everyone updated! :-)

Originally posted by Tim_Greer
The Typing Avenger has returned! Bwahahahaaa! Yes, definitely affordable, much more so and will have everything and more. I need to shut up though and spend my extra time doing, rather than talking about it! So, I'm off! I will keep everyone updated! :-)

Hell maybe you could just build some addons to the new ensim software
http://www.ensim.com/products/webppliancels.shtml
Great interface with strong documentation. All it needs is automatic account setup and billing.

Originally posted by JeremyL
Originally posted by Tim_Greer
The Typing Avenger has returned! Bwahahahaaa! Yes, definitely affordable, much more so and will have everything and more. I need to shut up though and spend my extra time doing, rather than talking about it! So, I'm off! I will keep everyone updated! :-)

Hell maybe you could just build some addons to the new ensim software
http://www.ensim.com/products/webppliancels.shtml
Great interface with strong documentation. All it needs is automatic account setup and billing.

I don't like Ensim software and how it takes over the system. There's no reason for this and it has it's share of problems as well, plus their software can get rather expensive, can't it?

Actually their new standalone version is dirt cheap compared to cpanels $200/mth. But you are probably right about it taking everything over.

I don't like Ensim software and how it takes over the system. There's no reason for this and it has it's share of problems as well, plus their software can get rather expensive, can't it?

Can you be more specific? Your posts are usually quite detailed. What kind of problems do you see? I use the Ensim Control Panel and would like to know the details so I can make them improve it for me.

How is $99 one time fee for a 10 domain limit expensive? I think even $500 for 250 domains a deal compared to the others.

Originally posted by thewebbie


I don't like Ensim software and how it takes over the system. There's no reason for this and it has it's share of problems as well, plus their software can get rather expensive, can't it?

Can you be more specific? Your posts are usually quite detailed. What kind of problems do you see? I use the Ensim Control Panel and would like to know the details so I can make them improve it for me.

How is $99 one time fee for a 10 domain limit expensive? I think even $500 for 250 domains a deal compared to the others.



Well, I've had some experience with it and I had enough, very quickly to not like a lot of things about it, so I didn't look in-depth enough into it to list a lot of hidden things or whatever. I didn't like how it took over the system, in the same manner that Cobalt does for Raq's... I didn't like how it didn't allow a lot of things to be done, like fdisk, mounting and unmounting drives, lack of logging, how it put things in place of simple things like issue and issue.net, to things like syslog and other things.

The chroot that seemed to chroot the root user and limited root from doing many things it should be able to do. I don't at all like any product that once it's installed, you can't choose to remove it. I speak of the WebPliance deal though, that allows you to do virtual dedicated server hosting, which is sort of cool, but sort of lame.

I didn't like how sloppy it was put together and structured. It made a mess, rather than making it fit together well. I mean, it ought to have been more secure in ways and not tweaked things it had no business screwing with, adding to or changing. I'm not sure where I'm really going with this, since it's been a couple of months and I looked at a few things, and I didn't like what I saw. I mean, it basically wiped out dmesg and the messages logs and other things.. you couldn't hardly tell what hardware was on the system, which is not good when you are looking for that information. So, you have to do everything the hard way. I don't think I was able to tell much about the drive, other than the partitions that it had mounted already. This was the main root account user, not a chrooted virtual server account.

Just a mess, took out and replaced things it shouldn't have. It could have been better done in too many ways to count. Surely, better than Cpanel, but I personally and always will have the opinion, that a control panel is horrible, even if it actually was put together well and worked well, if it takes over things and makes your system difficult or impossible to use without it and forces you to become dependent on it. Try just having the WebPliance uninstalled and use the system, good luck. Same with Cpanel, unless you code scripts or your own control panel to continue where those other's left off. What a mess.

You should be able to remove a control panel and never know it was there and not have it affect your system. Let's see someone running Cobalt just stop using it and use their RAQ without it or see if they can remove it. You can't easily do this and it's ridiculous. These are just some things I speak of and these have more control (some of them) than they should. It leaves too much open to really screw up, badly, not just a configuration file or something that can be easily fixed. Just bad ideas, all around. People should make control panels, that do things how they should, not use some special or unique file storing, structuring or dependencies. People should be able to stop using a product, delete it and use another one, if they so desire. You can't realistically do this on these other systems without going through a hassle, you can't just leave where you were before the install of them, and most of them require it be installed before hand for it to even work.

Pathetic designs, they take over and ruin the file structuring and confuse system administrators that have to track down not only the syntax or other errors the control panels create, but find the FILE it's using to even be able to fix it, and THEN try and find a way to ensure the control panel doesn't create the problem again. I'm not a big fan of insecure programs, bugs, lazy programming and planning, or race conditions and exploits and I don't want to have to custom alter any control panel's code, just to get it to work right.

If you ask me, especially Cpanel, by the looks of it, was the result of free scripts altered as well as recipes available in books on on the WWW, and a lot of guess work and lack of knowledge and although WebPliance is superior, it has some big problems too.. but I didn't bother to see to what extent, since it wasn't my job and I didn't HAVE to deal with it. I'm just saying, with their program and how it took over files, was just uncalled for, not just the poor design of it, even if WebPliance does have some sort interesting theory to it, only because other's have yet to do some of it. I'm tired right now and don't recall all the reasons why I didn't like it, but that outlines some of the general reasons.

[Edited by Tim_Greer on 04-04-2001 at 06:02 AM]

Tim ... Wow.. I hope the people at Ensim are watching this list. It looks like you want more control over the server and give the customers a nice control panel. That must be hard to do.. No one has this?

Originally posted by myDeafCities
Hello,

Do anyone here use VDI's CPanel Mailman the mailing list system?

I setup everything but seems like all of my members didnt get email

What the hell all Host doesnt have manual, gee

Hmm whats next? the manual the mailman has is crap, nothing

Sign, Im pissed

Mailman is a package in its own right and there is detailed documenation at:

http://www.aurora.edu/~ckolar/mailman/

Check that out before you write off Mailman. It's much more powerful than Smartlist on the Alabanza servers.

Originally posted by thewebbie
Tim ... Wow.. I hope the people at Ensim are watching this list. It looks like you want more control over the server and give the customers a nice control panel. That must be hard to do.. No one has this?



I don't think it's difficult in theory or implementation. It's just that a lot of control panels don't do enough in certain aspects and do too much (and things they ought not to do and have no business doing) in others -- which creates not only problems, but big problems, as well as limitations and restrictions to what you could otherwise easily accomplish or customize. I outlined some general reasons, and I don't see why they do these things. However, you've exactly outlined what my intent to the post was. Offer a nice, complete and well build control panel, and not have it screw with the server, have the server need it to run, or get in the way of the things you need to do or want to do. I think it's pretty simple and agreeable, I don't know why these people (meaning the developers) don't get it.

Looks like you just can't stop typing Tim...get back to work :)

Tim,

Here's a deal for you. Soon as you're about to start typing... stop.

Now go ahead and type half what you planned to, then quickly switch to whatever you're going to code a control panel in, and go like mad till you run out of steam. With the sheer weight of what you type you'll be able to code thousands of lines per day and have it done for us all by late next week :)

hehe

Greg Moore

thats an excellent idea akashik.. tim... listen to the wise man..

While you`re at it Tim, could you please make it compatible for freeVSD(.org)?
Then I could run freeBSD -> freeVSD -> almostfreeTIM
on my first server, that would be a good start :agree:!

Some news about the Tim Panel?

Thanks...

tim...

we are all anxious to know whether this little 'life saver' is in the works.

i would love to help beta test if ya need some one :)

just wondering....

I have just saw a few examples of the New VDI cpanel, now i understand why they have decided to split. I would suggest you all hang till they get it organized and released to the public.

This is my first time making a post, I have never gotten involved in the politics, but i have read a few posts that made no sense and feel it's time for me to get involved.

The New VDI Cpanel I feel will change a lot of view points in a few weeks.

Where can we see these new examples you've seen?

i have not made it public, when i`m ready to make it show and tell I will, I want to make it worth it and make damn sure it 100% bug free.

My new team has been working hard at organizing it and then we will place all the info. With all the Controversy that has been spewing around, I don`t need more issues. There are some final stages that need to be completed and it`s only a few days away to complete them.

VDI has been reviewing all the Flaws and repairing them, that's is all we can do :)

The OC3 is in testing stage now, when that's completed then we start the process of recovery.

God this is good news indeed Bill ... ;)


Also, I just found this thread, and See the origanal person was talking about mailman and cpanel... well, it runs great on other servers, and good on some with the WHM and Cpanel... but somewhere along the 150+ fast changes that went into the cpanel a while back.. popped up conflicts in way mailman works ont eh servers. It did run well on our earlier sites, now there are common problems in newer sites. (the older ones are still using mailman)

Hopefully this issue was addressed by this new cpanel team at vdi, and it will run smooth again. It is a really good program when running right, and a real nightmare when it is not.

Good luck Bill !! God knows we need to kick murphy and his law in the teeth.

Tim L :cool:

Tim, do you have Shreddies for Breakfast? I just want to know where you get all that Typing Energy from......:stan: