clarent@voodoo is online
My beautiful web server is back online; now running Debian 4.0 Etch.
I’d made the move from Ubuntu 7.04 Server so that I’d be able to use Virtualmin’s GPL install script (because I was lazy) to install all the dependencies needed to host virtual servers. The main reason for this was that I have had so many issues setting up a mail server such that it never really worked at all.
Now it does (try it out - joseph@voodooed.net)!
However, using Virtualmin hasn’t been the smoothest of rides. As you’d expect from a preconfigured package like Virtualmin/Webmin, there were going to be teething issues integrating it with my setup. I think I annoyed the hell out of the friendly people over at the Virtualmin help forums with these selection of issues:
- the (apparent) inability to jail/chroot users to their public_html directory or immediate sub-directory
- not having the php5-mysql package installed with the script - meaing that while MySQL was installed, it wasn’t talking to PHP thus not allowing WordPress (this blogging software) to be installed
- mail login names being rather unwieldy (username.domainname)
- handling Virtualmin behind a NAT router (and the server having to handle both internal and external IP requests)
It seems to be running smoothly now, though (apart from a few extant issues, which are not showstoppers). Since installing this, I’ve (re-)virtualised my domain controller VM. This threw up another lot of issues. Having not checked versions, I’d unwittingly installed Version 1.5.0 of VirtualBox. This machine had been operating on Version 1.3.0. There had been significant changes in how the software deals with what is known as ‘Host Interface Networking’ - where a computer can be given several IPs to listen on (via a bridge) and route IP traffic to virtual network adapaters. These virtual adapters (or ‘tap’ interfaces) are then linked to a virtual machine.
There had also been a new virtual network device (and hence driver) installed into the guest OS. The old device had a static IP set, but the OS had detected the new virtual device and installed appropriate drivers for it. Unknown to me was that it had done so, and using terminal server (and ping) to the expected IP failed. Even forcing the tap interface to an IP didn’t work (as the tap inteface is presumably a Layer 1/2 thing). However, a probe across the home network discovered a device at 10.0.0.2 which was not on my registry. An RDP connection to this IP yielded my server. As it turns out, when this device driver was installed, it had reverted back to DHCP and pulled the next available IP address rather than the fixed server address. This was promptly fixed.
Now with these all out of the way, Joseph can seriously get down to some serious web design/business development.
Ciao!
Is Virtualmin actually any good? I’ve used VHCS and ISP-Config in the past, does Virtualmin have any advantages over the two? My main web hosting server has Plesk, but it’s only a 30-domain license. I’m looking for a hosting control panel to use on a different server once I reach the 30-domain Plesk limit.
Of course, I prefer using SSH directly and manually editing /etc/apache2/sites-available/*, but I host some friends and don’t really want to give them SSH access
Well, first of all it is free (the GPL version) for unlimited domains. It does mean you get cheaped out of automated install scripts etc, but manual installs work fine for me.
On my particular setup it was a pain in the arse because the server had a different local IP address to that of the external IP address. If you’re planning to host this into a dedicated server in a datacentre, you should have no problems installing Virtualmin.
The install script for Debian 4.0 is also quite handy (ask for a clean lean install [try the net install] - the script should do the rest).
I can’t find a way to restrict SSH access to domain administrators - however, it does jail/chroot them to their /home/ folder.