If you ever tried to manage your web server manually (i.e.: modifying each configuration files, restarting services, etc.) you’ve probably already realized it’s unrealistic to work this way. Fortunately, there are quite a few great web hosting control panels like DirectAdmin, cPanel, Plesk, vDeck and many others. The thing with these control panels is that they are quite expensive, especially if you’re planning to buy a lifetime license.
If you want to save your money, there is also the ever popular Webmin, but in my opinion this control panel is totally overkill if you don’t need to manage the whole operating system from a web interface. And for those who know little or nothing about system administration, they’ll just get lost in Webmin.
This is why I prefer using some free control panels dedicated to web hosting only. They sure aren’t as secure, flexible or powerful as the commercial products (or even Webmin for that matter), but they can handle the job very well if you do not intend to provide a control panel to your customers. While there are a handful of free control panels, today we’ll try ISPConfig.
ISPConfig is nice free control panel written in PHP. It uses its own copy of Apache HTTP server on port 81. It’s currently available as version 2.2.16 and has been around at least a couple of years although I don’t know exactly when it came out.
How To Install ISPConfig on CentOS Linux
Before you go any further, take note that it if you’re already running a web server with multiple websites, it’s not a good idea to install ISPConfig. This control panel is meant to be installed on a newly installed server.
Here are the requirements for installing and using ISPConfig:
- Apache Webserver version 1.3.12 or later / 2.0.40 or later
- Sendmail or Postfix
- Procmail
- Quota Package
- ProFTP as standalone version or vsftpd as inetd/xinetd/standalone version
- PHP 4.0.5 or newer as Apache module
- MySQL data base
- a POP3/IMAP daemon that supports either the traditional Unix-Mailbox format (e.g. gnu-pop3d, qpopper, ipop3d, popa3d or vm-pop3d) or the Maildir format (e.g. Courier-Imap)
- OpenSSL and mod_ssl for the creation of SSL virtual hosts
- BIND8 / BIND9
- iptables or ipchains
- gcc and cpp, the c and c++ compilers
If you are unsure about meeting these requirements, you can follow the instructions from the CentOS Perfect Setup:
Start by getting your copy of ISPConfig from SourceForge.net at http://sourceforge.net/projects/ispconfig/. Upload the archive on a temporary folder on your web server and unpack it:
# tar xvzf ISPConfig-[version].tar.gz
It’s important to know that if you run the installation and it fails, you will have to delete the “install_ispconfig” folder and unpack the archive before attempting to install it again.
Change directory to “install_ispconfig” and execute the setup script.
# cd install_ispconfig
# ./setup
I will not go into details about the installation steps but I suggest you use the standard installation instead of the expert mode.
Stay tuned as tomorrow I will post a quick tour of ISPConfig.
September 28th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
[…] couple of days, I made a post on how to install ISPConfig on CentOS Linux. On my part, the install went great except for a little problem with BIND. The server on which I […]