Hello, I've looked at most existing FOSS web control panel applications and I find ISPConfig to be one of the best (easily the best in terms of user interface and such). Though it has some drawbacks, especially not everything being virtual. Unfortunately the drawback of ISPConfig, as with almost all other control panel applications, is that it is not distributed. I've read that ISPConfig 3 will be able to manage multiple servers and I was very happy to hear this. But then, on another thread, I read that it will not use LDAP. How will ISPConfig 3 handle authentication? Will you have separate users on every machine? Would this not defeat the very purpose of handling multiple servers? I read that you're not going to be using LDAP because it is too difficult for most users to set up. I rather disagree; it is no more or less difficult than setting up a complex mail system, and can be done easily with the proper documentation. The only control panel software that I know that handles distributed authentication and multiple servers is ISPMan. Unfortunately, it has a number of drawbacks: - project is currently not very active - very poor release management: release versions have severe bugs, one is supposed to use "cvs update" to get new minor versions. - very poor documentation - tedious user interface It does use LDAP, and the functionality is mostly there (except for database / phpmyadmin integration), but its pretty dead and the user interface sucks. One advantage of ISPMan is that changes are transaction-based and can be committed as a batch, and are propagated to other servers by an agent. This works really well, and I'd love to see this in ISPConfig. -- tel
ISPConfig supports distributed authentication, LDAP is not the only way to handle this. ISPConfig uses mysql as central authentication source. The data can be either replicated trough mysql master > slave replication or a mysql cluster or trough the builtin replication in ISPConfig. All changes in ISPConfig 3 are stored in a transaction log and can be rolled back or replicated to other systems. ISPConfig also supports to configure stand by systems with identical configuration. ISPConfig 3 is completely modular, based on plugins and events. If you want to have your users in ldap, just write a plugin for it that listens on the user_insert and user_update event and inserts the users into ldap then. You should have a deeper look into ISPConfig to fully understand it before you judge that it is not enterprise ready.
It's not the only way, but I think its the best one ... of course, that's a matter of opinion ;-) That sounds interesting. You're right, but to my defense, I have to say I only looked at ISPConfig 2, which I think isn't enterprise-ready. How far away are you from a release of ISPConfig 3, how much is there left to do? I looked at ISPMan, the functionality is cool but the interface is horrible. The ISPConfig interface, on the other hand, is quite nice, but ISPConfig 2 is not distributed and not enough is virtualized for my needs. It also seems like a dead project. I was horrified when I saw the bugs in the 1.2 release and that I was expected to CVS update to get a newer version in the 1.2 tree (no further minor releases were made). Do you have a more recent VMWare image that I could take a look at? The one I found in another post is almost 3 years old. Does anyone use it in a (semi-)production environment? -- tel
Yes. ISPConfig 2 was developed as a easy to use controlpanel for single "root" servers. Most things are in place. I expect a final release in the next 2 months. In the meantime,there will be more beta releases. Please be aware that ISPCnfig 3 does not has its final interface design yet, it is just some kind of development design at the moment. ISPConfig 3 is fully themable and the interface uses ayax. Have a look at the bsticky posts in this forum, you will find the latest downloads and announcements for releases there: http://www.howtoforge.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22788 There has been much progess since this beta release. I recommend that you update the vmware image with the following commands: Code: cd /tmp svn export svn://svn.ispconfig.org/ispconfig3/trunk/ cd trunk/install php -q update.php This is not the final update method, but it works fine and the update script guides you trough the update process. By the way, the mysql root password in the vm is "ispconfig".
That was end of may, so you would have expected the release of ISPConfig 3 early August. That was 4 months ago, so 3 times the time you've expected has passed since your estimate. Where are we now? When do you expect a release? Thanks, -- tel
ISPConfig 3 will be released as stable version when its ready. Take a look at the roadmap in the bugtracker if you want to know the current status: http://bugtracker.ispconfig.org
Sorry but that is a useless response. First it is 2 months, and 6 months later it will be released when it is ready? What does that mean? 1) you don't know 2) a year 3) two years ... etc. Don't get me wrong, this is a promising product. But some of your (non-paying) customers would like to know when to expect at least a RC (non-beta) release. It should be expected even from open source projects to be able to estimate how long something will take. We all know it'll take longer than we expect (it always does). Are you still adding new features? Are you at a code freeze yet, from which point bugs will be fixed and no new features will be added? Please understand, I waited setting up a server some time ago because I wanted a distributed management tool and you said it'd take 2 months; now it's been six and still no go. "When it's ready" is not an answer. "A year from now" or "six months from now" is an answer. Tell me what to expect, if it takes too long I'll move on and find something else. -- tel
If you would have looked at the bugtracker as I suggested above you would have been able to answer the questions yourself. If none of the bugs that you find there is critical for you, the use the svn version. I know poeple using parts of ISPConfig 3 for over a yaer in production, it depends just on what you need. I will not publish a release date for the final version, it will be relaesed when the last bugs are fixed.
If you would have looked at the bugtracker as I suggested above you would have been able to answer the questions yourself.
