Here is an update on the progress that we made with the next major release, ISPConfig 3.2. In the past, ISPConfig development has become slower and slower due to the vast amount of legacy code that we accumulated in the past 10+ years in ISPConfig 3. Therefore, we decided that it's time to make a straight cut and get rid of that ballast and to make ISPConfig more modular. This cut will happen with the 3.2 release. The 3.1 branch will become an LTS branch that we plan to support with security fixes and fixes for major bugs when 3.2 is available. Here the changes that happen with 3.2: We will support only the current Linux Distributions: - Debian 8 and newer - Ubuntu 16.04 and newer - CentOS 7 and newer - Fedora, OpenSuSE, and Gentoo were not actively supported for some time, but we leave the code for them in the installer for now. Removal of old technologies: - Drop support for Apache 2.2, so Apache 2.4 or newer is required - Drop PHP Modes: CGI, SuPHP, and HHVM (as HHVM drops PHP support) - Apache 2.2 (Apache 2.4 or Nginx is required as web server now) - Courier (Dovecot is the default IMAP/POP3 daemon for quite some time and we will drop support for Courier in 3.2. Systems that still use courier must be converted to dovecot.) Functions removed from Core, they will be reintroduced as an add-on: - Mailman and Mlmmj Mailinglisten manager - The VM Module (OpenVZ is a deprecated technology) - XMPP - MongoDB New Technologies (already implemented) - rspamd as amavis replacement, amavis support will still be available - acme.sh as additional let's encrypt client - Duplicate code in nginx and apache plugin has been moved to a new library. ToDo / Planned (no complete list, just some key points): - New addon installer to replace the current add-on system (the one under System, not the APS installer in sites module). - Slave server to master connection through https (REST) instead of MySQL connects. The old MySQL connects will still be available. - Install ISPConfig updates from the UI (as an option). - Improve modularity of the UI (requirement to be able to re-add some of the functions that we removed from the core) - New web server mode with apache and nginx installed: in this mode, nginx acts either as web server (like a normal nginx server now) or as proxy for apache. This allows us to have a nginx/apache selector in each website where the user can select the web server mode. While @Croydon has done a whole load of cleaning up the code, I'm working currently to get the 3.1.14 release ready. When 3.1.14 is released, then I will put my focus on the remaining 3.2 tasks. The cleanup is currently done in a private branch, it will get merged into master soon.
Sounds good; as always you hope not to have too much delay due to the score of changes, but it sounds like a good plan. As for new features people would contribute, what are your thoughts/status? Sounds like 3.2 isn't ready for that for a while, and 3.1 won't have new features added(?), so just hold of a bit, or ?? Thanks!
Small new features may go into 3.1 for now, e.g. 3.1.14 will also bring some nice new functions like a DNS bulk editor and a datalog history viewer and datalog undo functions. For larger features, I recommend waiting until 3.2 has stabilized a bit more. I hope that I can start publishing some alpha releases soon, even if they are not feature complete. And features that can be built as an addon/plugin should be contributed as an addon in future so we keep a small core.
Basically, we will have to write a new vm module from scratch in future as probably no code from the openvz module is useful for other virtualization technologies. I've not decided yet which technology to use, but KVM is my favorite too. For now, the OpenVZ module will become available as add-on, so users that currently use it can continue using it.
For Let's Encrypt? If that is true, basically you can already use it to issue LE certs manually, but for 3.2 I think the current directions would be to support ISPConfig dns server first, then extend it to other dns server later.
If you need DNSSEC on slave-dns, you can do this with bind instead of ispconfig. Configure the 2nd dns as a slave-server, let the primary send notifies to the slave(s) and create a file the zones on the slave(s) (bind does not allow a master to create a new zone on a slave right now).
I'm rusty with setting up rspamd but last time I had to set it up it required redis but also i liked the admin module which displays stats and a history of all processed emails along with the matched criteria. Trully looking forward to it.
Not sure I like the added layer in web services. Apache is slow enough as it is. Adding another layer won't help.
The new webserver mode is a third optional setup mode, besides native nginx and native apache. If you don't like it, then don't use it and tsay with native apache.
Cool. optional. I'm good with that. The other features I like. I've been very happy with the product. I like the idea of modularity.
Till, Thanks for the great software. I need to upgrade hardware on my personal colo box sometime in the next few months and was wondering if early versions of 3.2 might see the light of day by then. Keep up the great work!!!!
ISPConfig 3.1 systems will be fully upgradable to 3.2, unless they don't use an OS that is too old, so I would just install 3.1 for now.
