I run a small hosting business using Microsoft Azure, mainly hosting Wordpress but also some traditional sites, the current set up is as follows: 1 x MySQL Database Server (Ubuntu 16.04) 1 x VPS to a single customer (Ubuntu 16.04) 5 x Shared Hosting Web Servers (Ubuntu 16.04 & 18.04) I want to be able to give over some of the control to my customers similar to cPanel but you know on the cheap, giving them FTP access and mailboxes etc all accessed from a single server which ever client they are on. I am going to try and set up ISPConfig on two of the webservers (one master and one client) using the existing database, if this works I can move people from the unmanged hosting servers to the client and then turn the remaining servers into clients (and one into a mail server), does this sound feasible? I have a couple of questions. Are there any install guides for Ubuntu Multiserver? Most I've found seem to be for Debian, I've seen their is a manual for €5 which I am happy to pay for if needed How powerful a server is needed to be the "master" in terms of CPU/RAM etc. ISPConfig3 be installed over existing servers, or does it need to be installed from scratch and then the sites configured using ISPConfig3? Can I use an existing database server, will ISPConfig play nicely with other applications using databases already on that server Is MySQL required on all severs? Reading the install guides it mentions a localhost version of MySQL as well as the "main" Are DNS servers needed? I am sure I have more questions, but think trial and error might be the best approach to working out how to set up the environment Thanks in advance
I run a small hosting setup for approx 25 sites. They all run on DigitalOcean and Vultr instances. 1 VPS: Main server MySQL + nginx runs all sites 1 VPS: Mail + DNS 1 VPS: DNS + geolocated website 1 VPS: DNS + geolocated website and a couple of more VPS servers with a geolocated website. 1: It's not that hard, but there is a manual if needed. 2: Mine primary server is a 2 VCPU and 2GB Mem VPS. Probably overload for my purpose. 3: I would personally recommend starting from scratch. I came from a self compiled PHP / Apache setup and just installed new VPS servers with ispconfig and moved sites over from the old setup to ISPConfig. 4: See 3 5: Yes 6: I believe not, you can have your domainname provider run the DNS servers for you. I run them on 3,50$ or 5$ VPS servers around the globe. You can run DNS on your main server + 1 DNS VPS on another location. My recommendation would be play around with VPS servers from Vultr or DO. They are cheap, easy to reinstall and just fun to get to know ISPConfig.
ISPConfig should be installed on a fresh system from scratch, installing it on a system that is in use will likely break the existing system plus you get a not fully working ispconfig, so not a good choice. Using an existing mysql server should be ok though, as ispconfig just adds some databases, so as long as you don't choose conflicting database names, it should be fine.
1. it's been a while since I looked, but I believe there are instructions in the manual, if not, you can use the Debian ones you've found for ubuntu. most of the setup is identical to a single server anyway. just leave out eg dns install, or mailserver install on a pure webserver, or eg, dns install, php/apache install in a pure mailserver. etc according to your needs. you may even want a postfix on your mailserver, not enabled in ispconfig, to relay all website generated emails through a dedicated mailserver. the main difference is making sure the root and ispconfig users have the correct MySQL accounts and permissions, which are shown in the Debian multi-server tutorial. 2. how long is a piece of string? it'll run fine on a single vcpu with a couple of gigs of ram. better with more cpu and ram. it'll depend mostly on how big you expect the main database to get, and how many concurrent control panel users you expect to have. 3. best to install from scratch. 4. yes, but see point 3, although the required bit to install according to the ispconfig tutorials, for a dedicated DB server only, are minimal. so you can get away with using an existing server. just need to be very careful. it's easy to wipe out a database..... 5. technically, no, each individual ispconfig server requires it's own database. they could all be on a central database server. this is what I did the 1st time. it's harder to maintain, performance is worse, and each ispconfig database needs a unique name. and if an ispconfig server can't reach the central MySQL server, you going to have problems. if you install MySQL on each server and have each ispconfig instance access it's database locally, it'll continue working properly even if it can't access the master ispconfig server/database. it just won't get any new configuration changes until it can access the master DB again. 6. yep. but not necessarily in ispconfig. you can use external dns servers, but unless you an external provider that ispconfig supports, or write your own extension/plugin to connect the ispconfig api to your chosen dns providers api, you're going to find it harder to allow your customers to change anything in dns. I find it easier to run ispconfig based dns servers. they don't have to be dedicated to dns. you could have one on your master ispconfig server and another (secondary) dns server on eg the mailserver. or you could mirror two servers, so both dns servers act as primary servers. If mirroring, you'll need to mirror all the services.
