I have setup 4 different servers, server1 for front end and dns, server2 for web, server3 for db, server4 for email. Now i have only one external IP, and that points to server1. How do requests are routed to server 2 for web and server 4 for email ? I am able to setup multiserver properly though, i can see the servers in the control panel and i can create websites and email domains. But when i browse the site, the request seems to not go to server 2 for web.
The ports have to be routed in your router to the other servers, there are no changes on the servers or in ispconfig required. port 8080 and 53 > Server 1 Port 80, 443,21 > Server 2 Port 25 > Server 4 Please see here for a list of well known ports: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_TCP_and_UDP_port_numbers
Well, if plan on having only one server. But if i plan on adding additional web servers and email servers, how does that work ? I was thinking that master control panel server can re-route/forward the request. Correct me if i am wrong, control panel only "manages" multiple servers. Since i dont have much experience with ISPConfig, i assume it does not behave like a front end as well for traffic routing to different WEB Servers in the setup based on to which domain a request belongs ? I forgot to mention the public IP is pointed to server 1 where the panel is hosted. I was expecting that, based on the "service type" or "request type", the panel can add reverse proxy and/or add dnat/forward firewall rules.
ISPConfig is a server controlpanel, so it manages multiple servers. Port forwarding and traffic routing is done by a router, so that not ispconfigs job. If you want to host multiple server with just one IP address, you have to configure the port forwarding in your router. I recommend that you install just a single server if you have just one IP. Multi server setups are made for datacenters were each server has one or more IP addresss.
Ok, Thank you for your response. But i thought it can be useful if the panel did that like an add-on. Because ISPConfig is "aware" of the servers in the network, so it can add "reverse proxies" to self or to another dedicated reverse proxy server (I assume a lots of us use that way). Otherwise it will be manual work on the loadbalancer/reverseproxy to add all those webservers from ISPConfig, let us say if there are 20 servers or more. However i doubt if it can be done in the case of SSH and FTP connections, unless the ports are unique across and changed in the respective servers and a way to define them in the Panel so that a DNAT rule is generated when they are added (and i am sure it would introduce security related issues). I thought that this is good add-on for the ISPConfig, because it "knows" about the servers and handles/configures them. May be it is just too much for a single IP. Ok Discounting the above paragraph, I have some other issues, How do the clients figure out which public IP the web servers are pointed to, cause they are not visible to them from their login inside control panel.
Clients access their sites normally by domain only. If the domain is not delegated yet, you can use the auto subdomain feature in ispconfig to access the sites. See Sysstem > Server config > web The auto subdomain feature is also desciribed in the ispconfig manual, as howtoforge subscriber you can download it here from howtoforge.
Oh sorry, let me rephrase. How do the clients (clients as in Type "Users") know public ip, that they need for DNS records. Once they login, i dont think they are presented with System menu. And also i am trying to find out if there is a timeout for the site to logout if some one logged in and there is no activity. And i must say that ISPConfig is a great tool. But i thought these are attractive features for me.
Clients can see the IP of their website in the website settings when a) the administrator selecetd the Ip in the site settings during site createion or b) when you assign this IP to your customers under System > server IP. The system keeps the session open until the browser is closed by pinging the server from time to time.
Ok, thanks, a) Administrator do not create sites, the clients create their own sites once they have created an account. b) I thought server IP is additional IP for the server apart from the default one. But this seems to solve the problem. And i also noted, it seems a lots of people use ISPConfig with Debian based systems, mainly using Ubuntu, but this OpenVZ solution seems to be little bit out of date for ubuntu. Have you considered LXC any time ? And also i thought default timeout on the browser would enhance security, it could pop up to ask if it should continue the session after some time or make it configurable.
LXC does not support quota yet, so its not a usable solution for hosting. I'll check it from tim to time but till now I did not find a way to configure user quotas in containers with LXC. OpenVZ is not outdated btw, it is udner active development. You get the latest opnevz kernels from openvz.org WE had a timeout before any many users complained about it so the software was changed to the current behaviour which keeps the session open until browser is closed.
Thanks, i think i did not use the right word, the packages are not available in the universe for the latest Ubuntu Server (LTS). That is what i meant. I rushed to conclusion on LXC, and thanks for letting me know.
