first impressions

  • Hello, I have been looking at both commercial and open source hosting control panels, mostly through online demos. But I've also installed ISPConfig and i-MSCP myself to evaluate them more in depth. I thought you might like to hear the initial thoughts of a new user and hopefully you might be able to answer some questions I have.


    First, let me say that I thought ISPConfig was decent but that the end-user interface was entirely too technical. I do not think the average web hosting customer would know how to use it. So my search continues.


    Now for my thoughts on i-MSCP.


    Install:
    The installation went surprisingly smoothly on a fresh minimalist image of Debian Squeeze. The only problem was a CPAN module was needed to run the install script, and I also had to install CPAN.


    It would be nice to have more distro options, obviously, like RedHat/CentOS.


    Can the configuration options that were entered during the setup process be changed at all after installation is complete? For example, I declined HTTPS support, but would like to add it. On another note, I would like to have the option to select a discrete port for SSL, so that I do not have to use up a dedicated IP address just for the control panel. This is important considering the shortage of IP addresses and slow adoption of IPv6.


    Adding users
    Apparently end-users can only be added by resellers, not directly by the administrator? Is that correct? It would be nice to be able to add them directly, in case one doesn't want to have resellers at all; however, if this was an architectural design decision for the software, I would like the overall concept be explained somewhere.


    Exception on login screen
    Entering a wrong username/password results in a "An exception have been thrown" message and numerous emails sent to the administrator email account. Is this by design? I do not want to be notified by email every time someone enters a wrong username/password. Also, the error message should be more helpful, e.g. "wrong username or password", not "an exception have been thrown".


    User interface
    I have found the overall user interface for admins/resellers/end-users to be eye appealing and easy enough to navigate. The layout is certainly simpler and better organized than even commercial control panels. There is room for improvement, however.


    First example: clicking an option (e.g., users) and having to use a different navigation menu to add a user is not ideal. The add user button should be on the same page as the user list.


    Second example: clicking the "OK" button next to a user's account disables the account. This is not intuitive. I also do not understand the "Reload" text that appears in place of the "OK" after it is clicked. Clicking it doesn't reload the page.


    Domain alias feature
    The Domain Alias feature is confusing, as it is really two features in one.


    Domain alias to me means a domain name that either redirects to the customer's other domain or is added to the ServerAlias list for another of the customer's domains. When choosing the alias/redirect option there should be no prompt for a mount point.


    If one chooses a separate mount point and not to redirect the domain, this really should be called an add-on domain.


    Web hosts are going to want to be able to set different quotas for the "domain alias" and the "add-on domain" concepts as I just described them.


    What is with the "awaiting approval" when an end-user adds a domain alias? If they are under their quota for domain aliases, why do they have to wait for approval each time? Is there some kind of notification system to alert the reseller of the awaiting approval?


    Summary
    I hope I wasn't too critical. If I did not like the software I would not be spending time here giving you feedback and asking questions. ;)


    How close is this software to being ready for production use? Is there still a lot of work to do or is it more of a matter of some minor tweaks here and there? How quickly is development progressing? I certainly would consider contributing if it is needed. I am primarily a Perl programmer but can do PHP as well, and am also familiar with most of the daemon config files (apache, mysql, etc).


    Thank you to the developers for your work on the project, and to anyone who gives me feedback on my feedback.

  • Hi dstroma


    Thanx for your report - this is very valuable for the developpers. It's always a good thing to have someone who uses the software the first time.
    Many of the things you mention have historical reasons (Admin/Reseller/User, UserAdd, Domain Alias etc.)... i-MSCP is not a "panel from scratch"...
    When i-MSCP was founded (more or less a year ago) the devs focused on Debian as supported OS - but supporters for other distributions are welcome.


    About Admin/Reseller/User - just create a reseller - you always can login as admin and switch to reseller to add a user. But with the time you will notice that you normally do not need the admin level for the daily work.
    The "awaiting approval" for domain aliases is a protection: if a user adds "gmail.com" as domain alias and then adds a mail catchall... he gets all the mails that other customers send via this server that are addressed to @gmail.com... this is not a good idea. Thats why the reseller should check if the domain is plausible... normally the reseller should get a note about the new domain-alias that he has to approve.


    Normally it's possible to change things that you didn't answer "correctly" during the setup - some are easy, some are heavy :-) - maybe with the new setup it's also possible to rerun the setup (ir update) to change the settings... but I cannot tell this for sure.


    /Joximu

  • Hello ;



    Now for my thoughts on i-MSCP.


    Install:
    The installation went surprisingly smoothly on a fresh minimalist image of Debian Squeeze. The only problem was a CPAN module was needed to run the install script, and I also had to install CPAN.


    What distro you are using exactly ? Normally with debian >= squeeze, you have not to install any perl module manually.



    It would be nice to have more distro options, obviously, like RedHat/CentOS.


    Feel free to provide support for any distro. We have already a member that cares about the openSUSE support but the official team is still focused on Debian as long we have not a stable version.



    Can the configuration options that were entered during the setup process be changed at all after installation is complete? For example, I declined HTTPS support, but would like to add it.


    Joximu already answered correctly to this question. What I want see for next version (As a little improvement) is a switch (parameter) that alllows the admin to ask the installer to re-ask all questions in dpkg-reconfigure way.



    On another note, I would like to have the option to select a discrete port for SSL, so that I do not have to use up a dedicated IP address just for the control panel. This is important considering the shortage of IP addresses and slow adoption of IPv6.


    You are not the first person to ask for this option. SSL was just introduced and of course, will be improved. Using an other port for the panel access must not only be available for SSL.



    Adding users
    Apparently end-users can only be added by resellers, not directly by the administrator? Is that correct? It would be nice to be able to add them directly, in case one doesn't want to have resellers at all; however, if this was an architectural design decision for the software, I would like the overall concept be explained somewhere.


    It's a technical implementation choice that comes from the forked project and we will not change that for now. When you are admin, you can switch easily to your reseller level and do the daily job with it.



    Exception on login screen
    Entering a wrong username/password results in a "An exception have been thrown" message and numerous emails sent to the administrator email account. Is this by design? I do not want to be notified by email every time someone enters a wrong username/password. Also, the error message should be more helpful, e.g. "wrong username or password", not "an exception have been thrown".


    About the exception, it's an error from my side. It's a cosmetic issue for which a ticket is already opened and will be fixed in time.



    User interface
    I have found the overall user interface for admins/resellers/end-users to be eye appealing and easy enough to navigate. The layout is certainly simpler and better organized than even commercial control panels. There is room for improvement, however.


    First example: clicking an option (e.g., users) and having to use a different navigation menu to add a user is not ideal. The add user button should be on the same page as the user list.


    Second example: clicking the "OK" button next to a user's account disables the account. This is not intuitive. I also do not understand the "Reload" text that appears in place of the "OK" after it is clicked. Clicking it doesn't reload the page.


    It's just a layout issue and of course, we can change/add some buttons to make your life more easier.



    This feature will be improved and we are open for any suggestion. About the "awaiting approval", I think that the admin must be able to provide a list of forbidden domain names to solve kind of gmail issue but in any case, automation must be possible without any reseller intervention as long the customer subscribed this option.



    How close is this software to being ready for production use? Is there still a lot of work to do or is it more of a matter of some minor tweaks here and there? How quickly is development progressing? I certainly would consider contributing if it is needed. I am primarily a Perl programmer but can do PHP as well, and am also familiar with most of the daemon config files (apache, mysql, etc).


    We are in beta state and we must solve several things before be able to provide a stable version. You can look at the timeline.


    Thank for your feedback. It's always a pleasure to read them.

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  • Thank you for your kind words. I hope previous answer clarify enough your questions. I only want add just one thing, we are going to stable, being in feature freeze when only bug hunting is normally performed. With enough testing and help to find bugs I hope we will be able to release a stable version at end of year / start of new year.
    Being a perl developer and engine being in perl (and almost all brand new rewrite) I want ask you if you want join us because we need and appreciate any kind of help.


  • About Admin/Reseller/User - just create a reseller - you always can login as admin and switch to reseller to add a user. But with the time you will notice that you normally do not need the admin level for the daily work.


    Once I understood the concept it doesn't seem too be a big deal. It was just confusing at first. Thanks.


    The "awaiting approval" for domain aliases is a protection: if a user adds "gmail.com" as domain alias and then adds a mail catchall... he gets all the mails that other customers send via this server that are addressed to @gmail.com... this is not a good idea. Thats why the reseller should check if the domain is plausible... normally the reseller should get a note about the new domain-alias that he has to approve.



    About the "awaiting approval", I think that the admin must be able to provide a list of forbidden domain names to solve kind of gmail issue but in any case, automation must be possible without any reseller intervention as long the customer subscribed this option.


    I didn't realize that. Do other control panels require approval when a customer wants to add a domain? It would be interesting to see how they handle this problem.



    What distro you are using exactly ? Normally with debian >= squeeze, you have not to install any perl module manually.


    It was Debian Squeeze but it was a minimalist image from a Xen VPS provider. The module was FindBin.pm.


    Can't locate FindBin.pm in @INC (@INC contains: /etc/perl /usr/local/lib/perl/5.10.1 /usr/local/share/perl/5.10.1 /usr/lib/perl5 /usr/share/perl5 /usr/lib/perl/5.10 /usr/share/perl/5.10 /usr/local/lib/site_perl .) at imscp-autoinstall line 40.
    BEGIN failed--compilation aborted at imscp-autoinstall line 40.




    Feel free to provide support for any distro. We have already a member that cares about the openSUSE support but the official team is still focused on Debian as long we have not a stable version.


    Yes, it makes more sense to wait for a stable version before supporting more distros. I am not sure I am qualified to provide support for a distro myself (I'm more of a developer than a sysadmin) but might play around and see how much work it would take.



    [Domain aliases] will be improved and we are open for any suggestion.


    Ok, my suggestion is to separate the concepts of domain aliases and add-on domains. Domain aliases could simply be added to the ServerAlias line in the Apache configuration and do not need a mount point or even their own virtual host file. Add-on domains would require a mount point and virtual host file (which is what the feature does already if you do not choose to redirect it). Separate quotas for each would be nice.



    We are in beta state and we must solve several things before be able to provide a stable version. You can look at the timeline.


    I understand.


    Overall I am glad to hear that you are aware of most of the issues I raised and will address them in time.



    I only want add just one thing, we are going to stable, being in feature freeze when only bug hunting is normally performed. With enough testing and help to find bugs I hope we will be able to release a stable version at end of year / start of new year.


    That is good news, although I realize these things always take a bit longer than planned.



    Being a perl developer and engine being in perl (and almost all brand new rewrite) I want ask you if you want join us because we need and appreciate any kind of help.


    I will spend some time studying the source first before I make a decision. Thanks for the invite.