Working with FC-5, Webmin, Usermin & Virtualmin (GPL) PART-1

Yes, here’s teh mammoth task I’ve decided to write down with automate task with- Fedora Core-5, Webmin, usermin and Vitualmin. this is part-1, I don’t know how many parts will there be in documenting up these tasks.

Well, first let me explain why all these…

Locating the business model:

Probably this is the biggest reason of why to look for such options. Well, I’m quite familiar with PLESK on Windows 2003 platform. I also have a seperate plan on documenting PLESK installation and maintenance on Windows Hosting Automation.

Yup, the words already mentioned- Hosting Automaiton. We actually we going to materialize the Hosting business quite lately, after the B/w cost minimizaiton and few potentials to get better B/w. As a part of this, I did set up 3 Hosting Control Automation System as HSP (Hosting Service Provider) on windows 2003 server- 2 located in Dhaka and 1 located in London.

All those platforms are running just superb! The biggest credit was the licensing issue… once received those, it took me no time to set up and running.

So, there goes all those 3 set ups… now what about the little penguin- are we all neglecting or forgetting this “Penguin”- LINUX and its hosting automation?

Of course not! But C-Panel is costly!!!!

Why should we bother when the perfect OS is entirely free but there is not Hosting Automation Applicaiton available other than C-Panel? Actually, C-Panel is popular, widely used by mass of HSP and the biggest point is plenty of API tools & goodies are developed widely!

Anyway, FREE HSP is the cheapest, and if we can ignore the last point I just mentioned- we can plan to set up Virtualmin on Webmin framework!

Chosing the OS:

Well, here’s the most important aspect in choosing the right OS. And again anyone have any liberty in putting up any Linux Distros- Redhat 9 or Enterprise 5 or Fedora 5 & onwards or CentOS 4 & onwards… most likely all have the same output- but if you ask me for commercial executions- I’ll definitely consider Redhat Enterprise or CentOS- the reason is simple- Slow paced but most Stable developments rather than FC packages (it’s the most non-balanced platform).

Then why the heck did I plan to work on FC-5 where FC-9 is released? The answer is quite simple- limited resource on the server. I picked to work on a Pentium-3 machine having only 256 MB RAM and I with this I can’t afford more than FC-5 installation! 🙂

Summary:

Well enough of intros. Let me explain the step by step prerequisites to set up a Hosting Control Panel (HSP)-

• Server OS- Fedora Core 5
  Software package- Apache, MySQL, Webalizer, ProFTPD (installation distribution does not include this, you have to use “YUM INSTALL PROFTPD” on the terminal once FC installation is done), Postfix, Dovecot- POP3 & IMAP, BIND
• Download and install the latest version of webmin (http://www.webmin.com) when OS is done. Usually I prefer the RPM packages, if you install FC on GUI interface, you can set it up like any other windows setup application by double clicking the RPM file. Normally, webmin is installed in http://IP:10000 or https://IP:10000
• Log in to Webmin using the username as “root” and your root password