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Free + Open Source Alternative to SolusVM - Virtkick - Page 2
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Free + Open Source Alternative to SolusVM - Virtkick

2

Comments

  • looks awesome, i like it!

  • Pwner said: It's nice and all, but if you ask me...open source and security don't mix well together. Imagine how much easier this will be to breach due to the binaries being available to the public to exploit.

    one of the dumbest quote I've ever heard!

  • ironhide said: one of the dumbest quote I've ever heard!

    Don't you know security through obscurity is the best idea 8-)

    Thanked by 1ironhide
  • @FtpIt_Radi it's a control panel and not a billing + control panel. You ask for tooooooooooooooooooooooooo much and some of your mentioned features are part of this panel already like private networking and IPv6. Got to read between the lines and on mulitple sites where this brand new panel was posted.

  • @Nowaker How about VirtualBox?

  • ToadyusToadyus Member
    edited August 2014

    @SandwichBagGhost - I think you need too look closer at the panel...it does do billing + control panel.



    Here's a picture for you...look closely...

  • NowakerNowaker Member
    edited August 2014

    Thanks you @FtpIt_Radi for your list. I have already thought over most of these ideas, but there were some that I just forgot about, so I'm thankful for your input. I'd like to share my thoughts on DNS - I were asked about DNS on vpsboard.com and that's my answer:

    Yes, we do have plans for integrating with some 3rd party DNS provider (e.g. DNSimple or Zerigo). What's on top our list is that a newly created virtual machine automatically gets a DNS record within the user's domain. A reverse DNS record will also be set (if the provider owns at least /24 subnet, obviously).

    Users will be able to create custom records via the provider's panel - records management won't make its way to VirtKick interface. Heroku does the same. You can set the domains directly in Heroku and they are automatically added to your Zerigo DNS add-on. Yet, to add custom records you go directly to Zerigo panel.

    They also asked me how it is different to SolusVM. That's quite a specific answer that explains what VirtKick really is.

    While not yet visible in the prototype, VirtKick aims to be the first comprehensive solution. Not just a yet another cloud panel. It will join the three different worlds together: users, technology and e-commerce. These are examples for each:

    >

    • users: user centric, clean interface; 1-click install & configure; decent default configuration (e.g. distros list, available plans, etc.); auto-create DNS records for a new VM, etc.
    • e-commerce: orders, payments, invoices and integration with helpdesk (through Zendesk or alike), monitoring (NewRelic or alike), etc.
    • technology: support for various virtualization technologies (KVM first, then either OpenVZ or Docker containers depending on user votes, then... something), storage solutions (LVM, ZFS, Ceph, GlusterFS), REST API and Heroku-styled CLI

    >

    You won't see every techy feature that you find in OpenStack or OpenNebula. Nevertheless, it will be a huge competitor because of joining all these three worlds together. Hence the name VirtKick: virt for virtualization and kick for quickstarting with everything ready out-of-the-box.

    @DalekOfSkaro said: Nowaker How about VirtualBox?

    While there won't be support for VirtualBox in VirtKick, the open source community is free to develop a module. I'll happily ship VK with VB module as long as it passes all the infrastructure tests (automated tests that test whether the VM is created, whether VM responds, can SSH to it, amount of given RAM is correct, etc.).

    @SandwichBagGhost said: it's a control panel and not a billing + control panel. You ask for tooooooooooooooooooooooooo much

    VirtKick will include basic billing features, including payments, invoices, resource usage and helpdesk (via 3rd party API integration, e.g. Zendesk). I want it to be a comprehensive solution - not just a yet another VPS panel that stands out only because of its sexy UI. :-)

    Thanks you guys for your feedback! Be sure to sign up for updates at virtkick.io so as not to miss the hosted beta coming in a few weeks and a standalone beta coming next.

  • RadiRadi Host Rep, Veteran

    Why not make the helpdesk own, and not integration via third party?

  • @Nowaker - I have created my own helpdesk in rails, I would be willing to share the code with you so you wouldn't have to use zendesk....pm me for more details.

  • Thanks @ftpit_radi. Writing our own helpdesk would cost a whole lot of development time, and would still be inferior to Zendesk or Freshdesk. It's not just about opening and closing tickets - there's a whole lot of other things. They solve problems that we don't even want to touch, e.g. sending SMS (gateway integration), accepting e-mail replies (awful things like SMTPs and IMAPs), native mobile apps for support agents, time triggers, and much more that I'm not even aware of. I'm also against implementing a very simple built-in helpdesk since it will fail to provide an adequate level of support.

    Worth noting someone will probably develop a helpdesk module for VirtKick anyway. So you'll be able to use it if you really want. Open source FTW.

    @Toadyus Thanks for your offer. Go ahead and open source your project so anyone can use it.

  • I was already not impressed with his mock-ass Ruby web demos with no application logic, then I saw https://www.virtkick.io/become-a-sponsor.html and tried out the 'core' he plans on ripping.

    He plans on using https://github.com/retspen/webvirtmgr as a 'core'.

    https://github.com/retspen/webvirtmgr/wiki/Screenshots

    It's a fully functional panel written in Python. It's beautiful. Everything works very smoothly. It's written by some guy in Ukraine.

    How about you contribute to the webvirtmgr project directly instead of trying to get sponsorship for writing a piss-poor Ruby web interface for it?

  • @Pwner said:
    It's nice and all, but if you ask me...open source and security don't mix well together. Imagine how much easier this will be to breach due to the binaries being available to the public to exploit.

    I disagree. Anyone who is interested in breaking SolusVM would have paid for it and have access already. With open source, the result should be more secure.

    @Zigara: Good points.

  • NowakerNowaker Member
    edited August 2014

    How about you contribute to the webvirtmgr project directly instead of trying to get sponsorship for writing a piss-poor Ruby web interface for it?

    WebVirtMgr is a frontend for KVM and libvirt only. It's not meant to support any other technologies, nor it's to provide billing, support, auto-configure hypervisors, download ISOs of most interesting distros, integrate with DNS and many more.

    Open souce is about using other's code to build bigger things. I have never hidden the fact the first version will use WebVirtMgr so that VirtKick has got faster Time to Market. (The very first answer on lowendtalk.com: http://lowendtalk.com/discussion/comment/707699/#Comment_707699)

    It's a fully functional panel written in Python. It's beautiful. Everything works very smoothly.

    If you like WebVirtMgr and you don't need anything else, that's fine. I like WebVirtMgr too for some use cases.

  • libvirt supports many backends. Who are you to say it's not meant to support other technologies? It's an open source project.

    The features you listed are very basic and could be submitted to the webvirtmgr project. It already does ISO uploading.

    Why don't you actually contribute to the project and adapt it your needs?

    Thanked by 1itrmike
  • NowakerNowaker Member
    edited August 2014

    I'll just stick to my way without explaining you why. Use WebVirtMgr if you like it, it's a great tool too.

  • Zigara said: Why don't you actually contribute to the project and adapt it your needs?

    If you don't have anything nice to say, don't say it at all. He's creating free software, and for you to continue attacking him is just rude.

    @Nowaker, looks great; I love the clean interface and flat design. Most panels are unusable, cluttered and have not-so-modern designs. It's nice to see somebody focusing on the usability as opposed to arbitrarily adding more features.

  • Zigara said: Who are you to say it's not meant to support other technologies?

    He said he is using WebVirtMgr for libvirt only. He never said libvirt does not support other technologies. So he probably won't use WebVirtMgr for OpenVZ, etc... but only for libvirt.

    You totally misunderstood him.

  • perennateperennate Member, Host Rep

    WebVirtMgr only supports KVM hypervisor.

  • Nowaker said: Zendesk

    Possibility of integration with DeskPro too?

  • @alexh, @SandwichBagGhost Thanks.

    @GIANT_CRAB Zendesk is just an example. I haven't decided yet - I will when I'm about to implement the feature.

  • TBH I would think it would be simpler to just allow billing to be delegated to WHMCS/related.

  • NowakerNowaker Member
    edited August 2014

    @pcfreak30 Thanks for your opinion.

    User experience starts on the order form. For this reason I have to get rid of those ugly and cumbersome WHCMS order forms.

    By the way, I already have PayPal integration in my closed source project, and some basics of ordering system, so that's definitely not the hardest feature. :-)

    I'm sure that WHCMS plugin will be written at some point anyway. It's on the very bottom on my list, so someone else will probably be faster.

  • @Nowaker said:
    pcfreak30 Thanks for your opinion.

    User experience starts on the order form. For this reason I have to get rid of those ugly and cumbersome WHCMS order forms.

    By the way, I already have PayPal integration in my closed source project, and some basics of ordering system, so that's definitely not the hardest feature. :-)

    I'm sure that WHCMS plugin will be written at some point anyway. It's on the very bottom on my list, so someone else will probably be faster.

    The reason I state it, is that if you really want to be an alternative to SolusVM, WHMCS/Blesta is a must for many. There is no reason that I would dump whmcs to use a billing system in your app, and that would count for many others as well. So you may want to give it a higher priority.

  • This control panel looks basically like Digital Oceans plus it looks like it works similarly.
    Good freaking job, must've been hard making this.

    One thing about making stuff by yourself is that you sometimes get lazy and have some shitty code inside, so I'mma probably look out for that.

  • @pcfreak30 said:
    The reason I state it, is that if you really want to be an alternative to SolusVM, WHMCS/Blesta is a must for many. There is no reason that I would dump whmcs to use a billing system in your app, and that would count for many others as well. So you may want to give it a higher priority.

    Thanks. I thought you are talking about implementation problems ("would be simpler") - and not what would be better. Please let me know why you consider WHCMS a must - e.g. what features are most important for you and what would block you from dropping WHCMS altogether. (And for anyone else - please share your ideas) According to your feedback, I'll rethink the WHCMS plugin priority.

    Thanks @vladka24.

  • WHMCS plugin is a must. Everybody uses WHMCS its popular in the industry. Plus it easier to keep billing and administration to a program that is meant for it, and not use aseparate tool. ,

  • @Noswaker, be aware your target market here are providers that may be offering multiple services. So unless your making an all-in-one hosting platform for shared, cloud, reseller, etc and a WHMCS importer to migrate + all of WHMCS features, you will need to plan for WHMCS having a bigger role.

  • You're making a great point - thanks. I'll need to bump the WHCMS plugin priority to mid-term.

  • We really do need something new and exciting in this industry!

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