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Starting work on an open-source control panel
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Starting work on an open-source control panel

edited December 2015 in General

Okay, so hi. This is officially my first thread at LET, so bear with me.

I've been working on an open-source control panel, since every other open source control panel available has either questionable security (Kloxo[-MR], Sentora) or confusing to use for beginners (Virtualmin). I really like VestaCP, but it confuses people that aren't used to non-icon layouts like how cPanel/Kloxo does it (like me), but I personally like it.

Since this is LET and many of you get your VPS for cheap, what kind of stuff would you like to see on a control panel? Right now the roadmap is to develop a panel with an Apache+NginX reverse proxy setup, but I'm still 50-50 about whether to continue or to just drop Apache and use NginX.

Any other ideas are welcome. The project is still in its infancy, but I'm planning to start development as soon as a solid roadmap is established.

Note: If you're going to tell me you're not gonna finish this, you're just gonna abandon this like most of the other open-source project startups then please don't bother. I'm motivated to do work on this, and I don't need the negativity. :)

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Comments

  • Go for it !!! But be good about it.

  • Hey, welcome to LET!

    Good to see someone enthusiastic about working on an open source panel, good luck!

  • I recommend start with very simple setup.

    Apache
    NginX
    MySQL
    Email
    FileManagement
    Shell
    Firewall
    API

  • I dont want to demotivate you but do not start it. In my view its not nessery for another panel. You may start to do some billing system.

  • Yes, no PHP please. And please make an android app for it. Thanks

  • @creep said:
    Yes, no PHP please. And please make an android app for it. Thanks

    @darknessends said:
    I recommend start with very simple setup.

    Apache
    NginX
    MySQL
    Email
    FileManagement
    Shell
    Firewall
    API

    Do you guys want sugar and milk with that?

    @definitelyliam, build it how you want to. Otherwise you'll quickly lose motivation.

  • @WHT said:
    I dont want to demotivate you but do not start it. In my view its not nessery for another panel. You may start to do some billing system.

    Hi.

    Yeah, I understand the need for a billing system. But then again, if a host would rely on a free billing system instead of opting for a more solid choice (WHMCS, HostBill, etc.) -- that would say a lot about the host itself, right? Don't get me wrong, billing scripts are fine when they're free, but if a host could survive it could at least afford a decent billing panel.

    @darknessends said:
    I recommend start with very simple setup.

    Apache
    NginX
    MySQL
    Email
    FileManagement
    Shell
    Firewall
    API

    Almost every single one on that list is on the current plans, but as for e-mail management I'm still 50-50 about it, since it would be better to host e-mail externally.> @Ishaq said:

    Hey, welcome to LET!

    Good to see someone enthusiastic about working on an open source panel, good luck!

    Thanks! I appreciate the appreciation.

  • Be unique, be original. Code the panel using NodeJS, make it fast, stable, sturdy.

  • What language are you coding it with?

  • @0xdragon said:
    definitelyliam, build it how you want to. Otherwise you'll quickly lose motivation.

    Thanks. I'm really motivated to do it in one way, but there may be better options that I might have missed out during consideration. But yeah, so far I'm starting to make a solid roadmap for the project.

  • @0xdragon said:
    definitelyliam, build it how you want to. Otherwise you'll quickly lose motivation.

    I dont recommend PHP to build android app for it. Thanks @definitelyliam

  • @drazilox said:
    What language are you coding it with?

    Front-end and API is written in PHP via Laravel, server-side actions & API requests are passed through bash shell scripts.

  • RIYADRIYAD Member, Patron Provider

    please include , both Apache+NginX , looking forward to see the panel :)

    Thanked by 1definitelyliam
  • @definitelyliam said:
    Front-end and API is written in PHP via Laravel, server-side actions & API requests are passed through bash shell scripts.

    Why not run a python daemon? More secure than bash scripts

  • Thanks for everybody's feedback so far! The responses are very refreshing for a dev who's been looking into various options.

    In case you missed my sig, the project homepage is up and running, so if you run into some FAQs that need to be answered you can check the homepage. The introductory dev blog post also contains various information including an introduction to the conception of the project, and the problems it wants to solve.

    For further questions, feel free to ask me here, or post them at the project website.

    Thanks again for your feedback guys! Much appreciated.

  • Also if you need some servers for testing shoot me a PM I'd love to help

    Thanked by 1definitelyliam
  • @TinyTunnel_Tom said:
    Why not run a python daemon? More secure than bash scripts

    Well, to be frank, I am not as well-versed in Python as I am in Bash and PHP. I do think that with the proper coding standards and screening, PHP and Bash scripts would pass for security, which is something I am aiming for.

  • @TinyTunnel_Tom said:
    Also if you need some servers for testing shoot me a PM I'd love to help

    Awesome, thanks. I'll shoot you a PM once I actually get something running (probably in the coming months).

  • simonindiasimonindia Member
    edited December 2015

    @definitelyliam Welcome to LET

    Control panel with VPN , FireWall , Docker support , ACL , DNS with CloudFlare API,Remote Backup using (Rsync,Hubic(https://github.com/netomx/hubiccli)

    Usual stuff
    apache,nginx,MySQL,Email

    i will add more when new things come to my mind

    Looking forward for the OpenCP

  • Welcome to LET. Apache +nginX would be awesome.

    As previously mentioned, python demon would add security. But shell is also ok.

    Also if you need a hand with front end coding stuff, feel free to pm me.

  • TrafficTraffic Member
    edited December 2015

    Just nginx. No need to add Apache.

    Thanked by 1hostnoob
  • I'm interested, I sent you a PM.

  • @GCat said:
    I'm interested, I sent you a PM.

    Replied to. Thanks!

  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran
    edited December 2015

    definitelyliam said: ystem. But then again, if a host would rely on a free billing system instead of opting for a more solid choice (WHMCS, HostBill, etc.) -- that would say a lot about the host itself, right?

    You know, applying that logic to control panels...

    definitelyliam said: Well, to be frank, I am not as well-versed in Python as I am in Bash and PHP. I do think that with the proper coding standards and screening, PHP and Bash scripts would pass for security, which is something I am aiming for.

    I can't wait to write extensions for your panel in php + bash. Two languages. I'll just love that. Much better than having the entire project written in python. I know the cPanel guys with all of their years of professional development and planning are just kicking themselves for writing their panel in a single, easily extensible language.

    I will particularly enjoy this since shell scripts are a minefield for unquoted variables and make it particularly painful to pass things around functions, even inside the same script. I will enjoy the fact that the slightest mistake on my part can let the Internet rape my server.

    Of course, your panel will do everything I want to do out of the box and your project won't have to worry about a rich community of extensions and add-ons that people won't write because they don't want to use bash as a web development language. Simplicity. Steve Jobs is smiling on you.

    Even better, to do anything in my bash scripts, I'll be calling in dozens of utilities, each of which is an exec with overhead, so this ball of yarn will be slow as hell. Sure, if you're fancy, you can use shell internals for lots of things (and who doesn't like writing in a language that barely supports arrays and is not object-oriented, with an ancient set of text operators). I'm sure your code won't soon be littered with cut, awk, sed, and other fun tools from the 1970s.

    I'll really enjoy figuring out why I get some strange error when you assume cut is in /usr/bin and I have it in /bin and you call it naked in your script. Or maybe you'd like to have a massive library that discovers where binaries are and defines their paths every time your script is invoked? Or are you just going to trust that every distro implements LSB?

    This should also prevent your code from ever being ported outside of the main Linux distros, so congrats on limiting your market. Who needs more users? It's not like running your code on many different distros and *BSD makes it better or anything.

    Hey, *BSD doesn't even have bash (unless the admin compiles it himself) so who needs those people. And forget commercial Unix - they will come crawling.

    But hey, at least we saved you the trouble of having to learn a language.

    I might be a little sarcastic in this post but really: love the enthusiasm, but your design is not wise.

    Thanked by 2deadbeef MattCNS
  • @raindog308 said:

    @GCat is helping me out with everything else that I'm still a bit confused in. I opened this thread to gather feedback because this project is practically still being "planned out". I appreciate the effort you put into your sarcasm.

    Perhaps instead of being such an asshole for putting all your efforts into writing such sarcastic comments, you actually give useful input, like giving me insights on why you think a certain way of doing things is better. I admit, I'm new to creating large-scale projects like these, that's why I accepted help offered to me, because I am, admittedly, still learning.

    Then again I remember that you can't make everyone happy (and also the fact that I'm in LET). I can't say your sarcasm was unsolicited because I did ask for feedback, just saying you could give feedback without being a total douche.

    "...your design is not wise" -- exactly the reason why I'm asking for feedback.

    Thanked by 1GCat
  • PieHasBeenEatenPieHasBeenEaten Member, Host Rep

    @definitelyliam Plus another warning when the supposed "professional" coders come in here and start bashing your coding style. Will sit and criticize everything but will not offer any kind remedies or fixes. But the funny thing i found is that some of these "professional" coders work is just as worst than the ones they are criticizing.

    Thanked by 2GCat perennate
  • raindog308raindog308 Administrator, Veteran

    definitelyliam said: Perhaps instead of being such an asshole for putting all your efforts into writing such sarcastic comments,

    At least I didn't say "you're not gonna finish this and you're just gonna abandon this like most of the other open-source project startups".

  • If Virtualmin is confusing for you, you should not run your own VPS.

    If you like VestaCP's code you should stop being a developer.

  • Just write the back-end scripts in PHP, instead of bash.

    raindog has a point, bash is a prune piece of shit. It needs external utilities for things like substringing and array exploding etc.

    You don't need to learn anything, just write it all in PHP and keep to your original goals. Good luck, if you need help doing something in PHP that you only know how to do in Bash, just post it here and optionally tag me and wel'll help you for sure

  • Something minimal, easy to manage the basics would be fine. Go for it !

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