Would you give up cPanel for better uptime?

[galaxyAbstractor]

Thing is, it's cPanel or no cPanel. If we decide to give up cPanel, there can't be users that can "pay" to use it, unless we do a different server with it on.

The way I understand it is that we want to give it up is because Apache is restarting everytime a new account is created. And you can't use other http servers with cPanel, what I understand

 

[WyrGecko]

If it remains as it is, I'm fine with keeping cPanel and sacrificing some reliability. If it'd end up like when it was with the upgrades, then cPanel needs to be gone . Other than support usually being great, cPanel is probably the main reason that I've been staying with x10's free hosting, even after the downtime during upgrades.

Admittedly, though, I really only need the many features of the File Manager (Editing in the web browser when I can't download programs and don't have my USB drive is very nice.) and back when there was a backups feature - more convenient than select all -> compress -> name -> download -> delete.

 

[VickyP]

Personally I am designing my first website and learning as I go, without cPanel I'd be totally lost and it was one of the main reasons I chose X10 as a host and intend to upgrade to premium once I'm up and running.

 

[leafypiggy]

Just an idea:

Would it be possible to make the cPanel API (on x10's side) queue every account and then have a cron that would send the new accounts to cPanel say, every 4/8 hours?

I'm really not sure what the effect would be. Again, just throwing an idea out there.

 

[Smith6612]

To me it doesn't matter. There has been quite a bit of downtime on Absolut lately (which is unusual for it), and I don't mind having to learn another web based management panel. If cPanel is in fact the problem, then by all means get a rid of it. I'm sure it'll help save some money for you guys as well anyways. I am experienced with Linux in the fact that I run a Linux box here which used to be a web server in itself, and is currently acting as a network router so if it comes down to using shells/terminals, I can do that.

 

[Linkz0rs]

Just an idea:

Would it be possible to make the cPanel API (on x10's side) queue every account and then have a cron that would send the new accounts to cPanel say, every 4/8 hours?

I'm really not sure what the effect would be. Again, just throwing an idea out there.

I've already made that suggestion and isn't a good idea...
Just imagine, having it queue account creation until midnight, creating over 500 accounts instantly lol
With that being said, you could expect downtime all night long.

 

[aoscomputing]

I really hope cpanel wont be removed. :sad:

It helps me a great deal and it is one the greatest reason why i chose x10

 

[Joshua203]

first of all it s good to finally know whats causing this weird site behaviour, it helps keeping faith in x10 ;-)

secondly whats the point of having a nice c panel for a site that is almost always acting up/not loading correctly or at all

for almost a year(since the server move) now i ve stopped playing around and modding stuff because i can never tell if it was my action breaking stuff or the server having problems so i m still hoping the quality will be as it used to be but it s taking awfully long and not knowing much about the problem and the actions taken to cure strokes patience the wrong way

I vote ditch cpanel go for uptime ... i ve seen plesk ..that would be good enough i think

 

[gimr1987]

Well Direct admin ???

 

[scocou10]

All I need is FTP and a database, either auto-created or the ability to create one. After that I can pretty much to everything I need to in PHP. So cPanel or no, doesn't bother me.

 

[galaxyAbstractor]

To all of you who believes they can't use anything else than cPanel: Look at it this way. You switch OS. Say from Windows to Linux. In the beginning you might be a bit confused with new things. But really, there are a lot of ways Windows and Linux are the same. Both has a shutdown and restart button, both can run firefox and other programs. But you'll learn it really fast.

I recently decided to go with no panel at all on my VPS. I am doing everything from SSH, without any linux knowledge. All I know is how to use yum (package manager). With only that knowledge, I put up nginx (webserver), php, ftp and mysql. And it's working.

So the point here is, you will learn.

You could see it this way too, cPanel (Proprietary) = windows, virtualmin (open source) = linux. With virtualmin we could do whatever we want with it, even make it look like cPanel. With cPanel we can only do limited things with

 

[adam.k]

I would trade cPanel for better uptime and reliability in a heartbeat. Sure it may be a bit confusing at first to learn a new administration system but if it makes my website more reliable i'd say it is worth the change and learning process.

 

[inishe]

Wow... this is a tough decision.
From the standpoint of ease of use, cPanel has been really helpful to me.

Of course, setting a website up easily really should come second to its uptime (a website is made so that it can be viewed, right?).

If cPanel is causing issues with that main objective, wouldn't it make more sense to replace it with something that offers better performance?

Messy situation...


But will this disable access to fantastico? (I hope not; though if it does, we still don't seem to have much of a choice... *shudders*)

 

[galaxyAbstractor]

Wow... this is a tough decision.
From the standpoint of ease of use, cPanel has been really helpful to me.

Of course, setting a website up easily really should come second to its uptime (a website is made so that it can be viewed, right?).

If cPanel is causing issues with that main objective, wouldn't it make more sense to replace it with something that offers better performance?

Messy situation...


But will this disable access to fantastico? (I hope not; though if it does, we still don't seem to have much of a choice... *shudders*)

There is other tools like fantastico.

Also, imo you should never ever use fantastico. Fantastico asks for exact same info the script does on install, so why not install manually?

 

[inishe]

I recently decided to go with no panel at all on my VPS. I am doing everything from SSH, without any linux knowledge. All I know is how to use yum (package manager). With only that knowledge, I put up nginx (webserver), php, ftp and mysql. And it's working.

Sweet! I've got a linux server at home (though it's not running at present because it doesn't make sense to me to have to pay for electricity to serve a website when there are plenty of free servers out there!).

As a newbie to linux, I found some software that really helped me out a lot. It's called XMing and the idea behind it is sort of like doing a "Remote Desktop" into your linux server, but only pulling out the GUI pieces that you really need (which worked great for me since my linux server was running off of a computer with only something like 550 Mhz of processing power).

As long as you know (or can find) the text-based commands for opening GUI based programs, then you can access whatever it is that you need with relative ease.

For instance, in Fedora Core 8 (my box's OS), typing "gnome-terminal &" will open an additional terminal window in a new process. Or typing "gedit" will open the gnome-based text editor. Of course, there are also heavier GUI commands like "nautilus" that will open the desktop framework and the linux file browser.

Steps are as follows:
1. Start up XMing
2. Use a program (like "putty") from a windows based machine to SSH into your linux based server with X11 enabled (options for this are somewhere in putty's options - I'm sure they are included with whatever you're familiar with).
3. While in your SSH window, type in something like "gedit" (dependant upon the server OS) and see what happens!

Feel free to email me if you are getting stuck and I'll try to respond as soon as possible (before July 1st)
Edit:

Also, imo you should never ever use fantastico. Fantastico asks for exact same info the script does on install, so why not install manually?

Coz Imma noob! j/k

I'm new to the x10hosting community, so I was unaware that we had that much control over what is running on the server with a free account. Thanks for the tip! Now, I don't think I have any reservations about cPanel being replaced.

 

[Twinkie]

I absolutely agree that we should switch if it will help, but how would make the change is the question.

Starting to guess and check would surely result in more downtime. Would it be possible to offer just one server with new software and allow people to switch over if they want in AMP?

Also, would this mean that some of the features offered by cPanel would not be available at all, or would it just need to be accessed with a script, or what? Which features would be disrupted?

 

[ichwar]

I voted no, since I need the mysql database and I read somewhere else that cpanel manages that.
But if I'm incorrect, and I can still create/modify mysql databases without cpanel, then I'm all for moving away from cpanel in favor of more uptime.

 

[galaxyAbstractor]

I voted no, since I need the mysql database and I read somewhere else that cpanel manages that.
But if I'm incorrect, and I can still create/modify mysql databases without cpanel, then I'm all for moving away from cpanel in favor of more uptime.

cPanel does not manage mySQL. mySQL is a software that has nothing at all to do with cPanel. It is managed with phpMyAdmin, which is also a software that has nothing to do with cPanel.

cPanel != mySQL. cPanel != PHP. cPanel != Apache. cPanel is just a control panel like every other control panel out there. There is no function in cPanel that other panels don't have

 

[garrettroyce]

Ok. I have no idea if this is possible or not, but logically, it seems feasible and from my research it is possible:

There are two instances of Apache installed on a server, call them Apache1 and Apache2. Since they cannot execute at the same time on the same port, either:
A) Apache1 is port 80 and Apache2 is port X. When port 80 is not available, requests are forwarded to port X.
B) Apache1 and Apache2 never run at the same time. Either the same process that shuts down Apache1 for recompile launches Apache2 directly after, or another process periodically checks for Apache1's status and starts Apache2 when Apache1 is down.

In either case, CPanel is either unaware of Apache2 or ignores it entirely. Execution on the server will be as follows:

1) Apache2 will be running until after Apache1 is recompiled and takes over HTTP requests for the server.
2) A process similar to A) or B) will shut down Apache2, copy the necessary files from Apache1 for Apache2 to mirror Apache1, and recompile Apache2.
3) CPanel will eventually need to recompile Apache1, so A) or B) is executed and the cycle repeats.

I know there are a lot of "If's" because I'm venturing into pretty unknown territory for myself, but it looks good on paper, right?

 

[leafypiggy]

wouldn't work.

first off: people would have to give their site as both :80 and var).

Second: two Apache servers would just ruin the servers completely. Apache already has a high load, we don't need 2x load.

It works, in theory, but would ruin the attempt at more uptime and faster loading times.