InterWorx In A Real World Medium Environment. How is Yours Setup?

General Interworx Control Panel Info General Inquries
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Well,

The forums don’t seem to be too busy. Which can be a good thing, I guess. I’ve only been an InterWorx customer for a very short period of time. I’ve tried numerous other hosting “panel” management software and very pleased with InterWorx. It covers almost everything I’ve been looking for. The install was quick and easy to understand, all sections took a little time to find certain things, but everything is laid out very logically.

I have a fairly competent understanding of a bit of everything to do with web/e-mail hosting, but not enough to “split” all the services InterWorx provides to individual servers and be confident in how well it will run without error. My current setup consists of two servers running InterWorx in a basic CM, CS(?) with load balancing. (Not fully configured yet) They both run DNS, and host only around 15 websites with e-mail service perfectly for about a month or so with pretty much no hiccup. (Updating the PHP, MySQL, phpMyAdmin, etc. was the only brief downtime)

As this is a completely new market for our business, I always want to be ahead in understanding that if and when an issue happens, that there is a plan to resolve it. With both servers running raid-1 with enterprise drives, and decent other systems specs, I do not suspect any issues or limitations to occur anytime soon. All parts are replaceable fairly quickly and do not have to be ordered in.

Where InterWorx covers “almost” everything is in its high availability. I’ve followed the forums, and checked on the videos, and it looks great… but it’s not available yet. I’m sure as our company grows to provide upwards of 100 customers of ours with hosting services, we will hit a bit of a brick wall. Yes, I can separate the storage area with a large RAID/ZFS setup, add more nodes in the cluster for load balancing, but something will happen to the CM at one point. The question I have is that, until the feature of high availability is completed for InterWorx, what is the best procedure for rebuilding things as quickly as possible?

Right now I’m assuming that doing continual backups of SiteWorx, the configuration of InterWorx, and documenting any other details or changes we’ve made to the system, is all I can do for now. Also having spare parts, and being prepped with another similar server on hand. If the CM is a complete disaster (Motherboard issue), is the recommended way to rebuild it all, just by simply using a similar build server, restore all information as best as possible, and wait until something else happens again? Can I be prepped with an “offline” mirrored InterWorx server build, and only have it activated with the primary license when the initial server fails?

I’m sure someone has wandering into this area using InterWorx as their primary hosting panel.
Thanks.

2

Hi techalta

Welcome to IW forums

I would start to consider using R1Soft for backups (licensecart is doing R1Soft I believe) because at 15 sites, the IW backup will work with not putting too much resource on server, but around 100, and your backups when run may soon your resources very high during backup

I think there’s a lot of people asking for HA, but clustering works lovely, and your correct, if your manager goes down, the time it takes to replace it and re setup the cluster is not overly long I don’t think, but depends upon your setup

I do not think IW would allow for a backup server waiting for a failure, but there is a little way around it, by asking IW for the 1 user licence and run it as DNS server, but make sure server matches the same drive setup/size as your manger server, and if manager goes down, just reset license and run license pex, the restore from IW backup you made, or if using R1Soft, restore from bare metal or directly restore

I hope that helps a little

Many thanks

John

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Hi John,

Thank you for the reply. I saw that the R1Soft was listed in the plugins area but never took to looking it up further.

Looking further at the other plugins, simplescripts and softaculous in my opinion are not worth having in the InterWorx suite. (Simplescripts is no longer updating from what I’ve looked up and softaculous worries me with the abundance of scripts that may have security holes by default. It may be suitable for large resellers, but not for the smaller companies like myself whom manually do a lot of the installing and maintenance of websites for each customer.) I’ve requested from R1Soft a trial to run on the servers to better understand how it works. If bare metal restore is possible with it, and the process of completing a full with differential backups is easy enough to work with, then I guess I’m set for now. I’m sure everything once it is setup, will suit the majority of my needs for the current and near future expansion.

Setting up an external NFS server will be my next challenge after setting up the backups and testing. I would quite like to purchase the one-time licence for my two servers to start, but unfortunately the USD is kicking my butt here in Canada for the time being on a limited budget for the whole setup. Soon enough though.

I’m not sure if the developers or yourself have access to the changelog here, but it is showing 2015 instead of 2016 for the past couple events.
Thanks again for the help. I’m sure there will be more questions and thoughts.

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Hi techalta

Many thanks, and I never noticed the date still showing 2015, I’ll email IW to let them know and give you credit for it.

Simple scripts - it’s too late for you get a license for simplescripts, but IW allow their license to be used BUT you are correct, it is no longer supported, accordingly though, there going for a paid service in the future

Softaculous, your thought is wrong, yes there are a lot of 1 click installers, and some may have weakness but in the whole, I have not seen any and if you read softaculous, and I can confirm myself, softaculous can keep the software installed updated as updates are released ieg word press etc. If you purchase your own license, you can choose which 1 click installers can be shown as available to clients. I always think why clients would not use them, given they install in around a minute and you have a fully running software package

Both 1 click installers can be used in conjunction with hooks, which some have created to automate the process from a sale

R1soft, we use R1Soft and I can confirm all, bare metal restore, allows the clients to undertake their own restores etc, very worth the money in my eyes. We have never looked back since using it, and it gives confidence and professionalism to our company

NFS works lovely, and easy to setup, which I’m sure you know

I would advice you read through the forums for best methods to secure your server and help keep the bad out, such as BFD, maldet etc

Also, been kicked by USD, haha, you should see the prices we pay here in UK, I’d love to pay the prices for Canadian datacentre in the UK, then UK actual pay, and we have Canadian sites on our systems

I hope that’s helps

Many thanks

John

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Hi John,

Again further questions that I’m unsure should be related to this topic or posted in another area of the forum. Still, this is information I’m sure many current or new customers to InterWorx would probably like to find out before buying, just as I did. (Heh, queue “lurking in the shadows” motion.)

Further reading on the R1Soft as a CDP for InterWorx, I’m a little confused. The plugin in NodeWorx lists it as, “R1Soft Backup Siteworx Integration” so is this only for the individual SiteWorx accounts? or the server as a whole?

I contacted R1Soft and was told that it is a separate product from InterWorx and recommended to be run off of another server… not being integrated with InterWorx? I understand the basics of CDP being a full initial backup and ongoing changes stored in differential backup parts. Is this just for the individual SiteWorx accounts, the whole InterWorx(Configuration+SiteWorx), or bare metal backup (All data, install, configuration, and storage)?

For just customers of SiteWorx, this is beneficial if they make a large enough mistake that they can restore multiple editions of a previous backup. Or if they were looking to switch providers… (I hope not) A lot of what I’m aiming for is that the whole server is easy enough to restore from bare metal to another server, or at least the configurations+SiteWorx data, in the event there is a catastrophic event to get back up and running in a matter of a few hours or less. It is certainly less likely for this to happen when you have access to multiple data centers, but as I’m just starting off, it makes sense to think like this. Not sure whom said it but along the lines of, “The one most paranoid, is best prepared when something goes wrong.” :slight_smile:

I look forward to being involved in the InterWorx community as an active member.
Thanks again.

6

Hi techalta

Many thanks, and sorry, I was not clear over R1soft/idera back (R1sodt is now idera incase you did not realise)

The integration is present in interworx for the whole server and to siteworx accounts, including all databases.

R1soft the server cannot and must not be installed on a IW server, as R1soft server needs its own dedicated server. You can spend monies and time setting this up, or you can rent space and licences from an R1soft provider, and use your credentials to activate R1soft integration, which works lovely. Our backups are held in 4 different countries outside of uk. Licensecart offers R1soft (licensecart.com)

Haha, he who most paranoid is most poor, he who uses judgement and not try do everything, is not.

I do not do everything, I use judgement to use a R1soft provider and save time and money, relaxed in the knowledge that I could do full bare metal restore if needed, and I am not pestered by clients to do a restore of their data, they do this themselves

I hope that explains it better and helps you

Many thanks

John

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Hello and welcome!

We started using InterWorx about 5 years ago now, and can honestly say you’re making a good move!

I’ll second John above and say that getting yourself some R1Soft goodness is a must. We’ve been using it for a while now and are very happy, although the InterWorx plugin does need a bit of work.

The forums can be a bit quiet, but one of the regulars or InterWorx staff will usually call by if a question is asked.

Jon