SimpleScripts and Softaculous Script Installer Plugins Now Available in InterWorx 4.0

We’re happy to announce that the latest release of InterWorx Version 4.0 now includes plugins for two 3rd party script installer plugins - SimpleScripts, and Softaculous.

These plugins replace the old “ScriptWorx” functionality, for those of you that are familiar with it. However, they do more than just replace the functionality. In addition to just installing scripts like wordpress, magento, etc, these software packages all the end user to also easily upgrade their software when new versions are released.

Are these script installers free?

Yes, and no. It depends on how you want to use them. Both packages have “Free versions” that are either ad-supported or limited in some way. See below for details.

Which script installer should I choose?

You can choose to enable either, or both on your InterWorx servers. You decide based on what makes sense for you and your customers. SimpleScripts is enabled by default.

Why is SimpleScripts enabled by default?

We choose to enable the SimpleScripts plugin by default because we felt that it provided the easiest transition for end users that are used to using ScriptWorx to install scripts.

What are my options if I don’t want myself or my customers to pay anything extra?

Both software packages have free versions, so you don’t have to do anything!

What about my old ScriptWorx installs? Can I import them?

With some scripts, you may be able to import existing script installs into the script installer software packages for management. Check the relevant documentation for details.

How are SimpleScripts and Softaculous different than one another?

As you might expect there are a number of differences. I will cover some of the important differences and similarities here.

  • User interface Even though both script installer packages provide similar functionality, they have significantly different user interfaces. See each software package's website for demonstrations.
  • Available Scripts While there is a lot of overlap in script support, there are some differences as well. See the websites linked above for details.
  • Service Design SimpleScripts is a "software as a service" solution - when the end user clicks on the SimpleScripts menu item in SiteWorx, they are sent to the simplescripts.com website. Before they get sent there, simplescripts is granted a special FTP user and API access to their SiteWorx account data, and SimpleScripts uses these tools to perform the script installation. Information about what scripts are installed where is maintained on the SimpleScripts servers. No SimpleScripts software is actually installed on the InterWorx server. The SimpleScripts software is updated on the SimpleScripts servers.

    The Softaculous software is actually installed and run on each InterWorx server. It gets installed automatically the first time the plugin is enabled. The softaculous software itself is installed under /usr/local/softaculous, and the software packages softaculous can install get placed in /var/softaculous. Softaculous also makes use of the InterWorx API to assist the user with the installs. Softaculous will install a cron job periodically check for new script updates.

  • Software Administration With SimpleScripts, you can customize your customer's interaction with the software by creating your own SimpleScripts "web host account." This is not required, but it does allow you extra flexibility in managing SimpleScripts on your servers. Resellers also can have the option of using their own SimpleScripts web host account as well. SimpleScripts provides a "host key" and a "host API key", both of which can be entered in The SimpleScripts portion of NodeWorx.

    Softaculous has an administration interface built in that is accessible via NodeWorx, that allows you to configure various options.

Needless to say, we’re very excited about these additions to InterWorx, and we believe you and your customers will enjoy them as well.

Paul

Just FYI - Neither one of them play nice with load balanced servers, because they are hard coded to use MySQL server 127.0.0.1 … which simply won’t work on clustered configurations.

Thanks for the bug report, we’ll make sure that gets fixed.

Paul

Question, is it correct that all users gets to install the scripts and that the administrator is not able to limit it with rights via the user-management?

Hello,

This is great! I tried to pay for the premium license, but it says the IP of the server already assigned to a license, but I don’t see any license. Are all IPs assigned to interworx licenses also assigned to Softaculous?

Thanks!

I was able to upgrade my license. Basically all interworx license IPs are already setup with free package. You have to use the Softaculous license you find on the Softaculous page of your nodeworx and use that to upgrade to premium when it asks for license info.

When you’ve paid you need to run a cron job to update your server or VPs with the Softaculous sync.

php /usr/local/softaculous/cron.php

Unfortunately mine is erroring due to lack of ioncube module…

Site error: the file <b>/usr/local/softaculous/cron.php</b> requires the ionCube PHP Loader ioncube_loader_lin_5.1.so to be installed by the site administrator

Im not sure what to do here? The reason im asking is because I figured ioncube would have been provided but interworx 4 to support Softaculous scripts.

Thanks!

John, you should be able to add the ionCube module to your PHP. It’s been a long while, but I believe I was able to just stick it in the module folder, add it to the PHP config file, and restart apache.

http://www.ioncube.com/loaders.php

EDIT:
Just checked and the config file goes in /etc/php.d

ioncube.ini

; Enable ioncube extension module
zend_extension = /usr/lib64/php/modules/ioncube_loader_[your_exact_filename_here].so

Then just put the module in that folder and that should be it.

Installing ioncube isn’t he problem. It’s already included within interworx installation. I’m am just wondering if there’s some disconnect, bug or something. Softaculous needed ioncube to even install or function, so I’m wondering whether something needs to be fixed.

I’m not sure what you mean by 'the administrator is not able to limit it with rights via the user-management", and I’m not sure which package you’re referring to with your question either.

Thanks,

Paul

[QUOTE=kipper3d;16525]I was able to upgrade my license. Basically all interworx license
Im not sure what to do here? The reason im asking is because I figured ioncube would have been provided but interworx 4 to support Softaculous scripts.

Thanks![/QUOTE]

Within interworx softaculous is run using the interworx provided php binary at ~iworx/bin/php, which does include ioncube. That’s the difference. If you don’t want to install ioncube on your system PHP configuration you could change the cron to use ~iworx/bin/php instead.

Paul

Thanks Paul!

Question - isn’t there already a cron job running for softaculous? or is this something I need to add?

[QUOTE=IWorx-Paul;16530]Within interworx softaculous is run using the interworx provided php binary at ~iworx/bin/php, which does include ioncube. That’s the difference. If you don’t want to install ioncube on your system PHP configuration you could change the cron to use ~iworx/bin/php instead.

Paul[/QUOTE]
As administrator you can set rights so you can decide what your users are allowed to do and what not. At this moment I can not set rights in such a way that my users can not access “SimpleScripts”. Is there a way to do this?

Disable the SimpleScripts Plugin in NodeWorx->Plugins.

Paul

[QUOTE=IWorx-Paul;16535]Disable the SimpleScripts Plugin in NodeWorx->Plugins.

Paul[/QUOTE]
But this will disable it for all my customers. I would like to be able to enable it per customer with the user-management in siteworx just as you do with email, stats, filemanager, etc.
Will this be possible in the futher?

[QUOTE=du-llens;16536]But this will disable it for all my customers. I would like to be able to enable it per customer with the user-management in siteworx just as you do with email, stats, filemanager, etc.
Will this be possible in the futher?[/QUOTE]

There are a couple different ways we could do this. We could do it as a siteworx per-user option, as you describe, where it would appear as an option at the url /siteworx/users?action=add, or it could be turned on/off on a per-siteworx account basis - which would mean the option would appear at the admin url /nodeworx/siteworx?action=add

Which do you think makes more sense?

Paul

[QUOTE=IWorx-Paul;16539]There are a couple different ways we could do this. We could do it as a siteworx per-user option, as you describe, where it would appear as an option at the url /siteworx/users?action=add, or it could be turned on/off on a per-siteworx account basis - which would mean the option would appear at the admin url /nodeworx/siteworx?action=add

Which do you think makes more sense?

Paul[/QUOTE]
both seem logic but I would prefer to have it as a siteworx per-user option. This would give me the most flexability.

Both are now available in the latest update. Thanks for the feedback :slight_smile:

Paul

[QUOTE=IWorx-Paul;16551]Both are now available in the latest update. Thanks for the feedback :slight_smile:

Paul[/QUOTE]
Thx for releasing it so quickly. It works great.