Transfering from CPanel to Interworx a good choice?

General Interworx Control Panel Info General Inquries
1

Dear users and staff,

For the past two/three weeks our company has been looking into possibilities to provide an High Availability Cluster with optional load balancing hosting solution. Even though we have good hardware (HP/Tyan) there is allways the chance that something will fail.

In my quest to finding a way to cluster CPanel systems into a High Availability system I came across Interworx. (Don’t know exactly how I found it between linux-ha, stealeye lifekeeper and redhat clustered suite ?)

Our first impression of the site was that it was pretty simple. But after a few clicks here and there I must say that it sounds good and promising.

Even so we still have our doubts about migrating from CPanel for some reasons. Maybe you users and staff can comment and help us out.

From a system admin point of view it would be wonderfull to have 1 central system to do all the work on. Also a high availability (soon to come) and load balanced system sounds like something that provides us with better sleep at night!

Still we have to think about our customers and their needs.

After asking a couple of customers what they liked and don’t like about our current CPanel servers we have some questions.
(note that we use a very customized skin for our servers, not the standard CPanel skin).

Here we go.

  • Is it possible to skin Interworx to give it a more “Icon Friendly” look? Our customers are primary marketing companies, webdevelopers and customers that like flashy icons and thingies. :slight_smile: (we ourselfs don’t care if the button is blue, red or a link saying CLICK HERE!)
    Are there such themes? Where can I see them? (We do not want to make anything ourselfs because we want to use our resources for other projects)
    We don’t mind buying as long as they are customizable to our website feel and look.

  • I know you don’t support BIND DNS. We do however need a DNS system that can run on two separate servers. We currently have one server in the US (we are Dutch based) and use the CPanel DNS clustering system to cluster DNS on two servers. (US and NL). Is there a possibility to do this with Interworx?

  • We have created a script that creates a Fallback mailserver for our accounts. This is also on a US server to provide a little bit more relaiability if anything should happen to the network.

  • Can users edit their DNS records? (this is something lacking in CPanel and we can’t find someone that will create a solution for this.)
    We want to have this like in DirectAdmin DNS Management.

  • How is SSL certificate installation handled by Interworx? CPanel offers an easy way to create to Generate SSL certificates and signing requests.

  • Is Interworx a complete install solution? Meaning we do not have to install ALL software (apache, mysql etc) first and then install the Control Panel on top of it? For example. Helm for Windows works on top of your Windows Install and doesn’t change files unless you tell it to. CPanel on the other hand installs EVERYTHING and can’t handle othe versions of MySQL or Apache very well. How about Interworx? Will I be able to “uninstall it”

  • Could you create a comparision matrix like this one?
    http://www.virtualmin.com/vs/virtualmin-vs-cpanel

Sorry for the long story and questions but we want to make sure that if we change we will have a long relationship with our new control panel! We have been using CPanel for almost 5 years now and are quite used to it but are allways open to new bright solutions!

Thanks in advance.

  • Is Interworx perl or php based?
2

Hello,

I use Interworx for 2 years now and it is just, for me, the best one. really end user focused and really admin focused. The best point is that, with Interworx, you may admin and change your system as like you want without breaking something. As soon you let the separated interworx config intact. I mean you may change your httpd, php.ini, etc…

  • Is it possible to skin Interworx to give it a more “Icon Friendly” look? Our customers are primary marketing companies, webdevelopers and customers that like flashy icons and thingies. (we ourselfs don’t care if the button is blue, red or a link saying CLICK HERE!)
    Are there such themes? Where can I see them? (We do not want to make anything ourselfs because we want to use our resources for other projects)
    We don’t mind buying as long as they are customizable to our website feel and look.

Yes it use smarty and is template oriented. So you can create your own template. But the template, in this current release, is applyed to all your customers/reseller

  • I know you don’t support BIND DNS. We do however need a DNS system that can run on two separate servers. We currently have one server in the US (we are Dutch based) and use the CPanel DNS clustering system to cluster DNS on two servers. (US and NL). Is there a possibility to do this with Interworx?

Absolutly. There is a DNS replication system inside the Interworx panel. You may replicate your dns between few interworx panel our between few interworx to an outside and independant dns box (in the hack/tool/… there is few posts about howto)

  • We have created a script that creates a Fallback mailserver for our accounts. This is also on a US server to provide a little bit more relaiability if anything should happen to the network.

  • Can users edit their DNS records? (this is something lacking in CPanel and we can’t find someone that will create a solution for this.)
    We want to have this like in DirectAdmin DNS Management.

In this current release en users can’t edt their own dns record, but I know it is something that will come soon as it should be in PRIO1 todo list of the interworx developers. To be confirmed by them of ocurse.

  • How is SSL certificate installation handled by Interworx? CPanel offers an easy way to create to Generate SSL certificates and signing requests.

One click solution to create a self certificate, CA one, and chain one, transfert or migrate. It is really easy to nd user to add a certificate.

  • Is Interworx a complete install solution? Meaning we do not have to install ALL software (apache, mysql etc) first and then install the Control Panel on top of it? For example. Helm for Windows works on top of your Windows Install and doesn’t change files unless you tell it to. CPanel on the other hand installs EVERYTHING and can’t handle othe versions of MySQL or Apache very well. How about Interworx? Will I be able to “uninstall it”

Absolutly, the best way is to install Interworx on a fresh install box, without any packages.
Interworx will take care to install all the needed packages based on your arch and install itself. There is also an auto update (which can be enable or not) of the OS and/or Interworx. Interworx use YUM and has a mirror repository for every ARCH and one for itself. So the package install and update/upgrade is just easy…

Finally I think the best bet for you should be to try the demo : http://www.interworx.com/products/iworx-cp/demo

Of course these answers is my opinion and I may be wrong about something. I’m sure an interworx guy will answer you give you more informations if need.

Hope it helps in your final decision

Pascal

3

Hello-

Thank you very much for your interest in InterWorx-CP. :slight_smile: Answers are inline below.

Q: - Is it possible to skin Interworx to give it a more “Icon Friendly” look? Our customers are primary marketing companies, webdevelopers and customers that like flashy icons and thingies. (we ourselfs don’t care if the button is blue, red or a link saying CLICK HERE!)

A: We’re currently developing a new “iconified” theme which should be out with the next release. As Pascal said, the templates are based on Smarty (http://smarty.php.net) and completely customizable.

Q: I know you don’t support BIND DNS. We do however need a DNS system that can run on two separate servers. We currently have one server in the US (we are Dutch based) and use the CPanel DNS clustering system to cluster DNS on two servers. (US and NL). Is there a possibility to do this with Interworx?

A: If I understand correctly, you would like to have 2 DNS servers with identical information in different places. This DNS Synchronization functionality is in beta in the current version of InterWorx and will be out of beta in the next version.

Q: Can users edit their DNS records? (this is something lacking in CPanel and we can’t find someone that will create a solution for this.)
We want to have this like in DirectAdmin DNS Management.

A: Users can add their own Pointer Domains and Subdomains but cannot currently add custom A Records or something of that nature. This functionality will almost certainly be in a future release.

Q: How is SSL certificate installation handled by Interworx? CPanel offers an easy way to create to Generate SSL certificates and signing requests.

A: Installing, creating, and migrating SSL certs is a fairly simple process with InterWorx-CP. Instructions on dealing with SSL can be found here:

Q: Is Interworx a complete install solution? Meaning we do not have to install ALL software (apache, mysql etc) first and then install the Control Panel on top of it? For example. Helm for Windows works on top of your Windows Install and doesn’t change files unless you tell it to. CPanel on the other hand installs EVERYTHING and can’t handle othe versions of MySQL or Apache very well. How about Interworx? Will I be able to “uninstall it”

A: Typically, the install process of InterWorx-CP goes as follows:

  1. Peform a clean Install of one of the supported Operating Systems.
  2. Run the InterWorx-CP install script.
  3. During the install script, InterWorx-CP will install install all of the software needed to run the control panel.

This includes installations of Apache, MySQL, and PHP which are separate from the system instances. You can upgrade/downgrade the system instances of the software to use whichever version of the software you want.

Q: Could you create a comparision matrix like this one?

A: We have a comparison matrix on our website that compares InterWorx, Plesk, Ensim, cPanel, and DirectAdmin. It can be found here:

If you have any further questions about what you find on the matrix, we’d certainly be glad to answer them! :slight_smile:

Q: Is Interworx perl or php based?
A: InterWorx-CP is a PHP/MYSQL application.

If you are looking to try out InterWorx-CP, we do offer a one-domain trial license.
Again, thanks for your interest in the product, and if you have any further questions, please don’t hesitate to ask :slight_smile:

–Dustin

4

Thank you very much for the answers. Still looking for possibilities and as usual change is not an easy thing!

So as I understand right now there are no ‘pre-made’ iconish skins? Any idea where we could find such skins? Maybe someone on the forum has a “skin site” ?

Also I would like to know (*from the users ;)) what the “new version” turnout time is? We do understand that software developement takes time but we don’t want to wait for centuries for every change.

On my question about DNS clustering basically we want our second DNS server to run of a server on another network with minumum hardware (like a VPS server for example)
CPanel offers a free DNS-only version.

Do you offer a VPS license version ?

5

The only thing I can chime in on and say is in relation to software updates.

In the time that I have been using Interworx and have been around these forums, what I can say is that Interworx never release tentative dates for their released (big plus, because we all know what happens to a lot of sofware dev companies that promise big for a long time ;)).

What they do do, however, is make sure that before an update goes out, it is rock solid. Unlike some of the things you hear from Cpanel users, I can put my hand on my heart and say I have never woken up to discover than an “auto-CP update” has nuked any of our boxes, when it has been runnning Interworx. Unfortunately, those using other control panels aren’t so lucky.

Interworx test, test & a test a bit more before releasing a major version. We are all waiting with baited breath for 2.2.0 as there are lots of extras which we are hoping to see. However, until such a time, there are enough goodies in the control panel for our users to be using. We mainly deal with Resellers at the moment, which servers as a great test bed for our hosting platform, and means we can sift through a large number of feature requests that resellers send to us.

Ones which we think are worthy of bringing to Iworx’s attention, we do, and usually here in the forums so that other people get the chance to respond and discuss.

All in all, I cant say I’ve actually been happier with any online supply company. It just plain, worx!

Keep up the good work, chaps!

:slight_smile:

6

So as I understand right now there are no ‘pre-made’ iconish skins? Any idea where we could find such skins? Maybe someone on the forum has a “skin site” ?

I haven’t seen one to date but we are developing one for our next release as was previously mentioned.

Also I would like to know (*from the users ) what the “new version” turnout time is? We do understand that software developement takes time but we don’t want to wait for centuries for every change.

We do 2 - 3 major releases per year with incremental bugfix/security updates inbetween.

On my question about DNS clustering basically we want our second DNS server to run of a server on another network with minumum hardware (like a VPS server for example)
CPanel offers a free DNS-only version.

Do you offer a VPS license version ?

We don’t offer a free DNS version but we do have VPS licenses which are only available via our Reseller Partners (http://interworx.com/partners).

Chris