Newbie Q: Is ispCP Omega the right tool for me?

[motokochan]

(12-15-2009 06:38 PM)pete Wrote:  Anyway, against your probably very wise judgement (thank you), I went ahead and installed icpCP. To my surprise, a screen poped up in the end so I must have gotten the odd thing right right.

Glad to hear it went well.

(12-15-2009 06:38 PM)pete Wrote:  - When I log-on to WebMail with the e-mail address of a user from one of the resellers i setup (gosh, took me a while to figure out that a reseller is a domain), i can get access and all that but I can't send an e-mail. I get a "Server replied: 111 Can't open SMTP stream" error. What the heck?

Probably an issue with Postfix (the MTA). Check the contents of /var/log/maillog (I'm fairly sure Ubuntu creates that log file). Look for error messages near the end, or try to send and look for error messages that show at that exact time.

By the way, a reseller isn't a domain, it's a reseller (there isn't a way I know of to collapse the admin and reseller functions, which would be nice for self-hosting). Domains are linked with users.

Think of it this way. The admin manages the server and resellers, the reseller manages users, and the users manage a domain.

(12-15-2009 06:38 PM)pete Wrote:  When I use phpadmin, it tells me that I can't create an SQL database. MySQL is running and I can use the MySQL interpreter and see that, for example ispCP has no problem writing to it, so I must have been missing something.

That's valid. Normal users can't create databases. You can create new databases by adding them under the user interface for the site.

(12-15-2009 06:38 PM)pete Wrote:  I haven't got a clue where to find the "master records" my registrar wants so before they get their DNS to point to that new server. Master what?

Haven't heard that term before. They are probably talking about the NS records for the domain. By default, this tool creates an ns1.example.com and ns2.example.com (replace example.com with the actual domain) for each site with the IP of that server. You will probably want to provide those names and the IP.

(12-15-2009 06:38 PM)pete Wrote:  of course, I'd love to test my http, pop3 and ftp services for the domains I configured before I change my registrars DNS. Can this be done?

This is kinda easy if you just connect by IP. For HTTP, you'd need to add an entry in your hosts file. Depending on the OS you are browsing on, it could be in a few different locations.

(12-15-2009 06:38 PM)pete Wrote:  I didn't understand at all what was ment by:

Code:

Next you are asked to enter a "fully qualified hostname" (FQHN).
        For more infos read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FQDN.

so I entered a silly name followed by one of the domains I want to host. Does it matter?

A bit. An FQDN is the DNS name of the server as it can be reached publicly. You access the control panel by the admin name, and all the server configuration strings report back that name. This means you'll need to make sure it resolves and that the reverse IP (PTR) of the server reports back that name.

(12-15-2009 06:38 PM)pete Wrote:  Less critical but still of interest to me: spam filter for e-mail and making sure that the SMTP server works and is secure (doesn't relay mail).

Basic spam filtering is already included (via policy-weightd, AMaViSd-new, and SpamAssassin), and you can manually configure the settings, although that requires editing a few files. Unauthorized relaying should also be disabled by default.