Sentora Feedback and Ideas

[Xversion]

Hello,

This thread will be referencing all of points that we as a community can improve in to make Sentora better, and for constructive criticism purposes only.

Web Server:

I don't think I need to explain this, OpenLiteSpeed does everything Apache can, but better.

Apache like Rewrite Support
Anti-Dos Technology (with right configuration)
Light Footprint
Built-in Page Caching
Multiple PHP Versions
Ruby, Python & LUA Support
One Click (App - Wordpress, Joomla etc.) Installer
Webadmin Panel
Page Speed Mod
Reverse Proxy

and much more...

http://open.litespeedtech.com/mediawiki/

Addtionally make Varnish (or Nginx) on top of OpenLiteSpeed available to increase the performance even further (this should be optional as not everyone has enough resources for Varnish)  

POTENTIALLY - this setup will enable web hosts to serve 'Proxying' services should they wish to.

Regarding Suhosin: Because of OpenLiteSpeeds 'name based' hosting you can set Sentora to use PHP 5.X with Suhosin and let the clients choose their own version of PHP for their sites.

Should we be lucky: https://github.com/sektioneins/suhosin7 (should release after PHP7 matures).

Databases:


These can be optional (available on install or can be installed later) - These are rather easy to be installed and should be a breeze to include in the next version.

PostgreSQL Support (PHPPgAdmin)

MongoDB Support (PHPMoAdmin)

These database engines increase the number of applications that can be supported on the platform, moreover people are changing to NoSQL rapidly and this would be perfect.

Read this as to why MongoDB would be great:
http://www.phpclasses.org/blog/post/118-...ngoDB.html


File Manager

This is really a pain having to install an extension that is buggy and not natively coded for Sentora, I heard that there is a premium upgrade, but I believe that there should be a free version available with the basic features pre-installed.

Website Builder
One-Click Installer (Yeah I know about Sentastico, but it would be great to increase the choices and the ability for hosts to add their own like Softaculous)
Categories of Applications (like Softaculous - https://gyazo.com/7815a421db80799237362aeda44dbb64.png)
Anti-Spam (SpamAssasin Module)
Anti-Virus (ClamAV Module)
WHMCS Support (Current Addons are either paid or for OUTDATED WHMCS Software) + Other Billing Softwares
Jailed SSH Access (Optional - Choice of the zadmin/root user for certain packages).

I think this will enhance Sentora's popularity and will help become a major competitor to cPanel, Plesk and DirectAdmin (if it already isn't)

I hope Sentora to become like this: https://i.gyazo.com/f272ab3c80ee4136ebc7...aface6.jpg (Fully Featured, Marketable and Functional).

Thanks!

[Xversion]

cPanel Migration - Ability for users & resellers to transfer their websites and settings to Sentora (I know its not going to be 100% bug free, but as long as the Databases, DNS Settings, Emails and Files are there it should be fine).

Just an idea on top of my head to grab Sentora a larger market share.

[Xversion]

Multi Tier Reseller System:

The ability for resellers to create sub-resellers and those to create their own resellers (so the cycle goes on), giving the ability to replicate the once powerful 'Zamfoo Module' for cPanel/WHM.

[Xversion]

More logging Software choices:

- Logaholic
- AwStats
- Analog Stats
- Piwik

There are alot available in the market.

[translucide]

Currently Sentora sets all vhosts permissions to 777 apache:apache user for all vhosts.
This is not what is should be... we should take advantage of linux permissions properly. Also this method makes suhosin less important than it is right now in Sentora. As I see it right now, any bug in suhosin extension, or misconfiguration can potentially make every Sentora user be able to take control of a whole bunch of stuff... suhosin is just too important in sentora right now, and it seems they are not really fast to release extensions too so we do not have any PHP7 support yet...

I would like to see this method implemented in sentora to setup vhosts, its quite simple and effective :

The main features of this setup are the following:

Each user has his own home directory
Each user can have one or more websites hosted
Web server does not need extra configuration regarding users, groups etc.
Users are owners of their website(s) and can connect and modify their sites at will.
Users can only view the web directories that they own.
Simple and fast setup


Steps

Login as root
sudo su -

Create user with his own home dir
useradd -s /bin/bash -m -d /home/<username> <username>

Assign a password to the user
passwd <username>

Create virtual host's directory and set permission to user and group.
mkdir -m o-rwx /var/vhosts/<site>

Change ownership of vhost directory
chown -R <username>:<username> /var/vhosts/<site>

Add apache user www-data to user's group
usermod -a -G <username> www-data

The statement above gives apache web server the required permissions in order to run effectively all of the user's websites.
Check the groups that the user www-data belongs to:

root# groups www-data
www-data : www-data <username> ...

Create virtual host or virtual directory apache configration
Virtual directory setup

Alias /<subsite> /var/vhosts/<site>
<Directory /var/vhosts/<site>
Options None
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
Allow from all
</Directory>

Virtual host setup. Let's assume <site> is example.com. A sample config virtual host config could be similar to the configuration below:

<VirtualHost *:80>
ServerAdmin webmaster@localhost
DocumentRoot /var/vhosts/example.com
ServerName www.example.com
<Directory />
Options FollowSymLinks
AllowOverride None
</Directory>
<Directory /var/vhosts/example.com>
Options Indexes FollowSymLinks MultiViews
AllowOverride All
Order allow,deny
allow from all
</Directory>

CustomLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/example.com.access.log combined
ErrorLog ${APACHE_LOG_DIR}/example.com.error.log

# Possible values include: debug, info, notice, warn, error, crit,
# alert, emerg.
LogLevel warn

</VirtualHost>

Reload/Restart apache
service apache2 reload

In case reload doesn't work (although it should) try restart:
service apache2 restart
Ready!

[TGates]

We are aware of the user situation. It was done the way it is because Sentora was originally built to be able to be used on *nix as well as Windows. Since we have pretty much dropped Windows support, changing the user methods is part of our future changes.

[translucide]

We are aware of the user situation. It was done the way it is because Sentora was originally built to be able to be used on *nix as well as Windows. Since we have pretty much dropped Windows support, changing the user methods is part of our future changes.

Good to know! Can I help make this happen faster ? Where are you discussing this change ?

---

Another thing that I would like to put into sentora is generating an SSL cert with lets encrypt automatically for the sentora panel domain and set config to SSL by default.

I don't see why this is not the default setup.

Comment all lines in welcome.conf file (disable Testing 123 apache page) :
vi /etc/httpd/conf.d/welcome.conf

#Comment

out all active lines in welcome.conf

Comment Listen 443 line in ssl.conf :
vi /etc/httpd/conf.d/ssl.conf

#Comment

out that line like this :

#Listen

443


Install Lets Encypt :
yum install mod_ssl openssl yum-utils certbot-apache
certbot --apache


Install sentora panel SSL certificate :
Into SentoraCP go to Sentora -> Admin -> Module Admin => Apache Config
Copy and paste into Global Sentora entry:
Redirect Permanent / https://sentora.domain.com/

Check "Force Update" checkbox. Save.

vi /etc/sentora/configs/apache/httpd-vhosts-ssl.conf
<VirtualHost *:443>
ServerAdmin zadmin@localhost
DocumentRoot "/etc/sentora/panel/"
ServerName sentora.domain.com
ErrorLog "/var/sentora/logs/sentora-error.log"
CustomLog "/var/sentora/logs/sentora-access.log" combined
CustomLog "/var/sentora/logs/sentora-bandwidth.log" common
AddType application/x-httpd-php .php
<Directory "/etc/sentora/panel/">
Options +FollowSymLinks -Indexes
AllowOverride All
Require all granted
</Directory>
SSLEngine on
SSLCertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/sentora.domain.com/fullchain.pem
SSLCertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/sentora.domain.com/privkey.pem
SSLCACertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/sentora.domain.com/chain.pem
</VirtualHost>

vi /etc/sentora/configs/apache/httpd.conf

#At

the end of the file, add this line :
Include /etc/sentora/configs/apache/httpd-vhosts-ssl.conf

service httpd restart

Auto renew all lets encrypt certificates at 3 am every day so they do not expire :

vi /etc/crontab

#Add

this line :
0 3 * * * root certbot renew

service crond reload

---

And if we auto-generate an SSL cert for the sentora domain, we could use the same cert for FTP/TLS :

Create /etc/proftpd/tls.conf file :

mkdir /etc/proftpd
vi /etc/proftpd/tls.conf

<IfModule mod_tls.c>
TLSEngine on
TLSLog /var/log/proftpd/tls.log
TLSProtocol SSLv23
TLSRSACertificateFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/sentora.domain.com/fullchain.pem
TLSRSACertificateKeyFile /etc/letsencrypt/live/sentora.domain.com/privkey.pem
TLSRequired on
TLSOptions AllowClientRenegotiations NoSessionReuseRequired
TLSRenegotiate required off
</IfModule>


Edit /etc/proftpd.conf file :
vi /etc/proftpd.conf

#Add

these lines to end of file :
PassivePorts 55000 60000
Include /etc/proftpd/tls.conf


Restart proftpd :
service proftpd restart

[TGates]

Me.B

[Me.B]

The above is not enough to run php as you will need to switch to fastcgi from mod_php. I agree it may be safer and most of all will enable us to run CGI/Python, but it require some changes.

Currently the core apache vhost management is done using a PHP cron, it's not optimal, been working since a while on template based system but still need to disconnect the old setup and replace it.

Beside that the config need to run on centos 7/ Ubuntu 14.

[translucide]

Is this the right dev branch for 1.0.4:
https://github.com/sentora/sentora-core/tree/1.0.4