You don’t really need them if you are set to auto opon domain creation as it does most things that you need . If you need to change something after creation put the domain in question in another plan. I am struggling for use case for them being in a template please enlighten me
The ‘server templates’ purpose is to configure the virtual server as required. This to me would be such things as DNS, no DNS, Email or no email.
These ‘Allowed virtual server features’ are virtual server configurations. These are not permissions but a configuration of the virtual server and as such should be in the virtual server template.
After looking at the options in ‘Allowed virtual server features’, they match the
- Virtualmin → System Settings → Server Template → template sections
- Virtualmin → System Settings → Features and Plugins
- Virtuamin → Administration Options → Allowed features for servers
These installation triggers should be moved to the server template as an additional option at the top of each section to process installation things.
This would make more sense to me.
on creation that is true what happens when you want to edit them ?
why ? You have not explained the logic as to why they should be in a template.
So to be fair you are trying to reinvent the virtualmin wheel, in the last 15+ years this is the first time I have seen suggestions like this. That said we all have a different take on how software should work, it would appear you take the approach of ‘one size fits all’ where as I prefer the more granular approach. I do find domain owners all have different needs/wants hence the granular approach that I use. From how virtualmin is presented at this moment of time you can achieve virtually anything you want to do, but I must admit some options are well buried in some places for example try and find Allow mailbox users to create mail filters which I use a lot but it is located in an odd place, however once this is checked it is all set up. So I think your problems arise from, what you see as, the UI being oddly laid out. If you take some time to learn how to use Virtualmin you will find out what each function does. My suggestion is to create a dev server, install virtualmin and use every option to find out what they do and perhaps, make notes on where each function/option is located
I am trying to figure out the purpose of ‘Allowed virtual server features’ in the account plan?
- What settings does it change?
- Where are these settings in the virtual server account?
- Who and why would you use them?
- The automatic options is even more confusing?
- are they only used on creation of a virtual server?
Then I can makes notes and figure out if it is a good thing or not. There is no documentation on this feature and I have been through the whole forum.
p.s. I have been through most of Virtualmin and made extensive notes, it is this feature that is getting me boggled at the minute. I have figured out server templates. 
thanks
As the previous screen shots showed ot allows you to adjust the defaults upon creation away from the defaults of the template (?) I don’t really know as I have never needed to edit a template the defualts are good enough for the purpose I use. Maybe you are trying to do something away from the norm IDK but I can not see what is confusing about the current setup can you elaborate ?
Clarification
I think where the confusion was coming from was the following:
- The tooltips are not correct, they go on about setting default values where they should not refer to defaults as this is a template. I will try and rewrite these to make clearer.
- All of the settings defined in the ‘Account Plan’ are pushed to the ‘Edit Owner Limits’ but the 2 pages of settings do not match, they are laid put different with different Accordion headings. I will be doing a bug report about that.
- Some of the settings in the Account Plan → Allowed virtual server features are only available in ‘Account Plan’ because I assume they must be enabled at creation of the virtual server or never.
- Administration users
- Home directory
What is ‘Allowed virtual server features’
These settings define what services are enabled for the Virtual Servers when the ‘Account Plan’ is applied, but they can be overridden when a user utilises ‘Edit Owner Limits’, perhaps this is why the notes keep referring to default settings. My solution will also correct this.
These are permissions. They do not enable or disable services.
They do have a couple of special options that are only available at Virtual Server creation time (Administration users, Home directory). These cannot be enabled/Disabled in the ‘Edit Owner Limits’ page.
Default available features
I reckon that automatic = if the service is enabled on Virtualmin, then enable the related permisisons.
You can go back to these options later and enable extra options for additional services you have added since the creation of the virtual server.
Tooltip says:
When this option is set theAutomatic (as it is by default), new top-level virtual servers will have their allowed features set based on those initially enabled when the server is created.
Default editing capabilities
This forum post from Eric (VM Staff) gives an outline of how VM does tests on the server template to decide what options you should have.
The tool tip says:
If the Automatic option is selected, limits are determined based on whether the virtual server owner is allowed to create sub-servers or not (controlled by the Limit on number of virtual servers field). If so, he will have access to all capabilities. Otherwise, he can only manage users, aliases and edit web pages.
I am not sure which is correct, or are both correct?
Did you look at the date on Eric’s post (sometime in 2009) I would think it is safe to say that you can disregard comments made that long ago as things have moved on since then. You still haven’t put forward a use case for this yet, I have searched around for a reason to change something that works fine when you get your head around it. But just for an experiment change to the framed theme rather than authentic and see if you get on better with that
I needed to figure out what these last settings did. As you can see I have. These are settings are not related to server templates so should not be put in there as I mentioned earlier.
So currently, Account plans can be re-applied to all members and although they are not read from the ‘Account Plan’ but the ‘Edit Owner Limit’, members can be easily updated by re-applying the ‘account plan’.
Tomorrow I am going to do that bug report and then put together my proposal for clearing these settings and features up. My override method will allow people to carry on exactly as there are now or utilise live ‘Account Plans’ with possibility of overriding them when required if permissions are permitting.
I did notice Eric’s post was from 2009, but information is a little thin on the ground. Until now
The use case for these changes is:
- Improvement from a passive Account Plan to a live one (with overrides).
- Tooltips and documentation can be amended with better language to make it clearer what they do.
- This new system is what people expect.
Is it?
with only 2 folk contributing to this debate, I’m back wondering who is really interested?
Documentation can always be improved but is it worth it? Who RTFM these days? Most with knowledge in IT probably already know that documentation is not really for them and is out of date when it is written. Probably not in their native language anyway.
Sure the documentation could be improved. but would the “improvement” actually be any better?
I think that anyone that offers to help improve the docs would be appreciated.
I am still needing to search for stuff from time to time and it can be frustrating if the explanation is unclear, wrong or missing.
I would have not expected anything different to what’s already here to be fair, perhaps the OP has used other panels in the past and expects the virtualmin module (of webmin) to be a free clone of another panel, which it is not.
I am still awaiting to see use case for this change, I have looked through the default template & TBF the defaults in the template is exactly what I would have expected (hence I have never bothered even looking at them before) so now onto plans They work as expected you alter the plan & save it in this case those settings are applied to all new domains after the plan is saved or save & apply to change the settings in all existing domains that seems pretty straightforward to me.
This is then edited, after creation, in the edit virtual server page so far so good I guess ?
then we move onto edit owner limits, this is where you edit what the domain owner can see when they log in, which @shoulders if you have not already done so give it a go as user has a totally different view than a server admin, so in the screen shot the domain was created with just webmin login so the menus are sparse
I have used the ssl option to demonstrate the change when you edit owner limits & edit the virtual server
this is webmin log in only
I have allowed the user to use a web server so letsencrypt has magically appeared
but at this point my user can not edit his domain as that option was not ticked in the plan, better alter that using edit owner limits
after enabling it in edit owner limits you can see the edit virtual server has now appeared for the user
so as far as I can see the system works as expected.
lets say I have 3 plans (a,b.c) all the same except the quota, 1 change means to accommodate the ability to have owners to edit the virtual server my 3 plans have become 6 (a, b, c, a-edit-domain, b-edit-domain, c-edit-domain) on the thought at some time in the future someone on a, b or c may need this ability. As there are so many permutations you could end up with 100’s of plans to cover every eventuality. Where as the current system gives you reasonable defaults through it’s default template & plan it’s far easier to adjust the new virtual server at creation time and/or using edit virtual server and edit owner limits.
When you buy a car, you expect a steering wheel 
.
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that’s the problem your saying virtualmin has too many steering wheels
I will post later on and I think you will like my solution/improvement. Feedback will be welcomed etc…
Yes, I am sure that would be the case. But that is not quite what I am hearing here.
My point is that documentation will never be up to date → program development is never under that sort of control (we all know that programmers/coders have no interest in it, they do what they are good at - fix bugs, add features, build systems) people who write good documentation usually have no interest in programming, approach the task with ignorance and naivety. In large software houses they work in parallel. But is rarely available in the native language of the reader. Even just look at the English (US) vs (UK) and Chinese vs English to pick just two examples.
But this is not a big software house. What we have is good enough → and certainly better than nothing.
Not me i can do both (programming and documentation). I do find (on my travels) writers can sometimes try and show off so the documentation only makes sense if you know about the topic in the first place. Documentation can be written in a way that it survives software updates, but not forever though. Write to teach newbies but serve as a reference for others.
Virtualmin documentation is lacking in some areas i.e. server templates, Account plans…
why not fork webmin then code all the changes up and let us see the results that would be a better idea perhaps
not see that response before 
- Because I am not a specialist in Perl or Virtualmin.
- This is not my project.
- I am not professional programmer
hence forking it, once you’ve gone over the code you may find you proposals would mean a major rewrite of the virtualmin module, which could take considerable time for very little gain (if any). As the webmin team is small this undertaking could take months perhaps years, I can not remember now how long it took to move from virtualmin 6 to virtualmin 7 but it was not a short period of time, perhaps if the webmin devs think your idea’s are good they will respond here, to date no one has
no major re-write is required, adding a couple of booleans onto what is currently called ‘Edit Owner Liimts’ + a few other small things.