How can I get Virtualmin to behave like a traditional web host (i.e. Godaddy/Hostgator)?

General Discussion
1

I have tried many times to spin up a droplet and then install Virtualmin. I followed the guide that was posted by DigitalOcean and then also tried with modifications. I can get Virtualmin installed, I can set up a site, and I can then do a restore of my sites, but I have issues with formatting and function.

I have one Wordpress site and one Joomla site. I can restore these sites from GoDaddy to Hostgator and back without any issue. But when I restore them onto my droplet they do not function as intended.

Clearly I am missing some things. For example my sites do not initially work due to .htaccess paramaters. I had to comment out my +FollowSymLinks line on the Wordpress site. Also on both I have to remove the expirations lines, but then I discovered I needed to install a module for that.

The closest I have come is by running the following apt-get to install as many modules as I could find that matched the phpinfo on my HostGator hosting.

apt-get install php5-gd php5-GMP php5-imagick php5-intl php5-mcrypt php5-pspell php5-tidy php5-xmlrpc php5-xsl php-gettext php-soap php-date

I just want Virtualmin up and running and it to act like a major web host from a function standpoint, but act like a droplet from a performance standpoint.

I have tried using Joomla 14 and 12 (32-bit and 64-bit).

2

Howdy,

After installing Virtualmin, you would have a working shared hosting environment where you could install web apps and setup customers.

The installation doesn’t mimic other existing providers though, as they all do things differently, and what every admin wants is a bit different.

However, if you have questions about how to do something or get something setup, we’d be glad to lend a hand.

The “FollowSymlinks” parameter is disabled for security reasons. That was enabled many years ago, but was found to be a cause of certain security problems.

The Virtualmin installation only installs a handful of PHP modules by default, as each one that is installed uses up RAM. So if they were all to be installed by default for every user, it would unnecessarily use up a large amount of RAM on every server. However, you are welcome to install which ever PHP modules you need or want.

If you have any specific problems with getting something to work, just let us know what problem you’re experiencing and we can help you troubleshoot that.

-Eric