Lost....maybe?

Help! (Home for newbies)
1

I think I’m suffering from a terminology disconnect. I may have the concept figured out (I may not), but let me run this buy you guys (the gurus) just to check.

I’ve got about a half dozen domains and a dedicated server. The server has 5 external facing IP addresses (I’ll use two for dedicated name servers and one just for administration, leaving me with 2 IP’s).

Using hypothetical domain names - this is what I’m after:

manage.server.com - IP #1 (management address)
www.server.com:80 (website) - IP#2
www.server.com:443 (ssl website) - IP#2

a bunch of virtual hosts:
www.domain1.com IP#3
www.domain2.com IP#3
www.domain3.com IP#3
www.domain4.com IP#3
www.domain5.com IP#3
www.domain6.com IP#3

ns1.server.com ip#4
ns2.server.com ip#5

Each of the virt hosts needs its own login and management page (kinda like if you had a hosting package w/ a hosting provider). The virt hosts also need quotas, email accounts, etc - all that good stuff. Obviously the main website needs the same stuff.

Where I think I’m getting stuck is I’m trying to create a bunch of virtual servers when I should be creating two virtual servers (one virtual server for server.com and one virtual server for all the rest of the virt hosts with the virts as sub-servers?) is this correct? Am I missing the boat?

…or do I just need -one- virtual server and a bunch of sub servers?

Is there a .pdf manual somewhere for virtualmin? (I don’t mind reading, I just prefer to do it from the comfort of my couch rather than sitting in my office all day/night).

Thanks!
Al

2

Howdy,

What you’re describing all seems to make sense, and is perfectly do-able.

As for Virtual Servers vs Sub-Servers –

For every top-level Virtual Server you add, you get an admin account to manage it with.

When adding additional domains – you would use a Sub-Server if you want that same admin account managing multiple domains.

Or, if the domain should be standalone, managed by a unique admin account, you’d add it as a new top-level Virtual Server.

Does that answer your question?

-Eric

3

Mostly. Virtual servers are “containers” (if you will) for other domains (sub-servers) to allow a single account to manage multiple domains, correct? (pretty sure you just said that is the case)

Using the same 2 ip addresses I’ve left for myself, how would go about setting up 10 different domains 5 with port 80 only and 5 with ssl and port 80? …or is that not possible?

4

I guess what’s getting me now is I know ISP’s share one IP address amongst a whole pile of domains, some of which have to have ssl certs. How do they manage to do that and how would I replicate that under virtualmin? (BTW - I have zero interest in becoming an ISP, I’ve just got a handful of domains - each with different needs but the split is some need ssl and some dont).

5

Howdy,

Yeah, Virtualmin would, by default, use the same IP address for each domain you add (what Apache calls “name-based virtual hosting”). It would default to using the first IP address on your server for that.

If you have a domain you’d like on it’s on dedicated IP address, no problem – once you’ve added it as a Virtual Server (or Sub-Server), go into Server Configuration -> Change IP Address, and setup your IP in “Use private address”.

Once you’ve setup a private IP, you can then enable SSL for that domain. So enable SSL, go into Edit Virtual Server, look at the Enabled Features settings, and click “SSL website enabled”. Once you save that, it’ll set you up with a self-signed certificate… you can go into Server Configuration -> Manage SSL Certificates to change it, or put a commercial certificate on there.

-Eric