virtualmin pro Q's

Virtualmin
1

Hi,

With VirtualMin Pro, as I read it, the support is built into the purchase price?

Support is by on-line ticket only?

With Pro ‘install manage apps’ in relation to app roundcube, can this be as a global instants? or only per v domain?
If not Global do you provide the info on how to correctly set this up?

I’m also keen at trying atmailopen webmail & perhaps atmail6 webmail trial version, if I have probs with this will you provide assistance with Pro license, or am I on my own?

I have a GPL Virtualmin up & running, on Ubunti 10.04 server, without any probs, servicing a few domain for testing. If I upgrade to pro, is it better to start fresh, or just upgrade??

Hope I have not asked too many Q’s at once.

Thanks
Garry

2

Howdy!

With VirtualMin Pro, as I read it, the support is built into the purchase price? Support is by on-line ticket only?

Yup… if you buy a copy of Virtualmin Pro, it comes with support. That support is provided online via the Support Tracker.

With Pro ‘install manage apps’ in relation to app roundcube, can this be as a global instants? or only per v domain? If not Global do you provide the info on how to correctly set this up?

The Install Scripts are installed in a single domain.

In your case, for RoundCube, my suggestion would be to setup RoundCube in one domain on your server… say, “roundcube.example.com”. Then, I’d setup a redirect so that webmail.anydomain.tld redirects to “roundcube.example.com”. Those redirects can be managed in System Settings -> Server Templates -> Default -> Apache Website.

I’m also keen at trying atmailopen webmail & perhaps atmail6 webmail trial version, if I have probs with this will you provide assistance with Pro license, or am I on my own?

Well, what the support covers is the Virtualmin control panel itself, and it’s interaction with what we call “the Virtualmin stack” – the software it installs and configures. If you’re having trouble using the control panel, you’re struggling to get it to do what you want, or something it does is causing problems with your setup – we’re here to help!

However, we unfortunately can’t be general sysadmins of your server. We also can’t support third party software… we’d go out of business trying :slight_smile: You’d need to work with the makers of that software to get atmailopen configured.

If I upgrade to pro, is it better to start fresh, or just upgrade?

I’d suggest simply upgrading… there’s a spot in Virtualmin GPL where you can enter your license information, and it’ll handle upgrading you to Virtualmin Pro. We try to make that as seamless as possible!

Of course, if you try it out and decide it’s just not for you, there’s a 45 day money back guarantee. And there’s a way to get back to the GPL version without reinstalling your entire server.

Feel free to let us know if you have any other questions. Thanks,

-Eric

3

Hi Eric,

Thanks for the info.

Re poss assistance installing other software not in vm stack, I did not word that q to well. I do not expect VM support to be ‘general sysadmins of my server’ . We have been in business as an ISP since 1997 and installing - managing - hosting our own servers during this time. Management mostly via cli & more recently trying ISPconfig, cPanel (on leased server) & sysCP.

I’m looking for a gui so phone staff can perform most of the day to day account management. We have roundcube, and just recently atmailopen, working fine on our standard lenny servers.

I was more worried about breaking dependencies of virtualmin, by installing software that is not in the VM stack and voiding any support as a result. But the more I learn about Virtualmin, I don’t think I will easily break it. Which can’t be said for some of the other GUI driven management solution’s I’ve been testing.

I guess my q’s are me just trying to find a reason to go Pro over GPL

Cheers
Garry

4

Hi Garry,

Re poss assistance installing other software not in vm stack, I did not word that q to well. I do not expect VM support to be ‘general sysadmins of my server’ . We have been in business as an ISP since 1997 and installing - managing - hosting our own servers during this time. Management mostly via cli & more recently trying ISPconfig, cPanel (on leased server) & sysCP.

Aha! I understand.

Sure, we certainly wouldn’t expect you to not install software. Configuring openatmail certainly wouldn’t void our support.

Of course, if you came to us and said installing some third party app deleted all the files on your server, we’ll probably say that’s beyond our ability to help :slight_smile: Though, even then, we’d work with you on using Virtualmin’s features to restore your server!

But for any normal circumstances, I don’t think I’ve seen an issue where some software caused us to stop providing support :slight_smile:

But the more I learn about Virtualmin, I don’t think I will easily break it.

Yeah, I doubt you’d break it. I wouldn’t recommend moving away from Apache, Postfix, saslauthd, and Dovecot… but outside of that, any web app you might use shouldn’t cause any trouble.

I guess my q’s are me just trying to find a reason to go Pro over GPL

Sure… the three big reasons folks opt for Virtualmin Pro tend to be:

  1. Support

  2. Install Scripts

  3. Reseller capabilities

There’s of course other features, but those are fairly popular.

Also, you can see some of the differences of GPL vs Pro listed here:

https://www.virtualmin.com/compare.html

If you have any other questions, feel free to let us know.

-Eric

5

Hi Eric

Thanks for you reply and information,

I’m still giving this a good test run and If I stick with virtualmin, I will upgrade it to pro. I do like to support opensource where I can.

Cheers
Garry

6

Sounds good!

If there’s anything we can do to help, feel free to let us know.

Once you’ve completed your evaluation, we’d be quite interested in hearing your thoughts on the various control panels out there, and the benefits and drawbacks of Virtualmin.

Have a good one!

-Eric

7

Will do re ‘feedback’

Re ‘anything we can help, fell free to aks’ Well u did say ask :slight_smile:

One of my staff just asked a Q in the open forum (I made this post private) www.virtualmin.com/node/16054
The ISP style default website user http://ispdomain.com/~user is not supported with virtualmin?
Apart from hosting domains, being an ISP we also have to provide user home pages free with each account and have always done this is the traditional format of http://ispdomain.com/~user

Thanks
Garry

8

thanks - I saw the reply in 16054

Cheers
Garry

9

Just thought I would let you know, I have purchased the pro license.

Figured this was the best way to evaluate the full product.

As far as our evaluation between, sysCP, ISPconfig & virtualmin:
I eliminated sysCP fairly quickly for a number of reasons, some being:

  • Does not appear to be as widely used - thus forum (perhaps dev) is not as active.
  • A large part of the community/forum is not in English
  • Does not offer as fuller management, not as detailed as ISPconfig or Virtualmin
  • Documentation out of date.

ISPconfig: Not easy to drop this one, as it has done the job well. We use it as a secondary hosting server for more basic type hosting. To shift from ISPconfig means considerable work in moving/migrating many accounts over to the new server CP & contacting every client who’s login conventions change.

  • Not too difficult to break when updating OS or ISPconfig
  • Breaks away from standard config layouts & locations.
  • ISPconfig 3 had moved away from unix users.

Virtualmin:
I see virtualmin as a CP that just sits ontop of cli and makes it easier to do the same job we have always done, in the same manner and configuration, without having to bend and change away from standardized layouts & configs

  • Does most of what require and in many case more, from the CP interface
  • Forum appears to be active
  • Dev releases are active
  • Rich feature set which can be extended with Pro version
  • Two levels of support - open forum and pro forum/ticketing
  • Loved some of the point and click backup & restore features, quite handy, especially when running two of more VirtualMin servers.

For what we are doing with this current server we do not really need the pro version, but as the price is quit reasonable I feel good taking this option to support Virtualmin. But if we could deploy it in a similar way, I could see virtualmin replacing our CPannel server.

If Virtualmin lives upto my expectations and business ticks along, I would see us (highway internet) running additional servers with the virtualmin CP.

Cheers
Garry

10

Thanks for your input Garry!

Feel free to continue posting any questions you may have, whether here or in the support tracker.

Regarding some of the things you guys are trying – just remember that even if things don’t work a certain way by default doesn’t mean they can’t work :slight_smile:

There’s usually a reason for the defaults (for example, why Virtualmin defaults to using aliases like username.domain.com rather than using domain.com/~username), but if you want some other behavior, it’s usually possible to get the behavior you want :slight_smile:

Have a good one!

-Eric