General documentation?

[mkniskanen]

I have not (either) found any general document that could (possibly) answer a few questions like:

1) Does DA update itself regularly (automatically). How do I know it?
2) How do I update Apache, PHP and others or does DA do this automatically?
3) What are the "do's" and "do-not's"
4) Is there a list of dependencies anywhere? (related to #4)

There is plenty of information about the mostly obvious things like adding users or resellers but I have not yet found answer to the two first questions.

And - I do not want to spend time in the forums searching for information that should be in standard documentation.

[nobaloney]

1) Does DA update itself regularly (automatically). How do I know it?
No; you need to update DirectAdmin yourself, through the control panel.

2) How do I update Apache, PHP and others or does DA do this automatically?
DirectAdmin doesn't do it; the way you'd do it would be dependent on whether you use custombuild or customapache.

Jeff

[mkniskanen]

No; you need to update DirectAdmin yourself, through the control panel.

DirectAdmin doesn't do it; the way you'd do it would be dependent on whether you use custombuild or customapache.

Jeff

Whew. Sorry to say, this did not help much. So I understand I have to update the beast manually. Well. I suppose there are no restrictions as to updating ANY software then?

The installation thing is a horrible mess. If one wants to stick to prehistoric versions I suppose everything is ok. Other than those the result seems to be the "best guess" and the aftermath of that is the "Zone" I am very cautiously walking around.

So If I am correct DirectAdmin ONLY installs "kind-of-latest" versions of web software and then leaves the rest to the owner? Right? What are the things one should not tamper with directory-wise? Are there any? Where can I find DOCUMENTATION? (And I do not mean the GUI manuals)

The thing I am so annoyed about it the TOTAL LACK OF DOCUMENTATION. I feel like walking in a mine field. Is this a real company or just a bunch of hobbyists? I am sorry I cannot be more diplomatic. This just is not the way things are done in the business world. (Business=people who pay for a product)

I really do not have the time to RTFF thing (the last word being "forums" as there are no manuals).

[gaw]

I agree the DA documentation could use major improvement (mostly pruning out the legacy stuff), but maybe I can help.

What I did not realize at first is that there are 3 major players in maintaining your server. Your operating systems package manager, the DA build system of your choice, and the DA application. The first two will require at least a little time at a SSH prompt.

I use Centos32, so that is all I can speak for. In my case, the DA installation modifies the yum exclude list so that you have complete control over the mission critical components (Apache, etc) on your system. Everything else gets updated from the OS repository via yum (I use a daily cron to check for changes and update as necessary).

I use custombuild 1.1 for the build mechanism. Print the FAQ from this board and forget everything else. The configuration files give you a lot of control over version and options at the expense of building most pieces from source. Custombuild takes care of downloading the pieces from the DA repository, verifying the downloads, and executing all the 'make' steps. Think of this as a super build script because that is what it is. Unless you have very unusual requirements, custombuild should work for you out of the box - you picks your options and let er rip.

The actual DA part is an application that uses flat-file data in conjunction with template files to generate the system configuration files. This is just an application, so its evolution is separate from other system components. Version information is found at:

http://www.directadmin.com/versions.php

and the web based interface includes a link to update the application. You may need to tinker with a template file (and again the documentation is not spot on) but it really isn't rocket science and you should be able to figure it out. If you have deeper needs, the flat file info is pretty easy to reverse engineer.

And there is always this board - which can be helpful at times...

[mkniskanen]

I agree the DA documentation could use major improvement (mostly pruning out the legacy stuff), but maybe I can help.


Thank you, gaw, that was MOST helpful! Your short reply told me more about the dependencies than I succeeded in finding anywhere in the documentation. I am using CentOS-5.2-64 in a Xen virtual machine and know the package systems well enough and now I know where to start.

One of the problems with the image was that some essential things like logrotate had not been installed by the Xen image dropper. I was curious to know whether the DA had something to do with it but it seems to be an error in the Xen image (or whatever they call it).

I chose DA simply due to lack of time - I had in mind to write my own extensions to an open source project called IspConfig but chose DA instead. I find DA far from a perfect product but I suppose one can live with it.

[nobaloney]

I've watched ISPconfig for years and I'm still with DirectAdmin ;).

The problem with logrotate is definitely in your Xen image.

We're a third-party company and I support lots of servers, but many more DirectAdmin users (many, many more, including absolute newbies) successfully manage and support their own.

I tried to get some interest in creating a wiki style documentation handbook for DirectAdmin; for various reasons including my own lack of time, it always fell through.

Interested in helping :) ?

Jeff

[sce]

I am. Let's do it.

[tlchost]

I am. Let's do it.

Jeff had put a wiki up at
http://wiki.daguru.net/index.php/Main_Page

There was a fair amount of discussion about the wiki at
http://directadmin.com/forum/showthread.php?t=21755&highlight=wiki

It takes effort and knowledge to have an effective wiki. I started one for
users of a specific type of amateur radio...the wiki worked because of a small number of folks who devoted time and energy to monitor it, make suggestions and insure that the information posted was accurate.

I'd like to see one for DA...it would be a great help to folks like myself that don't know a lot, but need a good reference.

[floyd]

To update DA automatically run as a root cron job every day:


echo "action=update&value=program" >> /usr/local/directadmin/data/task.queue


I really do not have the time to RTFF thing

If you don't have time to do it right the first time how will you find time to go back and fix it?

But seriously it seems you want to take shortcuts and not take the time to learn how things work. That is a recipe for disaster if I ever saw one.

I agree the docs could be better but all the answers are either here in the forum, the knowledgebase or the site-helper.com site. I rarely see any new questions I have not seen discussed here before.

[floyd]

Also all the documentation is available before making a purchase so the lack of documentation is no big surprise.

[floyd]

If one wants to stick to prehistoric versions I suppose everything is ok

That is very interesting. Let's use Apache as an example CentOS 5.2 rpm is at 2.2.3 Custombuild which comes with DirectAdmin will install 2.2.9 which is the latest. Interesting that you would call the latest prehistoric.

CentOS 5.2 rpm for php is 5.1.6 but Custombuild will install 5.2.6.

[gaw]

If you look at the entire DA website, you won't even find a mention of CustomBuild outside of the Forum and Knowledge base! IMHO, CustomBuild is one of the better parts of the DA environment but I think it is asking a lot to ask a new DA user to discover that on his own.

There are other great DA features that would also be a complete surprise to anyone without a live installation. Take site specific HTTPD configuration for an example. Yeah there is stuff scattered in the forum and knowledge base but you won't find any definitive listing of template tokens or much on template specifics, so when push comes to shove you end up just guessing. Based on how rational the rest of DA is, it was not a big problem in the end, but it was certainly not a confidence builder either.

Maybe a user-build wiki would do the trick, but we all have other things to do and I am not all that optimistic.

[mkniskanen]

But seriously it seems you want to take shortcuts and not take the time to learn how things work. That is a recipe for disaster if I ever saw one.

Well I have been learning how to do things in IT for 27 years now and I always start from documentation. Always.

If I cannot find the obvious things in documentation I use another method (like forums). Now I find that documentation is missing and the forums become the primary source of documentation. And they are a lot slower to use no matter how experienced one is when searching for phrases.

[mkniskanen]

That is very interesting. Let's use Apache as an example CentOS 5.2 rpm is at 2.2.3 Custombuild which comes with DirectAdmin will install 2.2.9 which is the latest. Interesting that you would call the latest prehistoric.

CentOS 5.2 rpm for php is 5.1.6 but Custombuild will install 5.2.6.

Yes, but only if you are using CustomBuild as you said. I was referring to "prehistoric" with the standard installation alternative (which was described as "more mature" or "stable" or something like that. It would have installed Apache 1.x, MySQL 4.x and PHP 4.4 ).

As for the rest most of the stuff is running pretty well now. Just a couple of questions left I am a bit uncertain about. Well, I'll write one of them here right now:

Background:
1) My main domain is "myownserver.com" (not really :)
2) I understood from CustomBuild script that I need to use some other server name and I chose "admin.myownserver.com"
3) The user "admin" was created into the unix system. Fine.
4) Now all the admin messages are sent to admin@admin.myownserver.com and bounced as the script did not actually create aliases or anything.

What is the best practise here to get the emails to the correct address (admin@myownserver.com)? I feel like walking on thin ice again as I do not know how DA behaves if I make the wrong changes....

I think this is the last major thing that needs to be sorted out.

Markku

[mkniskanen]

If you look at the entire DA website, you won't even find a mention of CustomBuild outside of the Forum and Knowledge base!
IMHO, CustomBuild is one of the better parts of the DA environment but I think it is asking a lot to ask a new DA user to discover that on his own.


You are correct. And I have found nothing about the fact that DA is a 32-bit executable even when in a 64-bit system and needs 32-bit shared compatibility libraries!!! This fact must be told after or during the installation process.

Yes, custombuild is the way to go, absolutely. That is exactly why its functionality and documentation should be enhanced a lot. Plus hopefully a character-based GUI of some sort for less experienced users (well, I do not need it but I know people who might like it).


Maybe a user-build wiki would do the trick, but we all have other things to do and I am not all that optimistic.

As a joint project it might be worth trying, anyhow. I have been involved in a couple of internal mediawiki projects (plus my own here at the office) and for a purpose like this a user-contributed wiki might work pretty well.

Markku

[floyd]

but I think it is asking a lot to ask a new DA user to discover that on his own.

It is "discovered" when the user does the install.


1: customapache: older, more tested. Includes Apache 1.3, php 4 and frontpage.
2: custombuild 1.1: newer, less tested. Includes any Apache version, php 4, 5, or both in cli and/or suphp. Frontpage not available.


There is a link to Custombuild from the main page of the forum. When clicked you get the a link to Custombuild FAQ at the top of the list. The FAQ contains all the documentation on Custombuild.

For most normal users you don't even need any documentation to get started other than following the installation instructions. When I first started using DA over 3 years ago it took about an hour to install it. In another hour I had clicked on every link in it and figured out the essentials. Surely somebody who has 3 times more experience than I do can do the same.


4) Now all the admin messages are sent to admin@admin.myownserver.com and bounced as the script did not actually create aliases or anything.

There is no way we can know without seeing the bounced message.

[mkniskanen]

There is no way we can know without seeing the bounced message.

Okay, instead of digging into the mail logs let me put it this way: I want to send the message to admin@myownserver.com instead of admin@admin.myownserver.com. Can I simply make the following changes in setup.txt and restart DA:

hostname=admin.myowndomain.com ==> myowndomain.com
email=admin@admin.indeedsir.com ==>admin@myowndomain.com
mysql=xxxxxyyyyy
mysqluser=da_admin
adminname=admin
adminpass=xxxxyyyxxx
ns1=ns1.myowndomain.com
ns2=ns2.myowndomain.com
ip=11.22.33.44.
netmask=255.255.255.0
uid=1234
lid=98765
services=services_es50_64.tar.gz

or will I possibly break something?

Once this is done I am very happy indeed. A customer (with a standard user account) already created his site, database and emails so I can say that from the user's point of view DA works just fine.

Markku

[floyd]

instead of digging into the mail logs

Why would you have to do that? Don't you have the returned email?



I want to send the message to admin@myownserver.com

Have you added myownserver.com to the server in your user level? The hostname admin.myownserver.com doesn't have anything to do with the regular domain myownserver.com.

If we had the real domain then we could check to see if it is set up properly and it would be a lot easier to diagnose the problem.

See here (http://homepages.tesco.net/J.deBoynePollard/FGA/dont-obscure-your-dns-data.html)

EDIT: I see the domain now - indeedsir.com

Was indeedsir.com added under the admin User Level or did you create a new user and add it under that new user?

[mkniskanen]

Sorry about all this, I am feeling pretty confused now...


Why would you have to do that? Don't you have the returned email?

When I create a new site DA sends the mail using this sender name. From the Exim mainlog I can read:


2008-09-24 11:57:00 1KiSzM-0003my-KO <= diradmin@indeedsir.com U=diradmin P=local S=2089 T="Creator Duplicate: Your account for blaablaa.fi is now ready for use." from <diradmin@indeedsir.com> for admin@admin.indeedsir.com
2008-09-24 11:57:00 1KiSzM-0003my-KO ** admin@admin.indeedsir.com F=<diradmin@indeedsir.com>: Unrouteable address


So this is the problem. DA is sending email to the admin and I can see this from the exim log.

I have added indeedsir.com at the user level so it really does exist. I also have a real virtual mail user admin@indeedsir.com. So I suppose I can simply change admin@admin.indeedsir.com to admin@indeedsir.com.

And the admin.indeedsir.com does not need to be a real subdomain, right?

Once this is sorted out I will both help in building and possibly provide the space for the wiki - I am one of the few people who enjoy the benefits of having 28 hours per day :)


Markku

[nobaloney]

I am. Let's do it.
Please contact me by my email address, below in my sig.

I'll reset this up (while the subdomain still works, I no longer own the domain name daguru.net, but I have other DirectAdmin related domains).

I look forward to hearing from you.

Thanks.

Jeff

[evil_smurf]

I'll be willing to donate some help and pages as well once it is up.

[nobaloney]

I'm going to be bulding a wiki again as soon as I catch up on some work, and then I'll make a general annuncement in these forums for help.

Meanwhile, let's start thinking of a table of contents; we can fill it later :).

Jeff

[rootbsd]

One of the problems with the image was that some essential things like logrotate had not been installed by the Xen image dropper. I was curious to know whether the DA had something to do with it but it seems to be an error in the Xen image (or whatever they call it).

I did a CentOS xen installation from some prepackaged archive I found on the web somewhere. It was very incomplete as you said missing important things like logrotate and mine was also missing the 'run-parts' command so cron jobs didnt work. I suggest doing a complete CentOS install in your xen domU first. Or maybe 'yum groupinstall Base' would fix it.

The DA knowledgebase is pretty good, I recommend starting there as its easier to navigate than the forum.

[tlchost]

I'm going to be bulding a wiki again as soon as I catch up on some work,

If it's one that Installatron offers...it might take all of a few minutes to have it up and running. If you're too busy to do that, I can set one up in the next few minutes.

[floyd]

I thought one of the problems is that we already had too many places to look for information. We have the forum, the knowledgebase, and site-helper.com. You have to look at all of these places because some contain information that the others don't. And now we are suggesting adding yet some place else to have to look for information?

We need at most 2 places. One place for information to be posted and a forum where people can ask questions. All the answers to questions in the forum should then be posted on the wiki or knowledgebase or whatever.

I don't think people want to have to search through 4 different places to find what they are looking for.

[nobaloney]

But that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
While I agree with you, Floyd, that there are already too many places to look, not many of them are really authoritative; not even these forums.

The knowledgebase is good, but it's not a full set of documentation.

site-helper.com is good, but it's not always up-to-date, and it says nothing about many things you need to know/do if you've got a DirectAdmin server.

The reason I'm putting up a wiki is so we can build an authoritative documentation set, much like the encyclopedic wikipedia, and hopefully at least as correct :).

Why me? Because I'm willing to do it, and because of my large number of posts (hopefully many of them helpful) I'm likely to be considered a reasonable authority by people who will work on it, and by people who will read it.

For example, do you subscribe to the DirectAdmin mailing list? It runs from one of my domains.

I know I'm busy but I'll set up the wiki tonight and announce it in these forums.

Then just email me (my address in my sig, below) with a paragraph or two, so I know I can trust you. One person will get the rights to run the wiki, and the rest to contribute.

Then we'll finally see if we can build a helpful documentation set.

Tonight (my time). Promise :)

Jeff

[nobaloney]

If it's one that Installatron offers...it might take all of a few minutes to have it up and running. If you're too busy to do that, I can set one up in the next few minutes.
Installatron offers MediaWiki; the same one that Wikipedia uses. It's incredibly robust, but ... as one of my correspondents puts it:

In my experience MediaWiki is robust, but it's a pain in the neck to
administer, and administer well (security considerations are expecially
cumbersome). DocuWiki is EXACTLY the same from the users point of view, but
IMHO it's easier to administer (for example assigning permissions doesn't
require MANUAL SQL queries, there's an interface for such things).
So We're going to go with DocuWiki.

Which I'll get installed tonight (my time) and the post a thread.

Jeff

[tlchost]

Installatron offers MediaWiki; the same one that Wikipedia uses. It's incredibly robust, but ... as one of my correspondents puts it:

Gee....I guess I'm too naive to realize the wiki I have up is hard to administer and has security problems....I'll be sure to pass the comments of your correspondent on to the guys that administer the wiki....they need to know they're working too hard :D

Hope you have beeter luck with this one than the first attempt.

[nobaloney]

I do, too. So far I can't even find the download; I'm not sure if it's spelled dokuwiki (k) or docuwiki (c), so I've asked my advisor for more advice <smile>.

The new site is ready (though it may take a bit longer for the DNS to spread because we use a hidden master system).

It's at www.dagurus.com (or perhaps wiki.dagurus.com, if that works better).

But nothing there yet. Soon.

As I learned during the U.S. Congressional hearings this week:

The last time I heard I had to act quickly was when buying a used car.
We can hopefully wait a day longer to get it done.

Jeff

[sce]

Maybe we can talk to DA support and ask them for a subdomain wiki.site-helper.com or something.

[nobaloney]

And that would speed it up how?

I'll be setting up DokuWiki at www.dagurus.com as soon as I'm done posting to the forums this morning (my time).

Jeff

[sce]

It wouldnt, but it would be semi-official then ;) lol

[nobaloney]

Ask DirectAdmin staff (http://www.directadmin.com/support.html) if you want; they may tell you it's okay for me to create a semi-official wiki. For example, they (and I, occasionally) are the only posters to the (I suppose only semi-) official DirectAdmin mailing list for notification of updates to DirectAdmin, which I host.

:)

Jeff

[nobaloney]

More on the Wiki ...

The wiki by default requires what would be very insecure directory and file settings if it were running under mod_php.

I'm setting up a machine today using suPHP, and I'll get it running as soon as I have that server running.

Jeff

[sce]

Take your time. No rush.

[nobaloney]

The machine was up and running Saturday night. I took yesterday off; I had two free passes and one free parking ticket to the Los Angeles County Fair, so I decided to go and spend some money :).

Next three days I'm incredibly busy but I am trying to get it installed.

Jeff