Package versions (are they really this out of date?)

[chuckd]

Hi again friendly DA people!

I'm increasingly interested in DA, especially if IMAP arrives soon. But could someone confirm that the following list of package versions (from the Installation Guide) installed by DA is up to date?

Apache 1.3.28
FrontPage 5.0.2.2510
PHP 4.3.0
phpMyAdmin-2.5.0
MySQL 4.0.14
Exim 3.36
Majordomo 1.94.5
vm-pop3d 1.1.6
Proftpd 1.2.8

Assuming this is an accurate list, some questions:
[list=1]
When is Apache 2 coming?
Why is the PHP release 6+ months old?
Why Majordomo not Mailman? (Or: is it easy to integrate Mailman with DA?)
When will Exim be upgraded? According to the exim site, v. 3 is now obsolete & "not being actively maintained". (I'm a long time Postfix user so I'm used to never needing to upgrade the SMTP server, but running a version considered obsolete worries me.)
When will MySQL 4.0.15 come? Looks like a straightforward bugfix release with a number of security fixes so not a difficult upgrade. But I do realise it's only been released for a month, fair enough...
How about phpMyAdmin - 2.5.0 is just over 5 months old now.
[/list=1]

(I realise you can never keep right up to date with this software, particularly if the latest releases are unstable, but all the old releases mentioned above have well-tested newer releases, generally bugfix releases.)

I'd be happy if I could upgrade these manually myself, but it seems like most control panels want to control everything and are likely to break if you upgrade underneath them. Has anyone upgraded the above software? Any problems?

I don't mean to be annoying, I understand the developers are going full tilt, but I don't want to get stuck with an outdated or inflexible control panel. I'd be happy just to know that there's no problem upgrading these packages yourself assuming you understand Linux.

Cheers!
Chuck

[ProWebUK]

ProFTPd 1.2.8 is secure and stable and being used by most control panels at this very moment!

Exim should be fine to update

Majordomo / Mailman - matter of prefence in my opinion. Both are well known both are heavily used, both are utilised in other main control panels.

MySQL you should be ok with updating yourself also.

PHPMyAdmin should just be a case of upgrading although I cannot confirm that.

PHP version is beyond old! 4.3.3 is included with the apache script; http://www.directadmin.com/forum/showthread.php?s=&threadid=104

[chuckd]

OK cool.

Also poking around it seems that the newer releases generally have been made available, e.g. updates for RH9:

http://www.directadmin.com/services/9.0/

I'm happy that the MySQL RPMs are just the vanilla ones from mysql.com - should be easy to upgrade. Also the latest Exim's there, yay.

The website needs a bit of work to make it more informational for users - at the moment it's a good piece of marketing but very short on depth. E.g. is there a news section?

(Vaguely related: How do I change my Client password?)

[ProWebUK]

yep, new Exim RPMS there.... looking at the names, exim is custom...

[ProWebUK]

Originally posted by chuckd
(Vaguely related: How do I change my Client password?)

log in as the user
click password, top right of the screen
fill in the required forms :)

[chuckd]

Ahm I'm talking about the password used for the Client Login (https://www.directadmin.com/clients/index.php) . Can't see any password link in the top right...

[ProWebUK]

ahh! sorry, thought you meant the control panel itself :P, think you have to email them :)

Chris

[DirectAdmin Support]

Hello,

Sorry :) The only thing out of date is that webpage.

All the software is basically stock, but we have found there are many "stock" versions floating around, so we needed consistency. (Eg: exim not always compiled with perl.o) other than the custom named, you can update anything else you want. DA only changes config files for setting up accounts, so the programs that use them can be swapped out at will.

You'll need to email sales@directadmin.com to change your Client Account password.

John

[chuckd]

Yay! I'm getting more confident about DA with time. I'll ask for a test license and probably get some customers going soon. Hopefully within a week IMAP will be available? ...

[chuckd]

Actually still looking for answers to these questions:
[list=1]
When is Apache 2 support scheduled to arrive? I assume this needs DA support because of the conf file format changes.
Any plans to add Mailman support? (Please pretty please.)
[/list=1]

[DirectAdmin Support]

Hello,

I havn't use Apache 2.0 myself, but we'd just have to figure out what changes are needed in the virtualhost directives, (or anything in the user's httpd.conf files.) Then supporting it wouldn't be too difficult.. (of course, that doesn't include any part of it's installation/compilation... not to mention the horror called frontpage).

Mailman: We don't have any plans to add it at the momment, but that's not to say we'll never add it. I'll agree with anyone if they say majordomo is old :)

John

[ProWebUK]

old doesnt necessarily mean its not as good. I use both majordomo and mailman and prefer majordomo's features.

Chris

[chuckd]

It does in this case.

I used majordomo for a while but Mailman is 5000% better... Yes you can get Majorcool or whatever web interface for majordomo, but Mailman's built in interface is so powerful, I never have to change any options etc for lists run on our servers (and there are lots). Plus built-in archiving, web based moderation, robust bounce handling, clean code, web based subscription & management for users, etc etc...

I'm especially looking forward to upgrading to v. 2.1 which lets you add/remove lists right from the web interface.

[chuckd]

John: sounds like Apache 2 shouldn't be too hard for you to support (other than the build process, yargh, although it's autoconf based now so probably easier to support).

Almost all the config changes are in the main server directives (e.g. there's no LoadModule, only AddModule) not in VirtualHost/.htaccess/etc configuration. So all the parts that DA touches will probably be exactly the same - creating VHosts etc.

A quite serious request for Mailman support from me... Not that it would be too hard to run separately from DA, just it would be nice to let resellers admin it from their panel.

[hostpc.com]

Originally posted by chuckd
A quite serious request for Mailman support from me... Not that it would be too hard to run separately from DA, just it would be nice to let resellers admin it from their panel.

Echo that here. Thanks for the hard work John & staff... this is better than I could have hoped for. I'm glad I decided to give it a second shot :)

Joe

[gmilazzo]

yes i just looked over mailman thinking about adding to my site

[The Prohacker]

Originally posted by chuckd
John: sounds like Apache 2 shouldn't be too hard for you to support (other than the build process, yargh, although it's autoconf based now so probably easier to support).

Almost all the config changes are in the main server directives (e.g. there's no LoadModule, only AddModule) not in VirtualHost/.htaccess/etc configuration. So all the parts that DA touches will probably be exactly the same - creating VHosts etc.

A quite serious request for Mailman support from me... Not that it would be too hard to run separately from DA, just it would be nice to let resellers admin it from their panel.


I'm tempted to get a VDS/VPS and just try to do Apache2 on it.. Shouldn't be to hard since DA is very customizable...


Anyone used Digial Isles for VDS? If so, how speedy was the server? I know some of the VDS systems I've used just damn crawl :D

[woeger]

removed post...started a new new thread...

[thoroughfare]

I'm using a www.jvds.com VDS at the moment, is working well and the support is decent, they're very flexible too. Good for experimenting too; their prices start from $20/month.

HTH,
Matt :)