# ServerPilot.io ?



## Hxxx (Nov 13, 2014)

Hi community

I have been reading about serverpilot.io . I found it by looking into the projects listed in DO website. It seems insteresting. Have you used it? Share your experience?


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## KuJoe (Nov 13, 2014)

We use it for production and development. I really love it but I absolutely hate Ubuntu and it has caused us a lot of downtime since switching to it. I wrote an extremely elaborate script to reduce the downtime but on Debian and CentOS the same script was 4 lines and worked 100% of the time and reduced the downtime to no more than 60 seconds. New script for Ubuntu can take a few minutes before it fixes the webserver and MySQL service.


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## drmike (Nov 14, 2014)

What the hell is it?

Optimized and hardened PHP version?


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## Hxxx (Nov 14, 2014)

drmike said:


> What the hell is it?
> 
> Optimized and hardened PHP version?


To my understanding, it manage the server remotely. Apply updates, pre configure the webserver, php blah blah, preconfigure firewall, it even install and configure nginx, i mean is like a super cropped down verison of cpanel, just that is " saas" , and apparently the purpose is that you dont have to manage your server, just use it straight forward.


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## Hxxx (Nov 14, 2014)

ok, so its been good to you (with debian and centos)? @KuJoe



KuJoe said:


> We use it for production and development. I really love it but I absolutely hate Ubuntu and it has caused us a lot of downtime since switching to it. I wrote an extremely elaborate script to reduce the downtime but on Debian and CentOS the same script was 4 lines and worked 100% of the time and reduced the downtime to no more than 60 seconds. New script for Ubuntu can take a few minutes before it fixes the webserver and MySQL service.


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## Steven F (Nov 14, 2014)

Hxxx said:


> To my understanding, it manage the server remotely. Apply updates, pre configure the webserver, php blah blah, preconfigure firewall, it even install and configure nginx, i mean is like a super cropped down verison of cpanel, just that is " saas" , and apparently the purpose is that you dont have to manage your server, just use it straight forward.


See Ansible, Puppet, Chef, et cetera. You'll have more control. It might be a bit more work, but it's an awesome tool.


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## KuJoe (Nov 14, 2014)

Hxxx said:


> ok, so its been good to you (with debian and centos)? @KuJoe


It only runs on Ubuntu with the latest kernels (so can't use OpenVZ). It's exactly what I was looking for but the OS has been the headache, not ServerPilot itself.

The best way to describe ServerPilot is that it is "a control panel for people who do not want a control panel". Basically it configures you web server (nginx, Apache, PHP, and MySQL) and makes it easy to add websites and databases and such, but without having to run a control panel on your server.

The biggest benefit to using it is that it configures all servers the same way with the same setups, so if you want you development web server to always match your production web server, this is perfect for you.

An added bonus is that when 0-day exploits are found in the wild and they affect the software Server Pilot uses (Apache, nginx, PHP, MySQL, or dependancies) they push the fix to your server as soon as it's available. Normally I would be 100% against automatic updates, but these same updates are being pushed to every single Server Pilot client so it's supported by them so I don't have to worry about an update breaking things (and if it does, I expect Server Pilot to fix it for me).

Basically, switching to Server Pilot has allowed me more time to focus on developing Wyvern and other scripts we utilize instead of having to worry about if it's going to work in production like it works in development and I don't have to worry about updates or maintenance in general. Our last webserver was just nginx and the config files were pages long, the Server Pilot default configs worked perfectly out of the box and I think I only added 4 or 5 lines of additional configs and I didn't lose any functionality and was able to add more features because we're using Apache now also.

Sure, I could have set all of this up manually myself, but I like being able to spin up a new server anywhere and have it match my other servers with little effort on my part. Ideally, if I could change one thing with Server Pilot it would be to expand their supported Operating Systems and kernels.


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## Steven F (Nov 14, 2014)

@KuJoe, does it only work with DigitalOcean instances?


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## KuJoe (Nov 14, 2014)

Steven F said:


> @KuJoe, does it only work with DigitalOcean instances?


No, it works with any server running Ubuntu 12.04 or 14.04 (x86_64) with a kernel newer than 3.2

Source: https://serverpilot.io/community/articles/server-requirements.html


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## fixidixi (Nov 14, 2014)

"ServerPilot is a SaaS server management solution and hosting control panel for PHP developers."

from their website.

I recognize the reason there is demand for such service but.. ..its not for me,

if i dont want to take care of dev env then i use heroku, openshift etc or set up a hudson job to deploy my sh*t  //or at least since im getting familiar with these setups


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## Hxxx (Nov 15, 2014)

i tried this, the webserver configuration is really good. You can feel the difference in performance at least in my case with a a WP instance.

Is really straight forward, you cannot customize the config. the interface provided is for app configuration.


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## KuJoe (Nov 15, 2014)

Hxxx said:


> i tried this, the webserver configuration is really good. You can feel the difference in performance at least in my case with a a WP instance.
> 
> Is really straight forward, you cannot customize the config. the interface provided is for app configuration.


You can customize the configs for Apache, nginx, and PHP but make sure you don't edit the config files or it can break future updates (you need to create your own config files to load after the main config files are loaded).

I like that the interface is very basic, definitely a perk for me since I love simplicity and would rather do things via the command line versus a GUI for the configuration (I like using the GUI to get it setup though, so quick and always set up the same way each time).


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## TruvisT (Nov 15, 2014)

Steven F said:


> See Ansible, Puppet, Chef, et cetera. You'll have more control. It might be a bit more work, but it's an awesome tool.


Totally love these products! Really worth learning and using. For anyone looking for a job in the industry knowing these will pay off.


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