nunim
VPS Junkie
If they get hacked, they have access to all ServerPilot servers.
ServerPilot - new hosting control panel for hosting PHP sites on VPSes
- Thread starter Justin-ServerPilot
- Start date
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- Tags
- control panel php
Hopefully there's some sort of separation of privileges going on behind the scenes.
Justin-ServerPilot
New Member
Actually, we designed our architecture so that no extra ports need to be open for ServerPilot.
When you run the ServerPilot installer (a.k.a. "connect a server to ServerPilot"), the installer adds our signed apt repository and installs our agent via apt. The agent opens a TLS-encrypted connection to us and keeps it open all of the time. We use that secure communication channel to let the agent know when there's work it needs to do because you've made changes (e.g. created a database) through ServerPilot.
Justin-ServerPilot
New Member
Thank you! That's great to hear.
Quotas.
We don't get many requests for this so it's not high on our priority list. Before we do quotas, we'll be implementing better stats about website resource usage.
Not needing multiple accts for different server levels.
We're working on the best way to do this without adding complexity for users who don't want this functionality. For now, people who need this create separate accounts. If you need to move a server between accounts that are on separate plans, just email support.
Dedicated IP options.
I assume this means assigning a dedicated IP addresses to a specific website. The main reasons users have wanted that in the past is to run a site with SSL. As we enable SNI so that multiple SSL sites can share the same website, we don't get many requests for this. And the result is a much simpler experiences where users don't have to think about the IP address. Our current approach also fits very well with many cloud providers (e.g. Amazon EC2) where you only have one IP address, and in Amazon's case your server doesn't actually know the public address of the server.---All that said, it's a feature we'll consider in the future if there is enough demand for it.
Customization of default files on sites.
We'd like to enable this and similar post-site-creation actions via a hooks/plugins systems. That is, possibly some time next year you'll have the ability to define a script to run on your server after a new site is created. That script could install your custom default files.
WHMCS module.
The first step there will be us releasing our API.
Ability to add SFTP and ServerPilot users and assign to specific sites.
We are working on both of these. For SFTP users, we will make it so that websites can belong to users other than the "serverpilot" system user. For ServerPilot control panel accounts, we're working on figuring out the best way to handle a variety of needs ranging from development teams to resellers.
A version I can install on my own server.
This may be on the horizon, but it would probably be a few years before we work on it. For now, we want to put all of our development efforts into making ServerPilot even better than it is.
Affiliate scheme so I can refer people in and earn some cash if they upgrade from free ;-)
We love this idea and discuss it occasionally, but it adds enough complexity for us that it would distract us from our main focus: building a great product and spreading through word-of-mouth of happy customers. It's certainly something we'll consider adding next year.
Both of these are correct. However, we're building our systems to be very reliable. In fact, I believe you'll find us to be more reliable than running your own control panel locally. If your local control panel breaks (e.g. due to a failed update), then your control panel is down until you can fix it. If our control panel is down, we have a team of people working quickly to get it back up.
As for if we disappear, that is certainly a risk of any SaaS software. We hope that as we build our reputation and as our value to you increases or becomes clearer, you'll decide that we deserve your trust and that the best way forward for your business is to use our service.
Justin-ServerPilot
New Member
We've architected our system so that if we are compromised, an attacker can't gain root access to your servers.
All of the code that runs on your servers is signed by us. And none of this signed code enables arbitrary execution of other unsigned code as root. So, the best an attacker could do if they fully compromised our servers is perform the same actions through ServerPilot that you yourself can do. (You'll notice that things like "set the root password/keys" are not things you can do through ServerPilot.)
All that said, we also put an enormous amount of effort into keeping our systems secure. Security is a passion of ours and we take pride in being the most secure control panel. However, that's a reputation we'll need to earn over time. We believe it to be the case, but we want others to come to that conclusion, as well.
Justin-ServerPilot
New Member
As a new user just ran into this, I want to mention that we do not work on OpenVZ servers. The host kernel used by OpenVZ systems is very old and there are networking and firewall issues for modern Ubuntu versions that expect to be run on newer kernels.
Luckily, most providers don't use OpenVZ and those that do often offer KVM. KVM works great with ServerPilot.
Luckily, most providers don't use OpenVZ and those that do often offer KVM. KVM works great with ServerPilot.
DeanClinton
New Member
If anyone finds anything like the above service that works on OpenVZ, let me know... in the mean time i'll go back to VirtualMin 
Hi guys, after reading this thread about a month ago, I took the bait and decided to switch to servers at Digital Ocean after playing around with server pilot.
What I wanted was getting rid of paying cpanel licenses as well as having a cheaper monthly hosting bill.
Initially server pilot seems so simple compared to whm/cpanel that you fear maybe there is something missing... to be honest, nothing is missing.
I was previously hosting my sites at Storm on Demand as well as Digital Ocean with Centos/cpanel servers.
I decided to test the waters and boy... am I impressed with server pilot!
Setting up a cpanel centos server took me about one hour with practice, with serverpilot you are ready to host websites in less than 5 minutes.
The SP Control panel is very very light and optimizes your server from the very beginning, thus, my websites are now being served via nginx instead of apache, that coupled with SSD makes it a very very noticeable difference.
Besides, what I really like is the ability to change php runtime from 5.4 to 5.5 or viceversa on the fly, without having to reboot.
My advice for you would be to learn a little bit about ubuntu commands, since if you are a total terminal newbie, (as I was once) you will be having trouble setting up some things you might want like automated mysql backups, server backups, etc.
But after my very short learning curve, I can create a brand new and very feature-loaded server in about 30 minutes beggining with a blank ubuntu droplet.
What do I mean by feature-loaded?
A server that can host many sites, and for peace of mind back them up automatically each night at 03:00 am to amazon s3, also able to make a dump of all databases too, and reboot it all one hour later at 04:00 just in case.
Plus I have found that a digital ocean $10 droplet managed via Serverpilot, really goes a long way and since you get server stats almost in real time, you can always check if you are stretching your resources too much before scaling-up.
Long story short: with serverpilot and digital ocean droplets, I am saving lots of money because I no longer need to pay cpanel licenses ($45 / month) or heftly SSD Hosting bills for 3 servers.
Besides, I can now split sites between several droplets instead of 3 SSD servers, thus in case a server overloads due to a website or wordpress plugin going wild, it wont take the other websites down.
My hosting bill has gone from $345 (3 cpanel licenses plus $99 each SSD server at SOD) to $125 (7 Digital Ocean droplets ranging from $5 to $20 plus $50 server pilot plan). Keep in mind that I could lower this expense another bit by taking a cheaper Serverpilot plan or even the free tier, but I love the stats and monitoring my servers and the error logs they provide.
Yeah I know I might seem like a paid shill, but honestly I really really love how this setup works and the big amount of money they are saving me... who would not want these guys to succeed? hence my testimonial here for you guys, keep providing such a great service! I am more than happy saving about $220 USD per month thanks to your services.
Let me know if you have any question about my setup, hope this guys stay for the long-run, they really have a nice product.
What I wanted was getting rid of paying cpanel licenses as well as having a cheaper monthly hosting bill.
Initially server pilot seems so simple compared to whm/cpanel that you fear maybe there is something missing... to be honest, nothing is missing.
I was previously hosting my sites at Storm on Demand as well as Digital Ocean with Centos/cpanel servers.
I decided to test the waters and boy... am I impressed with server pilot!
Setting up a cpanel centos server took me about one hour with practice, with serverpilot you are ready to host websites in less than 5 minutes.
The SP Control panel is very very light and optimizes your server from the very beginning, thus, my websites are now being served via nginx instead of apache, that coupled with SSD makes it a very very noticeable difference.
Besides, what I really like is the ability to change php runtime from 5.4 to 5.5 or viceversa on the fly, without having to reboot.
My advice for you would be to learn a little bit about ubuntu commands, since if you are a total terminal newbie, (as I was once) you will be having trouble setting up some things you might want like automated mysql backups, server backups, etc.
But after my very short learning curve, I can create a brand new and very feature-loaded server in about 30 minutes beggining with a blank ubuntu droplet.
What do I mean by feature-loaded?
A server that can host many sites, and for peace of mind back them up automatically each night at 03:00 am to amazon s3, also able to make a dump of all databases too, and reboot it all one hour later at 04:00 just in case.
Plus I have found that a digital ocean $10 droplet managed via Serverpilot, really goes a long way and since you get server stats almost in real time, you can always check if you are stretching your resources too much before scaling-up.
Long story short: with serverpilot and digital ocean droplets, I am saving lots of money because I no longer need to pay cpanel licenses ($45 / month) or heftly SSD Hosting bills for 3 servers.
Besides, I can now split sites between several droplets instead of 3 SSD servers, thus in case a server overloads due to a website or wordpress plugin going wild, it wont take the other websites down.
My hosting bill has gone from $345 (3 cpanel licenses plus $99 each SSD server at SOD) to $125 (7 Digital Ocean droplets ranging from $5 to $20 plus $50 server pilot plan). Keep in mind that I could lower this expense another bit by taking a cheaper Serverpilot plan or even the free tier, but I love the stats and monitoring my servers and the error logs they provide.
Yeah I know I might seem like a paid shill, but honestly I really really love how this setup works and the big amount of money they are saving me... who would not want these guys to succeed? hence my testimonial here for you guys, keep providing such a great service! I am more than happy saving about $220 USD per month thanks to your services.
Let me know if you have any question about my setup, hope this guys stay for the long-run, they really have a nice product.
DigitalPure
New Member
I have been using this for a few months now and have to say I am overly impressed. The best part is support. I am sure that some of my questions to support have been annoying, but they are always willing to help and get it resolved asap.
Pros:
Fast setup
Automated basic security
WordPress with Nginx works out of the gate
Nothing really stored in their system, rather on your server
Setup multiple servers in the same gui
Easy to setup applications (sites) and it auto sets file structure and permissions
Cons:
Ability to mod nginx config with a gui (can via command line)
Since MySQL setup is via web gui, would be nice if phpmyadmin (or alternate script) worked via web interface
Search and display of applications setup is confusing
Removing an application from the gui (where you had to set it up) does not remove the files or mysql
Wishlist:
Replace MySQL with MariaDB (or at least an option on setup)
Ability to have some servers on different levels (already mentioned)
Replace Apache with Hiawatha as the web servers, and use nginx as a reverse proxy only
Replace ufw with csf
So, overall I am VERY VERY happy with this service. I currently use the free version only because I have a few servers setup and the cost to upgrade them ALL would be more then I want to use. It really though is a great service, and has forced me to learn alot more admin and know where to hire someone vs just installing cpanel and assuming all is good as cpanel is setup. Looking forward to seeing where serverpilot goes in the future. I know that I am a customer for the long term.
Pros:
Fast setup
Automated basic security
WordPress with Nginx works out of the gate
Nothing really stored in their system, rather on your server
Setup multiple servers in the same gui
Easy to setup applications (sites) and it auto sets file structure and permissions
Cons:
Ability to mod nginx config with a gui (can via command line)
Since MySQL setup is via web gui, would be nice if phpmyadmin (or alternate script) worked via web interface
Search and display of applications setup is confusing
Removing an application from the gui (where you had to set it up) does not remove the files or mysql
Wishlist:
Replace MySQL with MariaDB (or at least an option on setup)
Ability to have some servers on different levels (already mentioned)
Replace Apache with Hiawatha as the web servers, and use nginx as a reverse proxy only
Replace ufw with csf
So, overall I am VERY VERY happy with this service. I currently use the free version only because I have a few servers setup and the cost to upgrade them ALL would be more then I want to use. It really though is a great service, and has forced me to learn alot more admin and know where to hire someone vs just installing cpanel and assuming all is good as cpanel is setup. Looking forward to seeing where serverpilot goes in the future. I know that I am a customer for the long term.
kalenjordan
New Member
Hey guys - great discussion here. I'm looking into using serverpilot myself - so far it looks pretty awesome and Justin's been super helpful in dialogue via email.
One thing I've been trying to wrap my head around is level of support. They don't offer 24/7 support it seems. It sounds like everyone has been very happy with support though.
Has anyone had any outages or urgent issues during off hours? Were they handled promptly? Do you have concerns in general about hosting management not having 24/7 support?
Thanks!!
Kalen
One thing I've been trying to wrap my head around is level of support. They don't offer 24/7 support it seems. It sounds like everyone has been very happy with support though.
Has anyone had any outages or urgent issues during off hours? Were they handled promptly? Do you have concerns in general about hosting management not having 24/7 support?
Thanks!!
Kalen
DigitalPure
New Member
The nice thing is that they are not hosting the server so the uptime and such is related to your provider and not them. To date I have not had any outages, or issues related to using their setup, and panel system. Once the server is setup, the only real function that you need to use their panel for is to add virtual hosts, mysql db. The higher up levels you would use their system to see logs and stats, but that would not have any bearing on the up/down time on your server.Hey guys - great discussion here. I'm looking into using serverpilot myself - so far it looks pretty awesome and Justin's been super helpful in dialogue via email.
One thing I've been trying to wrap my head around is level of support. They don't offer 24/7 support it seems. It sounds like everyone has been very happy with support though.
Has anyone had any outages or urgent issues during off hours? Were they handled promptly? Do you have concerns in general about hosting management not having 24/7 support?
Thanks!!
Kalen
As for support, while they are not 24/7 I have personally not had a single issue that could not be addressed by the time they came back.
amnesia
New Member
Here's my story:
A few weeks ago, I've began moving 37 websites from Media Temple (I've been their customer for 7 years and they became so horrible I can't stand them anymore) to Digital Ocean. The plan was set, the first server up and running, zpanel was my choice. After moving two websites to the new server, I've stumbled upon this thread. Made a test server, connected the ServerPilot and... I was blown away. It's just fantastic. Digital Ocean + ServerPilot = Dream Come True. I've sent them quite a few questions and they replied to all of them in less than 24 hours (I can post my questions and their answers if anyone is interested).
As soon as I finish moving all websites to Digital Ocean, I will switch to Business plan. Those guys definitely deserve my money.
Here's a video I found on Youtube (some kind of interview), it's quite interesting:
http://youtu.be/J4KW-Ko1rxM
I, too, am afraid that I'm going to look like a paid shill (like adavila78 said), especially because this is my first post, but I am truly not. ServerPilot is a brilliant service and I've never been more happy with my server setup than I am now.
Cheers
A few weeks ago, I've began moving 37 websites from Media Temple (I've been their customer for 7 years and they became so horrible I can't stand them anymore) to Digital Ocean. The plan was set, the first server up and running, zpanel was my choice. After moving two websites to the new server, I've stumbled upon this thread. Made a test server, connected the ServerPilot and... I was blown away. It's just fantastic. Digital Ocean + ServerPilot = Dream Come True. I've sent them quite a few questions and they replied to all of them in less than 24 hours (I can post my questions and their answers if anyone is interested).
As soon as I finish moving all websites to Digital Ocean, I will switch to Business plan. Those guys definitely deserve my money.
Here's a video I found on Youtube (some kind of interview), it's quite interesting:
http://youtu.be/J4KW-Ko1rxM
I, too, am afraid that I'm going to look like a paid shill (like adavila78 said), especially because this is my first post, but I am truly not. ServerPilot is a brilliant service and I've never been more happy with my server setup than I am now.
Cheers