Web Hosting Server

[Misinthe]

Hello everyone, I am having trouble deciding so I have come for advice.

 

I just set up a new VM host server that I want to use as a Web Hosting server. It's nothing too crazy, got dual 4 Core Xeon, 16GB RAM, 6 1TB SAS Drives ( 2 in Raid 1 for OS and 4 in Raid 5 for Storage/builds). What I want to do is, have it set up where I can host multiple websites but also manage the websites individually. Like, If I am hosting a website for a friend or something, I don't want him going on the same place where I have my other websites. I am pretty new at web hosting, I have experience in networking and server management, so I'm not sure where to start. Currently I use Bluehost + Wordpress for my websites and I'm trying to get rid of the yearly payment. I've read online about using NGINX for hosting Wordpress, but do I need to create several instances of NGINX for each website I want to run? Or can I run all of them in one instance and give individual access to people? Just looking for some guidance.

 

Thank you in advance!

[Vishera]

I used to work in the field 13 years ago,

Back then we used Direct Admin or CPanel,they are still around.

But there are probably better ones since i left the industry.

[Misinthe]

3 minutes ago, Vishera said:

I used to work in the field 13 years ago,

Back then we used Direct Admin or CPanel,they are still around.

But there are probably better ones since i left the industry.

CPanel is still around but that's a paid monthly subscription.

[Vishera]

5 minutes ago, Miguel552 said:

CPanel is still around but that's a paid monthly subscription.

What about Froxlor? - It looks good.

[Master Disaster]

42 minutes ago, Miguel552 said:

Hello everyone, I am having trouble deciding so I have come for advice.

 

I just set up a new VM host server that I want to use as a Web Hosting server. It's nothing too crazy, got dual 4 Core Xeon, 16GB RAM, 6 1TB SAS Drives ( 2 in Raid 1 for OS and 4 in Raid 5 for Storage/builds). What I want to do is, have it set up where I can host multiple websites but also manage the websites individually. Like, If I am hosting a website for a friend or something, I don't want him going on the same place where I have my other websites. I am pretty new at web hosting, I have experience in networking and server management, so I'm not sure where to start. Currently I use Bluehost + Wordpress for my websites and I'm trying to get rid of the yearly payment. I've read online about using NGINX for hosting Wordpress, but do I need to create several instances of NGINX for each website I want to run? Or can I run all of them in one instance and give individual access to people? Just looking for some guidance.

 

Thank you in advance!

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

 

A few things to remember though, it only works (officially) with CentOS/RHEL 7 or 8, Debian 10 or Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and to install it you must start with a fresh install of the OS.

 

Its literally as simple as curl the script, run it on a clean install, answer a few questions and wait. It offers virtual server management, ftp user management, database server access, email handling etc etc, basically everything you would expect from a virtual host manager including client ACL.

 

I run it on my homelab server

 

Edit - Forgot to actually answer your question. These days webservers are capable of spawning sub servers (called virtual servers) that are each a server instance so you only need to keep Apache running and the you use per site config files & terminal commands to create virtual servers for each site you are hosting.

 

If you want to do it properly its better to run your own DNS server as well, that way you can really control how virtual traffic is routed.

 

Virtualmin has all this taken care for you with a nice GUI to manage everything in.

[Misinthe]

14 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

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

 

A few things to remember though, it only works (officially) with CentOS/RHEL 7 or 8, Debian 10 or Ubuntu 20.04 LTS and to install it you must start with a fresh install of the OS.

 

Its literally as simple as curl the script, run it on a clean install, answer a few questions and wait. It offers virtual server management, ftp user management, database server access, email handling etc etc, basically everything you would expect from a virtual host manager including client ACL.

 

I run it on my homelab server

 

Edit - Forgot to actually answer your question. These days webservers are capable of spawning sub servers (called virtual servers) that are each a server instance so you only need to keep Apache running and the you use per site config files & terminal commands to create virtual servers for each site you are hosting.

 

If you want to do it properly its better to run your own DNS server as well, that way you can really control how virtual traffic is routed.

 

Virtualmin has all this taken care for you with a nice GUI to manage everything in.

Thank you for this information, it looks good. Couple of questions if you don't mind. So I have proxmox set up as a VM Host on that server, I was planning on running whatever OS I needed through it, but the whole server is going to be used only as a Web Server, do you think it would be better to remove Proxmox and install Ubuntu directly into the hardware? Also, I use PfSense as my DNS server in my home lab, so this web server is in a DMZ completely isolated from my home LAN, I have PiHole set up in it for IP Blocking and such for ads/malware/porn/gambling.

[Master Disaster]

6 minutes ago, Miguel552 said:

Thank you for this information, it looks good. Couple of questions if you don't mind. So I have proxmox set up as a VM Host on that server, I was planning on running whatever OS I needed through it, but the whole server is going to be used only as a Web Server, do you think it would be better to remove Proxmox and install Ubuntu directly into the hardware?

If there's no plan to use the hypervisor then I would remove it since its an extra layer of complexity for no good reason. Its totally up to you though, I don't think it will hurt anything having it.

 

Personally, I'd go with either CentOS or Debian over Ubuntu, 20.04 is getting long in the teeth these days and the next LTS is due for 22.04 anyway. Honestly the underlying OS really doesn't matter if you just want to manage virtual servers, you can do everything from the web gui.

[Misinthe]

45 minutes ago, Master Disaster said:

If there's no plan to use the hypervisor then I would remove it since its an extra layer of complexity for no good reason. Its totally up to you though, I don't think it will hurt anything having it.

 

Personally, I'd go with either CentOS or Debian over Ubuntu, 20.04 is getting long in the teeth these days and the next LTS is due for 22.04 anyway. Honestly the underlying OS really doesn't matter if you just want to manage virtual servers, you can do everything from the web gui.

Thanks again, I'll try running CentOS on top of my VM Hosting and see how the performance is, it's just much easier to manage this way. If I feel the need to do it straight on the hardware in the future I'll do it. Just to make sure, it's the CentOS Linux, not CentOS Stream right?

 

Edit: Do you use Virtualmin Free or Pro?

[Master Disaster]

17 hours ago, Miguel552 said:

Thanks again, I'll try running CentOS on top of my VM Hosting and see how the performance is, it's just much easier to manage this way. If I feel the need to do it straight on the hardware in the future I'll do it. Just to make sure, it's the CentOS Linux, not CentOS Stream right?

 

Edit: Do you use Virtualmin Free or Pro?

Free.

[Guest]

20 hours ago, Miguel552 said:

I've read online about using NGINX for hosting Wordpress, but do I need to create several instances of NGINX for each website I want to run? Or can I run all of them in one instance and give individual access to people? Just looking for some guidance.

You can manage sites using server blocks, in our NGINX setup it is setup pretty much as outlined here under Managing server entries, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/nginx#Server_blocks

 

We then use SFTP for giving directory access to those who need it, which you can find a basic setup here, https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/SFTP_chroot#Configuration

 

 

Before we started managing our own instances across multiple servers and only used a single machine for hosting some basic content, we used Control-Webpanel.

It's a free control panel, but some of it's features are locked behind a Pro License, but it is only $12 USD a year for the license. For someone who really doesn't know what they are doing I personally recommend it.