Direct Admin Technical Thread

Lee

Thought it worthwhile to start a new Direct Admin thread for those that use it, given they do everything from Personal licences I am sure people have views on it. So any useful hints, tips, bugs, requests and anything else, post them here and get some discussion going around it.

Lee

In fact, as a starter, how are people finding DA for those that use it from a customer perspective? What are the main gripes you have as the end-user?

InceptionHosting

Paging @SmallWeb @MikePT as the most active DA users I am aware of.

MichaelCee

Lee said: In fact, as a starter, how are people finding DA for those that use it from a customer perspective? What are the main gripes you have as the end-user?

Not so much as a customer but as a "personal" user, my brain has been completely rewired after 6+ years of using the other panel.

I honestly find most things a lot simpler and in the last 2 months alone a lot of issues have been addressed in terms of "getting used to it".

Francisco

@SmallWeb said:

Lee said: In fact, as a starter, how are people finding DA for those that use it from a customer perspective? What are the main gripes you have as the end-user?

Not so much as a customer but as a "personal" user, my brain has been completely rewired after 6+ years of using the other panel.

I honestly find most things a lot simpler and in the last 2 months alone a lot of issues have been addressed in terms of "getting used to it".

Yeah the DA guys have been very receptive to changes.

I'd still love to see a whmapi1 type command line interface to make scripting easier.

I think getting some sort of differential backups system in place (that or jetapps give more feedback) has to be higher.

Francisco

Lee

Francisco said: I'd still love to see a whmapi1 type command line interface to make scripting easier.

That would be awesome, as well as the backups.

I have not looked into it, does the new Linux Jetbackup service work with DirectAdmin? I guess it probably does in that it provides a more integrated experience but without the provision of end-user interaction?

Rahul

Lee said: does the new Linux Jetbackup service work with DirectAdmin?

According to @MikePT

JetBackup isn’t compatible with DirectAdmin yet

Amitz

I have one of the older DA owned lifetime licenses and will probably install it on the server that I purchased on Black Friday. I haven't used DA intensively yet, but remember some things that I really did not like about it.

I am very much looking forward how it will work out for me this time and will most probably be present in this thread quite often in the next weeks while getting used to DA's very own issues.

Lee

@Rahul said:

Lee said: does the new Linux Jetbackup service work with DirectAdmin?

According to @MikePT

JetBackup isn’t compatible with DirectAdmin yet

The linux version must work, just not on a user level, it is based on no control panel so I guess you just backup whatever you want when you want but if a user wants to recover data you would provide it.

Will have a look later today.

edit: feck, forgot it only works with centOS, I may re-install DA using centOS and try it. Offers better back-ups than the current built-in.

vpsgeek

You can sign up with a DA based host subdomain.yourdomain.com as main account domain if that is what you wish to use instead of having to use yourdomain.com in cPanel

MichaelCee

@vpsgeek said:
You can sign up with a DA based host subdomain.yourdomain.com as main account domain if that is what you wish to use instead of having to use yourdomain.com in cPanel

Even better than that you can completely remove and replace any domain without causing hell and keeping the account.

seriesn

If you want to play with DA install from clients perspective, feel free to signup for my free service.

Lee

Although not a perfect solution if you are a host, JetBackups for Linux is actually really good.

Took me about 30 minutes to install, configure and start running an incremental hourly backup job on files and similar for databases.
The interface is very intuitive, there are no limits to what jobs or schedules you can create, back up some or all files, same for databases.
Restoring one file, some files, one directory or all files is super easy, same for databases.

I like what they have done, I am transferring to S3, but they have very clear docs on how to setup Google Drive, DropBox and others as well as your usual FTP, SSH and the like.

Of course, it would be better if they had per-user access to let clients do it themselves but I am a fan of having good, reliable backups that are easy to restore and if that means the user has to request it for now then better than nothing and far better than what DA has built-in, but at least the user can still go down that route to retain their own.

LeonDynamic

@Lee thanks for the info with JetBackups for Linux. I have been waiting for JB to release the DA plugin but might just go with JetBackups for Linux and not be reliant on a specific panel based plugin.

Lee

@LeonDynamic said:
@Lee thanks for the info with JetBackups for Linux. I have been waiting for JB to release the DA plugin but might just go with JetBackups for Linux and not be reliant on a specific panel based plugin.

Certainly, if you do not need end-user access it is a great option, just don't do what some providers have done by creating end-user accounts to access the panel. That is not going to work.

According to JetApps, they are now working on a DA panel, which I expect is simply JetBackups for Linux with a panel specific plugin to provide end-user access. They have tweeted that development for DA is expected to take 4-6 months, that was from October so not long to wait.

Ympker

@LeonDynamic said:
@Lee thanks for the info with JetBackups for Linux. I have been waiting for JB to release the DA plugin but might just go with JetBackups for Linux and not be reliant on a specific panel based plugin.

Right now it's JetBackup for CentOS though. Meh Support for Debian/Ubuntu is yet to be added.

Lee

Ympker said: Right now it's JetBackup for CentOS though. Meh Support for Debian/Ubuntu is yet to be added.

centOS is the cornerstone for their products so no surprise. I am sure Debian support won't be far away. Aside from that, DA needs to prune their supported OS list, app providers are not going to be as flexible in supporting them all.

vimalware

@seriesn said:
If you want to play with DA install from clients perspective, feel free to signup for my free service.

I've taken you up on the offer.
I'm really curious to see DA from the end-user's perspective. Never did get around to using the free DA license I had.

Ympker

@Lee said:

Ympker said: Right now it's JetBackup for CentOS though. Meh Support for Debian/Ubuntu is yet to be added.

centOS is the cornerstone for their products so no surprise. I am sure Debian support won't be far away. Aside from that, DA needs to prune their supported OS list, app providers are not going to be as flexible in supporting them all.

Let's hope so

seriesn

@vimalware said:

@seriesn said:
If you want to play with DA install from clients perspective, feel free to signup for my free service.

I've taken you up on the offer.
I'm really curious to see DA from the end-user's perspective. Never did get around to using the free DA license I had.

Enjoy sir. My Free DA plan includes almost everything you would get with usual DA hosting including CL, softaculous etc. So it should give you an easy idea.

Evolution theme should be a bit more faster. That will be me current complaint to the DA team.

@Francisco any chance we can get Mark here?

AlwaysSkint

Looking for an easy way to migrate an existing DA instance to another one, unless @AnthonySmith can pull off a @QuantumCore surprise i.e. switch the 'deal' on the existing server.

InceptionHosting

@AlwaysSkint said: Looking for an easy way to migrate an existing DA instance to another one, unless @AnthonySmith can pull off a @QuantumCore surprise i.e. switch the 'deal' on the existing server.

boot both in recovery mode (sysrescue cd), dd 1 disk to the other over ssh, done.

AlwaysSkint

AnthonySmith said: boot both in recovery mode (sysrescue cd), dd 1 disk to the other over ssh, done.

(At a local level, I usually use Clonezilla.)
You're a bloody hero. In all the years, I haven't tried that and was super easy. Muchos Grassyass.

AlwaysSkint

Guys, I'm going nuts here..
SolusVM
Centos 7
Directadmin

Server IP has been changed, along with the DA license and DA's ipswap.sh
"Client" IPs have been moved to the new shared IP
/etc/sysconfig/ifcfg-eth0 has the new IP.
Both ip a and ip r display the old and new IP/routes.

Tell me there's a hidden SolusVM config file someplace?

MichaelCee

@AlwaysSkint said:
Guys, I'm going nuts here..
SolusVM
Centos 7
Directadmin

Server IP has been changed, along with the DA license and DA's ipswap.sh
"Client" IPs have been moved to the new shared IP
/etc/sysconfig/ifcfg-eth0 has the new IP.
Both ip a and ip r display the old and new IP/routes.

Tell me there's a hidden SolusVM config file someplace?

AlwaysSkint

^ Hell, yeah!
Actually, I'll do it in Solus, to be sure.

MichaelCee

@AlwaysSkint said:
^ Hell, yeah!
Actually, I'll do it in Solus, to be sure.

Yeah, sorry, not a Solus guy but my only experience of the ghost of old IPs was fixed by off/on, not necessarily the whole box

Amitz

Now it's me having a question:
All I wanted to to is change some global PHP settings...

So I did a
/usr/local/bin/php --ini | grep 'Loaded Configuration File'
and learned that the php.ini location is in /usr/local/php72/lib/php.ini

I changed the values and restarted Apache.

Still the changes are not applied. What does Directadmin expect me to do? Their documentation is a mess when searching via Google.You never know whether it is outdated information, or nor. That sucks a bit...

MichaelCee

@Amitz said:
Now it's me having a question:
All I wanted to to is change some global PHP settings...

So I did a
/usr/local/bin/php --ini | grep 'Loaded Configuration File'
and learned that the php.ini location is in /usr/local/php72/lib/php.ini

I changed the values and restarted Apache.

Still the changes are not applied. What does Directadmin expect me to do? Their documentation is a mess when searching via Google.You never know whether it is outdated information, or nor. That sucks a bit...

Did you restart php72?

AlwaysSkint

Looks as though it needed a hard boot in Solus, after the dregs of the old IP were removed in the VM. Go figure.

AlwaysSkint

Amitz said: What does Directadmin expect me to do? Their documentation is a mess when searching via Google.You never know whether it is outdated information, or nor. That sucks a bit...

I seem to recall saying the same thing.