New to admin

I am new to being an admin. Never really wanted to be one, but due to problems with responsiveness of my previous provieders, I decided it was time that I just did alot of this stuff myself.

That puts me in an interesting spot. It seems that it would be better to learn as much about DA as possible, and stay out of the root. Less likely to break something thatway.

I've setup a test box, just to practice on because root seems to dangerous to go poking around in.

That being said, intuitively it would seem learning a cp first, then going deeper as necessary would be the way to go, but I've been told the reverse. I'm just looking for insight here as to what seems to be the best way to learn. I learned visual basic, then Java, then c++, then nasm, starting higher up and then working my way down. This isn't the way to learn this sort of thing?

A control panel cannot do everything for you.

DirectAdmin is more limited than some; it expects you to be a fairly comfortable systems administrator (note, I said comfortable, though I personally believe competent as well.

Years ago hosting was simple and you could probably use all the defaults. Today our needs, and those of our clients, go a bit deeper than that.

Should DA include everything for everyone? That would be a nice goal; it would probably make the system even more complex than it is, and probably make it more expensive than it is.

Years ago I (and others from this forum) used the old Cobalt Raq hosting appliances, and we generally used only the control panel, but if you read the historical log archives of the cobalt-users list you'll find that most of us eventually learned how to use admin skills.

If you're willing to live with defaults, then you probably don't need those admin skills.

It appears you may have felt forced into becoming your own admin; you may not be suited for it for various reasons, not the least of which may be time available to learn. Have you considered hiring a server administrator? Have you considered getting a managed dedicated or virtual private server?

(See my sigline .)

Jeff

I'm replying again to point out that in some areas DA may excell over other control panels; look here for an interesting opinion.

Yes, with most control panels this kind of change is a nightmare.

Jeff

Hmm, yea, I guess I am being unclear. I just got my first VPS (preloaded with DA)... cool, but the root access scares me in that I can't really navigate it well (and obviously no undo). I was asking about the best way to learn it.

In the past, I started with high level stuff and worked down (Visual Basic --> Java --> C++ --> assembly). I kinda thought the best way to learn this was to start with a contol panel that actually works right (been struggling with a broken plesk for well over a year, just dropped them and moved to the new VPS on DA). You know, poke around a cp and get familiar with terms, read help files, forums, etc. Then once I have competance with that, move on to root and more advanced stuff.

Right now, my customers all only have static pages that are little more then business cards, and email. Email is the primary thing at the moment. DA easily handles the current needs. I was looking for a way to learn more then the minimum to get by, but in a way that makes sense.

I made some changes to the first two sentences in my first reply; I don't know why I was being so hard on DA when I first replied .

If your customers' needs are few, then a default DirectAdmin install may do all you need.

Certainly for as long as it takes you to get some expertise.

I don't recommend any specific systems administration book because different people have different learning styles.

Have fun with your testbed server. I have fun with mine .

Jeff