DirectAdmin Version 2 - Discussion, ideas, opinions and anything else!

ProWebUK

ProWebUK

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There has been very little mention of DA v2, but since its what DA will be soon enough (in a dev's words :D ) I was wondering what you all thought.

- What extras / new features would you like to see
- What would you like to see chnaged
- What do you want to see dropped completely.

- What style / looks, advanced smart looking graphic intensive or simple clean 'light' skins - or even a variety of different skins to suit all sorts

Remember, DA v2 is being almost completely rewritten, allowing anything new to come along or anything currently there to be dropped.. The best time to get the panel suited to everyone is having your opinions put across prior to development - now.

Hopefully after the thread has developed with all your opinions we can get some examples of ideas aswell as create a 'feature list' of what everyone thinks would be worth having.... Im sure if the thread goes well it will help out on development aswell as help suit the panel to everyone's needs, Again, prior to development starting is the best time for this to occur (even if theres a while before DA v2 gets started!)

Chris
 
API improvements - I'd like to see an API that allows "options" (links) to easily be appended to any given DA menu. (No skin modification.)

Server farm - We need the ability to link servers together, creating a "farm" as it is called. Some will setup each server to perform a specific task (one for httpd, one for sql, one for mail, etc.), and yet others will link servers together only to easily move users from server-to-server (all servers handle everything for the users residing thereon). The new user levels system, explained below, MUST be global across all servers in a farm.

Custom user levels - Administrator, reseller, and user are nice defaults, but I will love to have the ability to add new "levels" with completely custom features (e.g., Email-only levels, etc.).

This needs to be hierarchal. That is, the 'root' administrator is the "parent" level. All other levels are children of the root admin, and that means the root administrator can create users in any of the levels on the server farm. Moreover, occupants of the 'user' level will not be able to create users in the 'admin' level; users of any given level will not be able to create users in levels above their location in the hierarchal level tree.

Additionally, each user in a level that CAN resell (we'll need a checkbox) will have the ability to create user levels. However, during creation, these new user levels will ONLY be allowed to attain options that their parent has access to. For instance, a user in a level that does NOT have SSH will NOT be able to create child levels with SSH, or a user that has ONLY email access will ONLY be able to create levels with email access.

I suppose this new level system *could* completely replace the current "packages" system, although I admit there are some advantages in keeping them separate.

+ Root admin (only 1 user can go here)
|----+ Default Admin level
|----|----+ Default Reseller level
|----|----|----+ Default User level
|----|----|----+ Email option level (this one would be custom, obviously)

In looking over what I've typed above, there seems to be some fuzziness regarding the differences between a USER and a "user level". That is, I kind of push the notion that a USER is -kind of- the same thing as a user level. This is not so. A user level is more a "user group" than anything else. More than one USER can be assigned to any given level, and this USER will then share any child levels of the USER's level. For example, if both users "John" and "Mark" are assigned the level 'Default Reseller level', they will both be able to create USERS in the 'Default User level' and 'Email option level' levels. Both John and Mark will also be able to create new child levels of their level, the 'Default Reseller level'.

Bahh -- okay, problem. (and I'm running out of time to keep plowing away at this) :: Given the above system, ALL USERS in the level 'Default Reseller level' will be able to create, edit, and delete levels created by any other USER on the same level. This can not happen. We need a fix.

I'll play with this more later.
 
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I would like to see, a dropdown box in the preferences menu, where users and admins etc. can choose their language.
Example

a user would have the choice:
-english
-french
-dutch

So you don't have to upload 3 skins in different languages.

Oh, and that idea of custom userlevels is also a good idea..

And the multiserver thing :)

Thanks

Kevin
 
On the problem I created above, when a USER with the reseller box ticked comes about, the level system should create a fake "sub" level for this user. These fake sublevels need to be managed exclusively by DA itself.

+ Root admin (only 1 user can go here)
|----+ Default Admin level
|----|----+ Default Reseller level
|----|----|----+ [fake level for 'admin']
|----|----|----|----+ Default User level
|----|----|----+ [fake level for 'john']
|----|----|----|----+ John's 1st user level


Continuing on, for level settings (in the above case I'm looking at the 'Default Reseller level'), there will actually be two checkboxes: one, the "USERs can resell" box I've talked about before, and now a "USERs can create resellers" box.

For USERs whose parent level has the "USERs can create resellers" box ticked, they will be able to tick the "USERs can resell" box on owned levels, effectively allowing occupants of their levels to resell. Otherwise, if "USERs can create resellers" is not ticked, the "USERs can resell" box will be disabled, disallowing the possibility of any of the USER's levels to be resold.

It's complicated, yes, but really, I think it is worth it :)
 
I would like to see, all users *allowed* the username 'admin' - it would need to have the login form changed from:

username: [_____]
password: [_____]

to:

username: [_____]
domain: [_____]
password: [_____]

It also allows multiple users access to a user account, which leads to a further idea - the additional domains would be additional users, this would be setup as 'users' then the users have access to a 4th level which would allow the following controls:

- Domains
- Subdomain management interface(for additional domains only - main users interface is in main users panel)
-E-Mails

Chris
 
I would like to see the ability to transfer admin accounts to resellers and vice versa. Maybe some addons like phpbb one-click installation could be nice too ;).
 
One other suggestion:

Dont have a tool to transfer resellers to users and vice versa (Such as the script made by lordphi)

Instead, under the view users > select user > modify user

Have an option of reseller:

Reseller: [_________[^]

The drop down could hold:

No Reseller
reseller 1
reseller 2
this reseller is 3
.. etc...


Once thats done submit the chnages and its shown under the reseller - I Dont like the idea of "converting a user to a reseller" (sounds overly complicated as to what it should) and this idea covers both - switch domains to no reseller they go under the admin accounts user panel (therefore leaving end user accounts) or they go under seperate reseller panels (which you can provide the domain owner therefore upgrading them to reseller with minimal work.)

It keeps it clean and it works without any clutter to the actual panel.... for example it doesnt require a mian menu, aswell as doing what it needs to ok.

Finally (this is seriously the worst thing with DA at the moment!)

Live quota updates on *everything* number of domains in panel etc aswell as usage stats in the panel

Im willing to allow a part of the DirectAdmin speed to be lost due to this, it just has to be the thing I dislike most at the moment ;)

Chris
 
I would like to see better professional skin (as default skin) completely. Something similar CPanel or http://demo.unitedhosting.co.uk/home.php skin would be great :). That is the most imporant part!!

-

Have DA v2 been developed yet? Are there any screenshot I can see please.
 
Hello,

I think it's important for me to bump in here and say that DA 2.0 is still a dream, and that DA 1 took over a year to implement, without having to offer any support (pure programming time) and still is in development. I think that DA 2.0 will actually just be a morph of 1.0 as the code can just be changed piece by piece.

John
 
Yeah... I also love Ensim look, that also resembles a Mac BBS software called First Class..

Back to reality, how is going the Direct Admin development?


Shahid said:
I would like to see better professional skin (as default skin) completely. Something similar CPanel or http://demo.unitedhosting.co.uk/home.php skin would be great :). That is the most imporant part!!

-

Have DA v2 been developed yet? Are there any screenshot I can see please.
Click to expand...
 
If it's called DA v 2.0 or DA v 1.6 is irrelevant to me. What I would like to see implemented though is:

- Custom levels is a very nice idea. Currently I'm managing a lot of accounts for some of my customers, and I have made skins so that they can only use the file-manager, set up new email accounts, password protect, etc.

But when I'm logging in to set up a new database, I first have to go to my reseller panel, select the user, change the skin (to the advanced skin), log in as the user, and do the tasks. Then log out again, and change the skin back to the user's less-advanced skin.

Would therefore be a nice solution to the whole thing, if I could create an email-only user, who could manage all email-stuff for a domain, and I could maybe throw in some other tasks as well, but I would still be able to do advanced tasks on that account.

- Second - better implementation of email is a must! Spamassassin, forward and auto-reply through an external interface (that could be put into Squirrelmail) is something I feel is the most urgent need!
 
My votes:

- XML/SOAP-based API with full documentation, for *all* DA functions
- server clustering, like H-Sphere
- full SSH jailing

Matt :)
 
I don't think it's worthwhile to do anywhere near a full rewrite. DA is excellent as it is, and if you take too long reimplementing everything, it'll die. Just keep improving on what we've got:)
 
Some sort of easy system to allow 3rd party bandwidth usage to be added to the main tally. For example, an easy way to add shoutcast bandwidth usage. Stuff like that. Maybe toggle switches to choose which services to collect usage on or a page where you could put the log parsing instructions telling DA how to parse the log and where to find the it, then da would do the rest along with the other tallies.

Did that make any sense?
 
jmstacey said:
Some sort of easy system to allow 3rd party bandwidth usage to be added to the main tally. For example, an easy way to add shoutcast bandwidth usage. Stuff like that. Maybe toggle switches to choose which services to collect usage on or a page where you could put the log parsing instructions telling DA how to parse the log and where to find the it, then da would do the rest along with the other tallies.

Did that make any sense?
Click to expand...
I'd like to see that too!
 
l0rdphi1 said:
I'd like to see that too!
Click to expand...
If you can write something to check the logs for bandwidth usage, you can add it to DA's bandwidth counter. Somewhere in a dark past I asked this question, although I can't seen to be able to find the thread.

My votes go to:
* SSH jailing to be completed
* Server clustering
* Better spam filtering (SA) interface; setting up custom ways (per customer) on how an e-mail is handled by the spam filter, which RBL's are used, when it's deleted eg.

The idea of more levels is also nice, although I believe it would confuse users at first, but it should be included in long term planning (my opinion)...
 
Icheb said:
* Better spam filtering (SA) interface; setting up custom ways (per customer) on how an e-mail is handled by the spam filter, which RBL's are used, when it's deleted eg.
Click to expand...
It's always been my intention to produce a commercial product, based on SpamBlocker, which would offer most of this, on a per-user basis.

So if anyone wants to beat me to it, and either sell it or give it away, go for it :) .

Jeff
 
Main feature sets that are needed:

Clustering of:

- web
- ftp
- mail
- DA interface (seperate server for the control panel/sql services)
- sql/databases (support for postgressql)
- keep dns optional - I don't like control panels handling DNS for me, it makes it terribly inflexible.

other features like Jail's for SSH users would be nice, but since DA is already support on UML's I suggest this is put on the longer finger.

Spam filtering is a tricky 1 in my opinion. We use our own, we have gateway filtering servers and use firewall rules to stop attacks to common hostnames like mail.domain.tld or www.domain.tld and filter all mail inbound for viruses/spam- we also like to keep mail filtering seperate.

1 feature request i really like is each use being able to login and change their email password. In the format that someone already suggested:

email address: _______
password: __________

This idea could be very fruitfull, but I'd say beware of the possible problems. Busy companies could have 100's of people access the control panel instead of 1 per site, the site admin. This is potentially a large problem.

A fully standards compliant and documented API would be usefull too, the current "API" is very useable but some areas are grey.

Our thoughts.

Paul
 
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