New to DA, Couple Quick Questions.

[guess_drlopez]

Hello everyone. I love the way DA seems to be smooth on my test box I have. I plan on installing it to the live environments soon, but have a few questions Id like to test before I do.

I am looking to install a striped down custom apache install, that will only allow me to do the following:

- Use PHP Sendmail Scripts on my sites for my contact forms. I will not need any webmail, or mail running on the server. The most I would do is want DA to email me of backup completion.
- Run Static HTML sites very smoothly and quickly (Any tweaks to Apache 2.2, or anything else is appreciated )
- Only one of my blog sites are running Wordpress, so I guess PHP/MYSQL.
- FTP for websites, but secure.
- I have my DNS hosted with the registrar, so I will not need dns/bind.

My box will have CentOS 5.1 64bit, is it fully supported? Will I be able to yum update it, or would it break it? The reason I ask, is custom build DA doesnt seem to work on CentOS 5.2 x64 just yet.

Thanks so much, for all your time, explanations, and effort put forth to help get me switched from cpanel, to DA.

 

[guess_drlopez]

Help Needed

Is anyone able to give me assistance? I am a little stuck, and really want to switch to DA on my multiple cPanel servers. DA seems to be solid. Please lend any help possible. Thanks everyone!

 

[Crusader]

I'm not sure if it fully supports x64 yet but I've heard it runs fine after you get passed the build script (which is what causes the issue).

You should let DA do the updates for you but you can use Yum if you want to.

You will need to manually remove all the webmail programs in the /var/www/html folders but PHP can send mail just fine on DA.

You can pretty much do everything you asked in your post but the DNS may be tricky.

 

[nobaloney]

Crusader, your post is a bit oversimplified.

guess_drlopez, hopefully I can respond to some of your questions.

- Use PHP Sendmail Scripts on my sites for my contact forms.

DirectAdmin uses exim, and not Sendmail. I believe cPanel does as well, so your scripts working on cPanel should work on DirectAdmin. You can turn off the Exim daemon (through the control panel) or block it using your firewall. If you turn it off make sure your scripts call the sendmail alias rather than attach to port 25.

I will not need any webmail, or mail running on the server. The most I would do is want DA to email me of backup completion.

See above, and yes, you can either remove webmail, or just the links. You can customize either custombuild or custombuild configuration to not install or update webmail.

- Run Static HTML sites very smoothly and quickly (Any tweaks to Apache 2.2, or anything else is appreciated )

Perhaps someone else will help with some tweaks. There are also other html daemons which others have gotten to work with DirectAdmin, including Lighttpd. Search these forums. However Lighttpd isn't supported officially.

- Only one of my blog sites are running Wordpress, so I guess PHP/MYSQL.

Of course, using either Apache or Lighttpd.

- FTP for websites, but secure.

Search these forums; others have done it. If you trust your users you can give them ssh/scp.

- I have my DNS hosted with the registrar, so I will not need dns/bind.

Then remove it or turn it off. If you remove it you should build the path to /etc/named.conf and to /var/named/, so when DirectAdmin tries to add DNS it won't choke.

My box will have CentOS 5.1 64bit, is it fully supported?

DirectAdmin website says it's supported.

Will I be able to yum update it, or would it break it?

Yum update will break the hosting stack. You should use it to update your system, but not the hosting stack; you can find the excludes posted in these forums; DirectAdmin automatically installs the excludes.

The reason I ask, is custom build DA doesnt seem to work on CentOS 5.2 x64 just yet.

Hopefully Martynas, who wrote custombuild, will respond.

Jeff

 

[smtalk]

CustomBuild doesn't have any known problems on CentOS 5.2 x64.

 

[guess_drlopez]

Quickest Static Page Loads?

Thank you all for your help thus far. I really like DirectAdmin, but am still a little stuck. :-/

Below is my current configuration and I am trying to make sure all the specs will be put to use (web server to use both cores, etc):

Intel Core2 Duo 2.4Ghz, 4MB L2 Cache, 1066MB FSB
4GB of DDR2-800
2x 10k Sata 36.7GB Raptors, Software Raid.
CentOS 5.2 x64bit

3x Static XHTML Valid Sites
1x Wordpress Blog
All sites very little traffic on the server, which I am hoping to increase soon.

My biggest thing is page load times. I would like them to be as fast as they can, and to use both cores of my core2 duo.

 

[nobaloney]

If I recall correctly, Apache 2.x properly uses all available cores.

Jeff

 

[floyd]

How limited is the 1.3 series of apache. I have a quad core machine running 1.3. Will upgrading to apache 2 make that much of a difference?

 

[nobaloney]

In just now doing some googling I can't find anything specific .

Lots of opinions, though.

Jeff

 

[smtalk]

No, the current installation doesn't use all available resources (CPU cores) as it should, I'm planning to change prefork module (it's really old), to worker by default (only on CustomBuild 1.2), then it will use the resources on systems with more than 1 CPU core as it should.