Which Operating System is most stable/common to use with DirectAdmin

[sysdev]

Same to you and all others! Enjoy the weekend!

 

[Hetzner DirectAdmin]

@Hetzner DirectAdmin, could you please share more details (CB build log).

In general DA should work fine on Debian 13. We have not noticed any problems on our daily CI/CD integration tests (testing if CB components builds fine on every supported distro).

Post in thread 'E-Mails, DNS via DA - AlmaLinux10'

Oct 30, 2025

After sour experiences with VULTr and blacknight I found MXroute which lead me to Hetzner and the DirectAdmin Personal Plus package.

There is little DA initial setup info on youtube, and the DirectAdmin guides seem to be a bit advanced for someone who just wants to get away from GMail. I am going to try to compile a setup guide and post in on this forum, I think this @Cordarex thread is a great starting point, specially thanks to @Richard G as well as @DrWizzle

I have three domains all which point to Hetzner NS Name Servers:

fiefdom.com - Purchased...

• Hetzner DirectAdmin

I certainly tried 17 times on Hetzner using Debian 12 and Debian 13 and always got an initial install error.

I finally threw in the towel and tried Centos 10 and everything installed correctly.

My question is..

Is there not a favorite OS distro that is most commonly used on shared cloud hosting, like Hetzner (who unblock email ports) that is used?

For example FREEpbx has recently recommended Debian 12 and provide a script.

Last year DA had a install page that showed 4 distros, but that page has been since taken down.

Once should consider that there is a flow of new Learners that are thinking more about email privacy and DirectAdmin Personal Plus package is just the best way to accomplish this.

However, if there is one little hiccup in the initial install, the newbie learner who might not have linux experience save for a couple youtube setup videos will be left with no recourse to this "new-century no privacy" reality that is now upon us.

 

[Hetzner DirectAdmin]

Debian 13 work fine... just add the swap before setup directadmin

For some strange reason this step was not necessary using CentOS 10 Stream

 

[zEitEr]

For some strange reason this step was not necessary using CentOS 10 Stream

if it is about choosing another OS templates, then probably Hetzner includes adding swap for CentOS 10 Stream

 

[Hetzner DirectAdmin]

if it is about choosing another OS templates, then probably Hetzner includes adding swap for CentOS 10 Stream

Right....

I am tempted to try installing DA on Debian 13 with @DrWizzle swap instructions.


Is it recommended to do an apt full-upgrade ? Or just let the control panel do it at the Custom Build phase?

 

[zEitEr]

I don't use custombuild for updates of system packages, so can not say anything about this particular thing.

 

[DrWizzle]

Right....

I am tempted to try installing DA on Debian 13 with @DrWizzle swap instructions.


Is it recommended to do an apt full-upgrade ? Or just let the control panel do it at the Custom Build phase?

I spin up the VM first, install Ubuntu 24.04 and then update ubuntu. I'll then set the DA variables and run the install script. I've never done it any different so I couldn't tell you if the DA script would update your OS first.

 

[Hetzner DirectAdmin]

@Hetzner DirectAdmin, could you please share more details (CB build log).

In general DA should work fine on Debian 13. We have not noticed any problems on our daily CI/CD integration tests (testing if CB components builds fine on every supported distro).

Well it Debian 13 certainly does not work with direct admin, I even put in the SWAP and the install crashes out.

So, either DA is moving away from Debian or something else gives.

Which really leads me to the question, which is the preferred OS for DA, the OS that the majority of people use to run a stable DA?

cc -DBIN=\"/etc/virtual/majordomo\" -DPATH=\"PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/ucb\" -DH>
wrapper.c:16:10: fatal error: stdio.h: No such file or directory
16 | #include <stdio.h>
| ^~~~~~~~~
compilation terminated.
make: *** [Makefile:222: wrapper] Error 1
doMajordomo: failed to compile '/usr/local/directadmin/custombuild/cache/majord>
2025/11/06 12:35:45 info executing task task=action=notify&message=>
2025/11/06 12:35:45 info finished task duration=10.872557ms task=a

 

[Richard G]

Which really leads me to the question, which is the preferred OS for DA, the OS that the majority of people use to run a stable DA?

DA runs stable on everything it supports, so it should not make any difference.
However, in the beginning most professional panels are initially build for RHEL and deratives so most people run those, lots of user run Almalinux for this reason, although 10 had some tiny issues in the beginning.
Alma 9 runs very stable.

But it's a choice, most people running Debian or Ubuntu don't have any issues either.