What if you don't use a control panel?

[QBall15j]

I run my server without a control panel, I'm not by any means an expert at the command line but I don't always want to take the easy/quickest way out. You definitely learn more by doing stuff through the command line, once you get the basics down its not all that bad.

[MMeffert]

I know atleast 3 people on these forums that do everything from the control panel. I also think learning the commands is a good idea because then you will have more knowledge and if something would go wrong you have the skills to go in using SSH and find the problem and fix it were you might not be able to with a control panel.

[Soulwatcher]

Originally Posted by MMeffert

I know atleast 3 people on these forums that do everything from the control panel. I also think learning the commands is a good idea because then you will have more knowledge and if something would go wrong you have the skills to go in using SSH and find the problem and fix it were you might not be able to with a control panel.

You make a very good point MMeffert. It is a good idea to learn the commands so you can ssh into the server if something goes wrong. But the only time I would need to do that is if the control panel was down. Webmin can do anything from the control panel, that you can do with ssh. Edit files, install programs, run shell commands, I do mean anything. Not only that I can do it in half of the time with Webmin. Webmin has a little learning curve, but once you master it. You will wonder how you lived with out it.

[MMeffert]

It is always possible that the webmin service stops running or does not start. THen you have to go into the server and restart it. service webmin restart

[Coop]

Currently, I use control panels for day to day server management, as it is sometimes a little easier to do some of the more complicated tasks, but I have to say that I find webmin a real pain. Mostly, it is so differant to other control panels that I have to go in by the command line and check most things by hand. Because of this, I no longer use webmin as I actually found it easier to do things like add vhosts and setup dns records using vi and the command prompt than it was running up webmin.

Don't get me wrong, webmin is a great program, but for me at least the learning curve of using webmin is far more than just doing things directly in ssh. But that is probably partly because I am a Unix programmer by trade, and I do most of my development using a mixture of telnet (not my choice, but for some customers I have to use it) samba shares, ssh, vi and textedit.

[Soulwatcher]

Coop Ill be flat out honest it took me a good 6 months to fully understand webmin. Before webmin the only thing I ever used was cPanel. I will agree the difference between cPanel and webmin are night and day.

I haven't had a chance to try Virtualmin pro is supposed to be allot like cPanel. But it also has the cPanel price to go along with it. If I wanted to pay that much I would just buy cPanel.

Webmin may seem a little weird to get use to after using a cPanel server but for $1225.00 the price of a owned cPanel license I am willing to learn.