8 replies to this topic

[johking]

My hosting provider is suggesting I might want to move my reseller account from an Ensim machine to a cPanel server.

Can anyone explain to someone of very little brain what is the difference and what effect a change might have? Please speak slowly!

Jo

[Randy]

Those are just different control panels Jo. It'll probably require a little re-education on how to do things with your domains, but shouldn't be too tough.

I don't have a preference between one or the other personally, but I haven't used either in years either. I assume your host has a good reason for wanting you to make the switch. And hope they're going to take care of migrating all of your sites over.

One question to ask them is if they're going to make sure there is no downtime (at all) for your sites. That's about the only risk, but there are fairly easy ways for hosts to manage things so that it doesn't happen.

[johking]

Cheers Randy. Super-quick answer much appreciated. The good reason for switching is that I was moaning about the lack of upgrade on my account which they had promised and the response was that it was only happening on their cPanel machines, so if I wanted the upgrade (extra bandwidth, space and domain names) I would have to switch.

I've been with this company for a while and they are good and cheap but with absolutely no PR skills at all - it's all very geeky - so a pleasure to come here and get helped out.

Thanks again

Jo

[Jill]

Have to say, the Cpanel/WHM combo is very nice if you have a VPS or dedicated server. You have lots of control and tons of extras. I like it a lot.

We have Plesk now, and just bought Plesk for our new dedicated server as well, but only because it would make the move easier. Plesk isn't bad either, just takes a little time to get used to it as it's not as intuitive as Cpanel, at first.

Now that I'm familiar with it, I have it down and it seems to make much more sense than it first did!

[Randy]

That sounds like a super good reason for the change/upgrade Jo. I'd do it, just make sure to ask them about a smooth transfer.

Hey Jill, did you hear the news that Plesk 8 (to be released sometime later this year, as soon as 7.5.x is completely stable) is going to have AWStats integration for every domain on the server instead of simply sticking them all with Webalizer?

Not that it affects me much, because I get Urchin for a buck per month for 100 domains.

[johking]

Randy - email duly dispatched, we'll see what they come up with about leaving sites on the old server for a while

Jill - aha, so I know who to come to for help with CPanel if needed! A dedicated server sounds very attractive, maybe some day...

Jo

[linux_lover]

Hmm I used to use Plesk when I first got my server - useful when I didnt know what I was doing but now I much prefer to access things manually (apache, qmail etc).

I found Plesk gets its 'hooks' into everything and its a bit of a bugger to remove, I had to reinstall php/apache/mysql/qmail. Probably would have been easier if I used RPM's but I prefer compiling...

I hear webmin is good for complete control. Not used CPanel so cant comment.

[Randy]

Webmin is quite good and can even be laid over the top of most CP LiLo. Have to be careful with that one though. It's so powerful that you can really mess up a server if you jump into it without knowing what you're doing. I definitely wouldn't let people use it on a shared hosting server. Too dangerous.

None of the CP's are that bad actually. Just a little bit different. I used to have a little bit of everything, but wanted to switch all of my servers to one type so that I didn't have to stay on top of all of the idiosyncracies of each control panel. I asked the folks I host which they preferred and they chose Plesk (ver 5 at the time) so that's what I ended up with. That works for me, especially since Scott/AtomicRocketTurtle (one of the original Plesk developers) fills in the gaps that Plesk themselves don't.

That said, I still do a lot more administration at the command line than I do in the CP. That's just there for the other folks.

[Raphael]

Our hosting provider uses vDeck and I hate it, but then I'm a command-line kinda guy =)