CloudPanel: A new site management experience

CloudPanel is a free hosting control panel. It is easy to install. And supports websites powered by: MariaDB, Nginx, Varnish, Node.js, PHP and Python. It is an ideal CloudPanel for a simple static html website. But a more complex one on PHP or Node.js with databases, will also be easy to set up.

It can accommodate such a wide scale of websites. Is ideal to house everything around one server. No separate containers at several providers. But everything under one roof.

The control panel is a Debian-based project and comes in the flavors Debian and Ubuntu (a Linux distribution based on Debian). Subdivided into: Debian 11 LTS and Ubuntu 22.04 LTS. Followed another extra option for: MySQL 8.0, MySQL 5.7, MariaDB 10.11, MariaDB 10.9, MariaDB 10.8, MariaDB 10.7 or MariaDB 10.6.

For the quick decision maker with little time, there are pre-configured templates. So that a website is online within only minutes of time. Some of the 30 well-known software templates are: Drupal, Joomla, Laravel, Magento, Nextcloud, Symfony and Wordpress. This example assumes Debian based on MariaDB.

CloudPanel on Debian

CloudPanel installs easily on Debian with a few short commands.

• Deploy and manage your server or VPS server.
  With the following minimum requirements:
  1 Core
  2 GB of Memory
  10 GB Disk Space
• Login into the SSH console.
• Debloat Debian and uninstall unwanted programs and services.
  This depends on which way the vendor delivers Debian to the server.
• For our server, the following applies: apt remove unattended-upgrades packagekit*.
• Automatically installing updates (unattended-upgrades), unmanaged on a local server. Is not suitable for enterprise servers as far as we are concerned. There are better management solutions to manage (enhancement, security) updates centrally. Should there be a desire for that.
  
  Packagekit is a software package management system for a command line server. Multiple programs providing the same functionality. Is quite unnecessary and could bring several risks in terms of vulnerabilities and exposures. Apt already handles this properly already. It additionally installs extra dependencies. Redundant dependencies are neither necessary nor desirable.
• Command: systemd-analyze blame
  Checks whether any additional redundant software or service is running.
• Update the cleaned Debian server: sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade && sudo apt dist-upgrade
• sudo apt autoremove
• Uninstalls any unnecessary programs after the update. The system will automatically point them out. Should this be applicable.
• Reboot the server.
• SSH login to the server on the console
• Install CloudPanel: curl -sS https://installer.cloudpanel.io/ce/v2/install.sh -o install.sh; \ echo "* install.sh" | \sha256sum -c && sudo CLOUD=hetzner DB_ENGINE=MARIADB_10.9 bash install.sh
  Where "*" is the generated code. A unique key will be created through the installation website.
• The IP address of a server will be displayed at the end of the installation: "CloudPanel can be accessed now:".
• Browse to CloudPanel at: https://youripaddress:8443
• Configure the desired: First Name, Last Name, User Name, E-mail, Password, and Timezone.
• Login to the server on the web-console.
• Navigate to the Admin Area. Settings and CloudPanel Custom Domain to setup the Let's Encrypt Certificate and custom domain. Keep in mind that the domain should be previously configured as a DNS A and possibly AAAA record.
• Done!

Resuming

The Debian based CloudPanel server is now ready to start serving websites.
Add websites as you wish. Also curious about the uptime of the server you just installed? With Uptime Kuma as an additional software feature, you can track the server performance from minute to minute.