Future Dedicated/Virtual Private Servers?

[codejp3]

Quick question.

Any plans to integrate VPS/Dedicated servers into HestiaCP?

I’m specifically asking about the ability for user accounts to be able to choose between:
1.) Standard Hosting via Hestia
2.) Spin-up a VPS container
3.) Create/launch a “dedicated” VM

If not, are there any objections to me pursuing something like this? Or is there any preferred way to go about it?

I ask because I’ve already successfully installed HestiaCP on top of Proxmox VE on the same machine to act as the Hypervisor/WHM and I’m currently working on shell scripts that Hestia can use to interact with Proxmox VM/CT creation/deletion/start/stop.

My goal is to create a suitable replacement for cPanel/WHM & Webmin/Virtualmin.

Basic CLI functions are working, but I haven’t added anything to the HestiaCP web interface yet.

I don’t want to duplicate work/effort, and I don’t want to push something that the HestaiCP team has no plans to ever implement.

Where does the HestiaCP team stand on this?

[eris]

No it will never been added. Hestia is currently installed on 90% VPS servers it self.

For security reasons I would personally never do install Proxmox and Hestia on the same server.

If I needed such feature I would personally look in a way as WHMCS alternative that can do issuing “Hosting accounts” on a HestiaCP server. Issue VMS via proxmox and so and build from there.

Currently Hesita is nothing more then a very small team who want to develop the best panel for web hosting that is possible. But we already have not enough time to implement basic functions such as ipv6.

[codejp3]

Perfect answer. Exactly what I was expecting. HestiaCP is rock-solid, thanks to the focus of the Hestia team. I’m an old Vesta user, and I think one of the reasons it fell apart is because they spread themselves too thin with “extras” instead of focusing on the core. I would not want that to happen to Hestia.

You don’t have to reply if you don’t know specifics, but I’m curious about the security concerns blending Hestia/Proxmox. From what I’ve seen so far, Hestia user accounts are working fine with Proxmox authentication and access controls so that each user can only see/create/delete/start/stop their own VMs/CTs. I set it up so that only root can access the PMX GUI, and all other users can only use the shell scripts I wrote to interact with PMX according to their individual PMX permissions. Working great with linux PAM auth, but haven’t tried LDAP or other methods yet.

PMX is not a requirement for the virtualization features. I’ve also considered using the native debian/ubuntu virt packages (like virtualmin does). Integration would be a lot easier. The difference is PMX has a lot of very useful features built-in that could be leveraged, like high-availability, live migrations, built-in robust access controls, and so on.

What I’m aiming for is something like:
1.) Account Management/Billing (Blesta looks promising)
2.) Web Hosting (Hestia)
3.) Virtualization (PMX or native packages, and possibly Docker)

I am striving to stay away from WHMCS, or anything owned by WebPros for that matter. I want it to be a “budget-friendly” alternative. There doesn’t seem to be any good options using Hestia from what I’ve seen. Not your fault, and not complaining, but this is a void in my personal hosting/development environment that I want to find/make a solution for.

I have no desire to start a new fork of Hestia, and I also don’t want to distract the Hestia team from your focus on the awesome rock-solid backbone. With that said, are there issues/concerns with me pursuing this separately, as an un-related “add-on” or “wrapper” for HestiaCP?

Basically, Hestia stays as it is, and you guys stay focused on the awesome backbone, and anyone else interested in these kind of things could “expand” the capabilities of Hestia with “experimental” features like this (non-production environments of course).

Thanks again for the input. You guys rock!

[eris]

Hestia runs with quite relax “admin” permissions (Inherented from VestaCP) and if “Hestia has accidentally an security breach bad things can happen” It makes sense to not mix tasks between 1 server.

If you want go with that route consider setting up Blesta / WHCMS / Other billing system. A open source alternative is Boxbilling but it is still in a buggy state. Issue is that opensource development is expansive if it is not used by the developers self it probably won’t get added.

Depending on the system it might all ready have the plugins available what you need and allow restarting / start /stopping.

Hestia is a great tool but it has its limitations and we should focus first on the “core” instead expanding to unknown territories.

[codejp3]

@eris

It makes sense to not mix tasks between 1 server.

Understood. Makes sense.

I will look into your suggestions.

My question still remains about if there are any issues/concerns with me pursuing an “experimental addons” for Hestia separately and unrelated to Hestia? Hestia team stays focused on the core, and I’ll focus on “unknown territories”.

I ask because aside from virtualization mentioned in this topic, I also have several other Hestia-specific customizations I’ve made for personal use that I’m quite sure others would be interested in too. I know others have their own customizations as well. To me, it makes sense to have a separate, unrelated platform to test/develop “unknown territories”. As features get refined and become stable, they could then easily be integrated into Hestia core with the bugs already worked out (assuming that the Hestia team would use those features themselves, and wants them in the core/stable Hestia release…completely the Hestia team’s decision).

Thanks again! I promise I’ll stop bugging you after this one

[eris]

It is open source…

I can only warn you about the risks…

[codejp3]

Open source or not, you guys are doing it right and doing an excellent job. I don’t want to do ANYTHING that would offend you, slow you down, or add complications.

…now as promised