In our list of available Images on Clouding you have available an image with a control panel Open source for web page management called HestiaCP. With the latest LTS version of Ubuntu Server, it is an improved fork of VestaCP and receives more updates.
Among the features of HestiaCP is the option to manage web spaces, choose between different versions of PHP,FTP,DNS, mail server, databases, local and remote backups.
In addition, it comes configured with Apache2 and Nginx as a proxy, which makes websites load much faster. It also includes the option to add free SSL certificates thanks to Let's Encrypt automatically.
When you create a new machine with HestiaCP, you should keep in mind that the server is almost instant, but it will take around 15 minutes to install all the panel components. So at the time of receiving the email with the server password, you still won’t be able to access the panel from the browser.
After a few minutes of installing the HestiaCP panel, you will be able to access our HestiaCP from a browser by entering the server's IP along with port 8083.
It is important that after installing HestiaCP, you follow the next steps to avoid future issues.
Change Admin Account Email
The first thing you need to do is modify the email of the admin account. By default, it is admin@changeme.local and this email does not exist; it is a sample. What you need to do is add your email to avoid issues with Let's Encrypt and to receive notifications from the panel.
To change it, click on Edit User (Pencil) within the panel:
Then you will need to change the email to a valid one:
Change Server Hostname
Another thing you will need to modify is the hostname of the server. This will avoid SPAM issues since the default server name does not exist either, and if emails are sent with this hostname, they will likely be flagged as SPAM.
Click on Server (Gear) in the upper left part of the panel:
Then click on Configure:
Here you will change the Server Name (Hostname) by expanding the basic options section to a domain name that exists on the server and has a DNS record for it:
Backup Configuration
Another important thing to configure is the Backups: if you create a server with HestiaCP with 10GB of SSD disk space, it is very likely that the automatically generated backups will fill up the disk, causing issues to log in and other inconveniences.
If you wish to disable backups, you need to check "No" in Local Backup in the Backup options section of the previously mentioned server. You can also configure it to automate a remote backup via FTP, SFTP, or with the Backblaze provider:
To configure backup retention, you need to create a new plan from the Users section:
Then add a new plan or copy the default one to edit it. In this example, we add a new one, specify the desired values, and in the Backup section to indicate the number of retained copies:
Afterward, create a new user:
And assign the created plan from its corresponding section:
Additionally, if you go to the Cron section, you can suspend or configure the task "/usr/local/hestia/bin/v-backups-users" which performs a daily backup of users. By default, this can reach a considerable size depending on the stored data each user has in the panel.
For this reason, it is advisable to adapt it to the requirements and resources or configure when you want it to be done:
If you have any questions about HestiaCP or any other issue related to your cloud servers, write to us at support@clouding.io