General FAQ
What services are supported by VHFFS ?
VHFFS supports hosting for websites, MySQL and PostgreSQL databases, CVS, Subversion, DNS, Mail, Mailing-list and file sharing (with ftp or p2p like bittorent).
What is the general design of VHFFS ? How VHFFS create services ?
The web-based application to ask for a service is the panel. The panel is the main web-application for users to subscribe, create groups or services request. When the service is confirmed, VHFFS need to create it on the host. Typically, for a new website request, we need to create a directory to get the website's file. Or, for a new MySQL database, VHFFS need to create a new MySQL user and database. All those systems operation are made by robots.
Robots are programs that look database and create services or modify them if needed. They can do maintainance operations too. In fact, user and administrator of the platform can change the database and the robots update services on your machine according to the databases data. For example, when a user subscribe, a new user is created in the database, and is flagged as Waiting for creation. When robots are called, they look at the user's data and see that a user must be created. Then, they create his directory, change permissions on it and send a mail to the user to give him his password.
Robots must be called very often. Most of the time, they are called every 10 minutes, to have a good reactivity.
What OS runs VHFFS ?
In fact, all unix systems can run VHFFS. However, VHFFS depends of some software which is not available on some unix. To resume, it works on all Linux systems, have great chances to work on BSD and work partially on Mac OS X.
For Linux systems, VHFFS was developped on Debian and work perfectly on this distribution. However, it works on Fedora or Mandriva too.
Is Windows supported for VHFFS ?
No, and VHFFS will not be WindowsXP compliant. In fact, Windows XP was not designed to run hosting software, it's just a client, to run games or internet applications. You can wonder if VHFFS will run on Windows 2003, which is one server-version of Windows. VHFFS could work on Windows 2003 Server, but we think it's not its philosophy. In fact, VHFFS needs known free-softwares like Apache2, but the webserver designed for Windows 2003 is IIS and it's impossible to modify it to get a functionnal webserver for VHFFS.
We think it's better to support a sort of systems. So, VHFFS only work on *NIX systems. And works as good as it can.
I often see the word "panel". What it is exactly ?
The panel is the web-interface of VHFFS. It is a shared-interface for users and administrators to manage services and account. This panel is fully customisable, you can change colors, images, etc …
Is there other way to manage users ?
Of course ! In fact, VHFFS have a common API which can be used for other programs. Users and services can be managed by the vhffs-tools (command-line programs). But you can easily make your own programs to manage exactly what you want. For information, some people made an IRC bot to manage requests from users.
I know mailman, sympa, but I never heard about listengine. What is it exactly ?
Listengine is the mailing-list system for VHFFS. In fact, commons mailing-list program are not easy to configure lists with many domains. Listengine can be use for several lists and domains. It allows your users to have a list on his own domain and not only on lists.myhost.com.
Can I run VHFFS on more than one host ?
Of course, VHFFS was designed for it ! You can use several machines and use VHFFS. Only one constraint : the VHFFS database (PostgreSQL server) must be available to all hosts. But VHFFS can be used on a single host too, it is not a problem.
What are the requirements to run VHFFS on a single-host ?
It depends on the number of users and the websites traffic. Generally, a little P-III 1Ghz with 512 Mo of memory can run VHFFS with Apache2, MySQL, PostgreSQL, DNS, Mail and Mailing.
I have a single computer, what is the best way to get a fully-working hosting-system ?
The best solution consist in using Xen. You can create several virtual-computers on your real one. So, you can create one virtual-computer for the VHFFS-database and the panel, and another virtual-computer for the services.
Why did you make a new list-manager ? There already are some working list managers !
In fact, existing list-managers does not handle virtualhost. For example, I have 1000 users, and each users have a domain name. With most of list managers, I couldn't propose hosted-list on each domain, I could only use one domain. Most of the time, hosting services propose a domain like lists.myhostingservice.tld.
Listengine works with the domain of hosted people. If the user foo have the domain foo.com, he will be able to create mylist@foo.com and user bar will be able to create mylist@bar.com.
Actually, listengine matches with VHFFS needs. More, this software is internationalized.
