Build a VPS Host in 24 Hours: Configuring ISPConfig

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Once your new virtual machine is up and running, it's time to install something useful on it. We're going to be using the excellent ISPConfig 2.2 web hosting control panel to make the process of adding and managing websites easy. The project has a new release out (ISPConfig 3), but I still prefer 2.2; both are actively maintained, and will be for a long time.

Before you install ISPConfig, you'll need to follow Falko's excellent server preparation HOWTO, entitled The Perfect Server - Debian Lenny (Debian 5.0). I'm not going to duplicate his work in this tutorial; simply follow his instructions and you'll be ready to install the hosting control panel.

Once your server is prepared to accept ISPConfig, use wget as the root user on your VPS to download the software from the ISPConfig download page. Unpack the archive and follow the Installation Instructions for ISPConfig 2. The software will compile its own version of PHP, ClamAV, SpamAssassin, and other tools. This will take a while, with periodic prompting for information during the process. Brew a fresh pot of coffee and settle in; installation took about 45 minutes on my machine. Once it's done, you'll be able to log into ISPConfig. The first order of business will be to change the admininstrative password, as shown below.

Now we need to instruct ISPConfig to use maildirs for email.

Next we need to browse over to the the services control panel and turn on the firewall.

With the basics out of the way, it's time to create a test client. This client will be assigned a test site later.

Next, we're going to create a new website entry. This doesn't have to be a real domain; you can pick anything as long as you've set up your workstation's hosts file or your LAN's DNS to resolve the domain to your VPS. Use the test client from the previous step as the client, and make sure to specify the "Sites" folder to hold the new record.

Create an administrative user for the site and assign an email address to the account.

That's pretty much all there is to setting up a site in ISPConfig. You can log in via SSH to perform various tasks, such as installing a CMS package on your new site. Other services work the way you'd expect, including IMAP and POP3 over SSL. Enjoy your new virtual private server environment, and happy developing!