What is the best way to setup a droplet for multiple websites with LAMP and a decent control panel?

December 7, 2015 3k views
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wayworksoperations
By:
wayworksoperations

Hi,

I am new to Digital Ocean droplets. I have set up a new droplet installing ubuntu 14.04, Apache, MySql and PHP 5. I have implemented SSH and set up a non root user.

I have followed the steps outlined by:
[https://www.digitalocean.com/community/tutorials/how-to-launch-your-site-on-a-new-ubuntu-14-04-server-with-lamp-sftp-and-dns]

I now think I may have jumped the gun in setting the droplet up in this way.

Right now I am looking to set the droplet up to host my own website and email addresses with relative ease. I will be looking to host further websites in the future as well as several small applications that will be run using LAMP.

My question is what is the best way to configure my droplet now so that I can host multiple websites and applications with separate email accounts with a relatively good user interface. I am switching from the hosting service hosting Ireland which uses cpanel.

While I know I can use the terminal and an SFTP client I would prefer to use a more user friendly interface. I am considering using VNC or sentora/ webmin for this but amn't sure if installing these after already installing LAMP is the way it should be done.

Any help or advice would be hugely appreciated.

Thanks in advance!

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1 Answer
caroseuk December 8, 2015

Hi there,

to me, this sounds like you want to set up a WHM (cPanel) or Plesk server so that you have host multiple sites with a nice user interface to manage it all from. If you are not that Linux savvy, I would advise you went for this route as most of the set up is automated and then you can manage it through the master WHM or Plesk login. Each website/account you then create can then have their own cPanel log in to manage their site/FTP accounts etc..

I believe WHM has a licence cost and depending on the amount of sites/traffic you are going to handle, you would need a moderately high spec droplet. I am not sure on the costs of Plesk.

More information can be found on the WHM/cPanel website - WHM / cPanel

If you are well versed with Linux then you could always go down the route of setting up Apache vHosts and configuring FTP/Email etc.. manually.

I hope this answers your questions.

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  • wayworksoperations December 17, 2015

    Thanks for the response!

    I have a look at a few of the options available and I think I'm going with Virtualmin and Webmin to avoid the license fees.

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