Does the panel server requires any additional role installed?

titodj

So I'm working on my new cluster

VPS just for the panel
Dedicated server for websites
VPS with storage slice for backups.

My question is, do I need to install any role on the panel VPS?

Or just install DNS, DB, and Mail in the hosting server?

twest

I don't like having any role on my control panel server cuz I want to keep it fully dedicated just for customer access/use. I might have 5000 customers using it someday, don't need it bogged down.

Depending on your use case and size, you certainly can use it for additional roles, not.gonna cause any real issues. And it's not like you can't remove the roles in the future if you change your mind.

twest

I would also warn against having one single dedicated DB server. It seems to be a popular concept among some ppl, but I really don't like it for some important reasons =

If you have 1 DB server and multiple app servers, and the 1 DB server goes down, then so do all your app servers.
The latency between app servers and DB server will be MUCH worse than if you had the app and DB role contained on each server together.

Either one of those would be a deal breaker for me, but both being the case is like, yikes, no thanks. I put app and db on the same server by themselves so people's websites (accounts) can be fully contained and running on the one server. It's more fault tolerant in a cluster scenario and best latency.

twest

A proper server cluster should look like:
1 server for control panel.
1 server for email (if you're going to run the email at all).
1 server for backups.
2 servers for DNS.
X servers for hosting sites, needs db + app roles.

In a month or two you can have 2 control panel servers, one for backup which you would host at a different datacenter along with the backups server for ultimate redundancy.

I would also recommend an additional hosting server fully setup and ready to go with db/app roles (but placement disabled), to use as a standby server for disaster recovery purposes (one of your hosting servers takes a shit, you need to restore it to the standby server from the backups, bingo bongo).

If you're starting up a server to use in a business setting, like selling hosting to people, then this is the kind of setup you should be running. It gives you added protections for potential disaster scenarios.

Of course, you can not-use the DNS service in enhance and opt for something like Cloudflare. That's what I do. You could also not run the email service, I don't because email service is its own huge can of worms and it's a shitton of work to stay knowledgeable on email service management and support. I actually run a dedicated email node via cpanel's mail node, but I give it to clients as a "free service with extremely limited support". I'm not helping people figure out their iPhone settings all day. If people need a basic email forward for their domain, Cloudflare does that free and easy. If people need a full mailbox for sending professional business mail, they should really be on Google Workspaces or equivalent.

titodj

twest Thank you again for your help.

No I don't plan to use email "much", just for registration and password recovery etc, so I guess a dedicated server would be an overkill,

No I don't plan to provide hosting services, I have a restaurant menu SAAS and a CRM SAAS, that I plan to host, and I like your idea on a server on stand by for recovery if necessary.

I have a couple of websites (currently hosted under plesk, that I will eventually migrate to enhance but I don't think I will have more that 30 websites running at any time but I like your idea of redundancy.

I need to figure out how to have 2 DNS roles in different servers resolving the same, but I guess with some reading and time I will eventually understand.

BTW I did what you suggested, and worked fine it took me a while figure that I needed the website ID to reach the directory.
Now I have the backup ready and I'm working on the new cluster.

bgeek

twest Hey, I have a question regarding the Cloudflare setting, and would like to hear your suggestion.

Do you set the Cloudflare API in the panel server, so every client would use your Cloudflare account for binding their DNS, or do you suggest every client integrate their own Cloudflare API in their client area?

twest

titodj ah yeah that's a pretty simple setup need. I'd probably just go with something like:

Datacenter 1:
VPS server with control panel, DNS, email, backups roles.

Datacenter 2:
VPS or dedi with app/db roles to use for actual hosting, plus your 2nd DNS role (for dual/redundant DNS, if you plan to host your own DNS/nameservers).

Since you aren't planning to have a ton of users logging into the control panel, it doesn't really need to be dedicated to just being a control panel, it'd be fine to run multiple services off it. To run the backups role it will need a second storage attached to it, which should be fine if you're using one of the big VPS providers where adding additional storage blocks is simple.

When the secondary control panel role becomes available soon, then you could add that role to the datacenter 2 server as well. This 2-server setup has redundancy built in for pretty much any scenario = if the main control panel server dies then you can assign the secondary to take over at datacenter 2. If the main hosting server at dc2 dies you can easily restore it from dc1 servers backups (having it at dc1 means even if the entire datacenter at dc2 dies, you're good). It's a very safe setup.

That's what I'd do for that kind of simple setup. Instead of spending extra $ on a bunch of servers for the full cluster, you can just put the extra $ into making those two multi-role servers extra ram/cpu instead.

It's great how Enhance can be deployed in so many different ways to optimize for different needs, adding redundancy and scaling features really easily... However you decide to build it out I'm sure it will be great for your use, have fun 🙂

twest

bgeek either way is fine. When onboarding new clients part of our standard procedure is to set them up on Cloudflare. Sometimes clients have one already so we can just get added as a member, other times we'll create a new account for them using a catchall email of ours, other times we'll add them to our own accounts. Really kind of just depends on who is doing the onboarding at the time and client preference. But definitely always get Cloudflare squared away as part of onboarding, every time.

The Cloudflare api in enhance is a must. That will make disaster recovery a lot more automated when we don't have to manually touch any DNS configs.

bgeek

twest Thank you very much for your info! Yes, Cloudflare(or else the own DNS role) is a must.