Enhance v12 Upcoming Release

cPFence

Hello Everyone,

We reached out to Enhance support, and they informed us that version 12.0.0 will bring some major changes, including a shift from Docker to systemd for services like orchd , MySQL/MariaDB, Apache, LiteSpeed, and NGINX. While these updates are exciting, we recommend that cPFence users hold off on upgrading to v12.0.0 until we release a new version of cPFence that’s fully compatible with these changes.

Since we don’t have early access to the new version, we’ll need to wait for the official release to start adapting cPFence. Rest assured, we’ll be working hard to make it compatible with the new architecture as soon as the new version is available.

We think these changes are a great improvement for the platform, with several potential benefits. By removing Docker’s overhead, the platform should see reduced memory usage, leading to improved performance and resource efficiency. The move to systemd will also likely make service management easier, as core services like orchd, web servers, and databases can be managed with systemctl commands instead of Docker commands (docker start, docker stop, etc.). This could also improve logging and monitoring, as logs and service statuses will be handled by systemd's journald, offering more centralized logging compared to Docker’s built-in system.

Overall, these changes make Enhance more adaptable to other Linux distributions and may improve performance by running services directly on the host machine. Feel free to share your thoughts about these changes.

Best wishes to the Enhance team and the community.

xyzulu

cPFence a shift from Docker to systemd for services like orchd , MySQL/MariaDB, Apache, LiteSpeed, and NGINX

While you may be correct, this is the first time I have heard something as clear as this. Is this exactly what Enhance said? While all Enhance documentation doesn't necessarily use the word "docker", it is implied with their heavy focus on containerisation.

If Enhance is dropping docker for the main services I would have expected a little more discussion from them. It may well be a learning curve for me as to how Enhance is interacting with the community/users etc however. We'll see.

Regarding the launch date, I don't disagree with what has been posted earlier, but the one feature promised in mid 2023 but not yet released is the ability to move the control panel server (redundancy of the control panel server). I sincerely hope that this feature is not delayed again.

josedieguez

hope they can launch v12 this month

enhost

josedieguez `honestly I don't have much hope since they still have not addressed changing the release date from 26th of August to September. Fingers crossed it really does come this time

cPFence

josedieguez hope they can launch v12 this month

Well, Adam mentioned they’re still 2-3 weeks away from the release. While this may frustrate some users, I understand the importance of thorough testing, which can take significant time and effort. This is one thing I appreciate about Enhance—they don't rush updates and ensure their software is well-tested before release. I do think it would be helpful if they shifted their roadmap to quarterly timeframes instead of specific dates, as exact dates can sometimes create confusion. Some users tend to skip the sentence, "The release dates are estimated and are subject to change," and go straight to the listed dates.

cPFence

enhost `honestly I don't have much hope since they still have not addressed changing the release date from 26th of August to September. Fingers crossed it really does come this time

It’s been updated for me for quite some time now. Maybe you're seeing a cached version?

enhost

It's totally fine if it needs longer, but they could tell us publicly so we can manage our expectations - or keep the roadmap updated so its not the day they say it will be out and it's suddenly pushed back a whole month.

DracoBlue

enhost I see that version 12.0.0 is a major milestone for the Enhance team. Once version 12.0.0 is released, the following versions will likely be released approximately on schedule.

Shaijee

I've never seen them release on time, so I doubt they'll succeed this time either.

That said, I understand if it takes more time for a better product. Still, I hope version 12 will be released within the next month, not too late.

Hope for the best, and best wishes to the Enhance Team.

cPFence

xyzulu While you may be correct, this is the first time I have heard something as clear as this. Is this exactly what Enhance said? While all Enhance documentation doesn't necessarily use the word "docker", it is implied with their heavy focus on containerisation.

If Enhance is dropping docker for the main services I would have expected a little more discussion from them. It may well be a learning curve for me as to how Enhance is interacting with the community/users etc however. We'll see.

Regarding the launch date, I don't disagree with what has been posted earlier, but the one feature promised in mid 2023 but not yet released is the ability to move the control panel server (redundancy of the control panel server). I sincerely hope that this feature is not delayed again.

Yes, the web servers and database servers have been moved to systemd. orchd has also transitioned to systemd, so there’s no longer a Docker container for it, starting from version 12.0.0 or 12.1.0, according to Adam. I’m not certain about other Docker containers, but you could reach out to Adam for more details.

Regarding the long-awaited feature allowing the control panel server to be moved, I completely agree. We all need this functionality, but it seems clear why it's been delayed in the past — you can't implement a feature like this while you have major changes pending. According to the roadmap, this feature should be part of version 12.

JohnB

cPFence Yes, the web servers and database servers have been moved to systemd. orchd has also transitioned to systemd, so there’s no longer a Docker container for it, starting from version 12.0.0 or 12.1.0, according to Adam. I’m not certain about other Docker containers, but you could reach out to Adam for more details.

But I thought a major selling point and how its worded on the site is that "we put each site in its own container so its super secure and awesome"

How is it a container if docker isn't being used? This should have been communicated MONTHS out as some, such as myself, liked the use of docker for many reasons. I know you can have properly isolated sites and users without docker but its one more layer of protection and MUCH harder to mess up isolation.

Enhance has said many times that their use of docker has almost no overhead compared to no docker so why drop it?

@Adam can you weigh in on this?

PDudeP

I'm using cPFence on 7 of my main servers, for a few weeks now.
I have to say I'm very pleased with it. No problems at all.

On one email server I have around 300GB of emails, and it continues to find emails "here and there" with malware, and moving them to quarentine.
I'm not sure if all of those are real "bad" emails, because I haven't check them all, but the ones I did I was glad they were quarantined. Most important is absolutely no complains from customers.

I have a personal (of mine) email account that I use to register everywhere for non important things, and that account receives lots of SPAM. For that account only, a few days ago, it detected 2400 infected emails! WOW.

I actually like the fact that cPFence doesn't have a GUI/dashboard.
But, in this case, when lots of emails are quarantined, it would be handy.
I opted for the auto-quarantine feature, and I feel comfortable with it.

This is just my small (and humble) review.
Cheers,
Luis

cPFence

PDudeP

Hi Luis,

Thank you for sharing your experience with cPFence. I’m really glad to hear it’s working well for you, and that the auto-quarantine feature is keeping things under control without any customer complaints. It's great to know that even with large volumes of emails, cPFence is doing its job.

If you ever need any assistance or have a feature request , don’t hesitate to reach out. Your feedback is always appreciated.

PDudeP

I forgot to say most of the servers have many, many thousands of blocked attacks (Web, DDoS, IPDB, WAF).

Regarding update to 12.0.0, thanks for the advice.
I'll definitely wait for cPFence update.

cPFence

JohnB But I thought a major selling point and how its worded on the site is that "we put each site in its own container so its super secure and awesome"

How is it a container if docker isn't being used? This should have been communicated MONTHS out as some, such as myself, liked the use of docker for many reasons. I know you can have properly isolated sites and users without docker but its one more layer of protection and MUCH harder to mess up isolation.

Hi JohnB,

To clarify, sites are still containerized natively using namespaces and cgroups (similar to CloudLinux—not exactly the same, but the same idea). Enhance has never used Docker for site containers, which is a big plus, by the way. What’s been moved from Docker to systemd are the services like web servers (Apache, NGINX, LiteSpeed), databases, and orchd.

Personally, I wasn’t a fan of having these core services in Docker , as it tends to use more RAM and makes logging difficult to manage. With systemd, service management is much easier and more efficient.

In my opinion, this update is very clever because it gives you the best of both worlds: you still have sites fully isolated and containerized, but the core services now run directly on the host. This means less RAM usage, better logging (which is a weak point in Enhance currently, but I think this update will address it), and easier management with systemd.

Vendoz

cPFence Sites aren't containerized (they use namespaces and cgroups), and you're saying that major services will not use docker anymore (apache, litespeed, mysql, etc).

So, what will use docker exactly? What will be containerized? I don't get the point when you say "it gives you the best of both worlds", what from docker world at this point? For me docker was a big plus and it was a bit bitter to see that the sites are not actually containerized with docker, now you tell me that they will still remove docker for other services...

ivansalloum

Vendoz The sites are natively containerized through Enhance and not using docker.

Vendoz

ivansalloum "natively containerized through Enhance" is by using namespaces and cgroups which are used for isolation and resource management, but not by using a container platform like docker. They are "isolated" more than "containerized".

SharedGrid

It seems as though there has been a bit of a misunderstanding how Enhance implements Docker. Enhance has never used Docker containers to run each website in its own Docker container - if it did you would have ran out of server resources ages ago. Enhance used Docker to deploy its services, such as Apache/Nginx/OLS/Litespeed, Database, etc - that was all.

The websites are containerised using Namespaces, cgroups and probably some sort of filesystem layering (I haven't looked that deep to be honest) which is containerisation. If you don't think Namespaces is containerisation then I have bad news for you because Docker itself utilises Namespaces to provide separation between containers, and cgroups, and filesystem layering.

ivansalloum

SharedGrid Well explained.

Vendoz

SharedGrid You have right, and you have right above all when you talk about resources, but it's different to have 1 apache service, or 1 apache in every container. What i'm saying is that if you say that the website are "containerized", 99/100 will think about 1 container per website, with software like docker, but enhance don't do this, so i'm just saying that, as JohnB said, is a bit misleading. The result is fine and i'm not complaining, but they are not the same thing.

cPFence

SharedGrid if it did you would have ran out of server resources ages ago

Exactly, imagine a box running 400-800 Docker containers!

Vendoz You have right, and you have right above all when you talk about resources, but it's different to have 1 apache service, or 1 apache in every container. What i'm saying is that if you say that the website are "containerized", 99/100 will think about 1 container per website, with software like docker, but enhance don't do this, so i'm just saying that, as JohnB said, is a bit misleading. The result is fine and i'm not complaining, but they are not the same thing.

You're right that when people hear "containerized," they often think of tools like Docker. However, Enhance currently runs Apache and other core services in separate containers. In the next release (around v12), these services will be managed by systemd instead of Docker. In practice, nothing will change in terms of how services are isolated.

For site isolation and security, sites will remain fully isolated using the same native methods such as namespaces and cgroups. The switch to systemd only impacts how core services are managed and could bring advantages like easier management and potentially lower RAM usage.