thoughts of a new user...

nhybgtvfr

been testing out this panel for a couple of weeks.. just to see what it's got..

there's some nice features... i like being able to run incremental backups, and especially run them several times a day.
most panels offer at most a full daily backup
moving sites between servers.. this panel provides the easiest method i've seen yet.
easily switch a webserver between apache/nginx/ls/ols. nice. not seen this anywhere else that doesn't require a lot of work.
the interface is modern looking, nice and clean.

some bits that could be improved a little...
the 'your account setup' banner.. can this be permanently disabled, even when all 7 steps are done, and i've marked all as completed, the next time i login, there it is again.. that's ok if there are steps left, but if i've marked them all as completed i never want to see this banner again. it's a very minor issue, but it is annoying.

the dns for service websites..
when setting up a hosting system, i'll have a domain, mydomain.com, most likely i'll have a website on (www.)mydomain.com, and have the service websites on mypanel.mydomain.com, dbadmin.mydomain.com, and webmail.mydomain.com
i'd expect the A records for all these to be in the mydomain.com dns zone, not for each subdomain have it's own dns zone.
In all the years i've used dns, i've never seen it actually done this way.. it's confusing, but the dns spec does allow for this, so ok.. i still think it would be better all in a single zone for the main domain, but i can live with it as it is.
but to also create the imap/pop/smtp cnames pointing to mail.<subdomain>.mydomain.com, that's just wrong to me.. if they're going to exist (personally, i don't think they should exist), but i they do they should point directly to mail.mydomain.com

also, it took a while, as a new user to locate where the dns records are set, under websites - <website> - domains is not obvious.. just does not seem the right place to me.

in my opinion, websites, emails, dns, and domains should be listed and be able to work completely separately.
a customer can own a domain and not bother with website, dns, or email, just leave it parked.
or have a domain and just use the dns service, no website or email, or have the site/mail hosted elsewhere.
or a customer might just want email hosting ..
it shouldn't be required that the system creates a website.
domain ownership, dns, email and website are separate services, they can all be included in one package, but it should also be possible to create a package that only includes any one (or more) of those services.

also, for dns.. if i have a control panel server, two separate dns servers, and multiple webservers (not running dns).
then the dns zones should exist, in their entirety, on the dns servers. if one of the webservers happens to be offline for some reason, it should not be impossible to edit the dns records for a domain whose website is on that webserver from the panel interface. dns record editing should never be reliant on the state of that domains webserver

Kosta

nhybgtvfr nice one,
@Aliysa_Enhance

cosmoshosting

Welcome to Enhance and thanks for exploring the panel.

The interface certainly does have a few rough edges that are slowly getting there.
@Aliysa_Enhance: Please Please Please get this banner issue pushed to the top. At this rate it's hard to know what will be released first, Epstein's list, GTA 6 or a fix for this damn banner!

"when setting up a hosting system, i'll have a domain, mydomain.com, most likely i'll have a website on (www.)mydomain.com"
It's an interesting argument. I am fully on the belief on 'www' just being a redirect in the 21st centaury for 99% of cases. Agree that all the DNS records for the domain should be under the same zone for normal use. I have not experienced that behavior before unless you have taken a wrong turn and added subdomains instead of individual dns records which I suspect may have happened. There are valid cases for the later but are even more exceptionally rare.

"in my opinion, websites, emails, dns, and domains should be listed and be able to work completely separately.
a customer can own a domain and not bother with website, dns, or email, just leave it parked."

I'd disagree, if the customer wants to park domains they can keep it under WHMCS or Blesta. Enhance is a hosting control panel and the services should be tied together for each 'website' hosting package under a domain across the entire cluster. You can already turn on/off features based on the plans you create to limit functionality.

"if one of the webservers happens to be offline for some reason, it should not be impossible to edit the dns records for a domain whose website is on that webserver"
In a utopia maybe, but in reality as a hosting provider your focus should be getting the Webserver back up or restoring it and not have people making changes to things. In fact I'll say GOOD, I don't want customers making changes to DNS records if I am potentially restoring DR backups.
The main thing is DNS is still working, the customers can add the records later. Web servers dropping off should be rare.

nhybgtvfr

cosmoshosting

cosmoshosting "when setting up a hosting system, i'll have a domain, mydomain.com, most likely i'll have a website on (www.)mydomain.com"
It's an interesting argument. I am fully on the belief on 'www' just being a redirect in the 21st centaury for 99% of cases. Agree that all the DNS records for the domain should be under the same zone for normal use. I have not experienced that behavior before unless you have taken a wrong turn and added subdomains instead of individual dns records which I suspect may have happened. There are valid cases for the later but are even more exceptionally rare.

i just installed the enhance panel, went into admin, created my own site (mydomain.com) and then in the platform domains settings set the platform domains as myaccount.mydomain.com, dbadmin.mydomain.com and webmail.mydomain.com respectively. the system then created separate dns zones for each subdomain and created the all the dns records in each zone including the cnames pointing the target mail.<subdomain>.mydomain.com

cosmoshosting "if one of the webservers happens to be offline for some reason, it should not be impossible to edit the dns records for a domain whose website is on that webserver"
In a utopia maybe, but in reality as a hosting provider your focus should be getting the Webserver back up or restoring it and not have people making changes to things. In fact I'll say GOOD, I don't want customers making changes to DNS records if I am potentially restoring DR backups.
The main thing is DNS is still working, the customers can add the records later. Web servers dropping off should be rare.

i would be focusing on getting the webserver up, but there's many reasons it could be down.. maybe it's a dedicated physical server, with an rtx5090 because the client is running a local llm in his site, and the rtx card melted... maybe it's gonna take at least a week to get a replacement card.. but he wants to start using mailchimp now and needs to create dns records.
maybe a customer only uses dns. he uses google workspace for mail, and wants to switch to outlook365, he needs to validate his domain, create various mx, txt, srv records etc. but he can't because the system forces him to have a website area, even though he doesn't need one ( and even previously deleted the A records, to ensure no one can visit the blank website space) and that webserver is down.. external email, dedicated dns servers, but can't change dns records because a webserver he doesn't even need or want or actively use is down.. that is unacceptable.
i saw on another post here, someone else was told the source of 'absolute truth' for dns is the webserver.
that is just wrong.. the source of absolute truth for dns should always be the dns server.
for editing dns records, the working state of the webserver should be irrelevant.