Evaluating switching to Enhance - Lots of questions - Enhance Control Panel

Evaluating switching to Enhance - Lots of questions

matrix

Hello,
I'm trying to understand how everything works before migrating to enhance.
The docs aren't totally clear in some parts, and old forum posts not always have a followup on resolved issues, so here I am for some quick questions.

1) Can I add multiple server with backup and mailserver role (separately)?

For example, if I add 5 servers with mailserver roles, can I choose which domain use a specific mailserver? Or are they added like secondary/tertiarty/etc mailserver?
I need to separate domains mailservers on different servers. Each customer needs it's own mailserver. For example when selling a dedicated mailserver only service.
Is this possible with enhance?

About the backup ones instead. Can I add multiple backup role servers and have the backups made simultaneously in multiple remote locations? Or do I have to take care about copying the backups to different locations?
Also the backup process used my enhance uses local space before uplaoding backups to backup role? Do I need double the webspace used on the webserver role to make them? Or does it uploads the data directly without writing on the webserver role?

2) I've read on the forums that using separate mailserver role (rather than web+mail together) makes the quota check not calculating the mail used space. Is that still a thing on the latest version?

3) I've read on the forums that enhance expect EXT4 as fs to work better. Is XFS still problematic? I'm used to setup DB server as XFS for performance. But if that will get me into trouble i'll just switch everythign to EXT4.

4) Is there anything specific that I should now as a new user? I mean something that is common mistake when starting using enhance and I will regret later? My use case is managing individual VPS from a single point, each customer has its own VPS. I'm thinking to move big dedicated server with plesk and dozen of users on them to single VPS istances for each user for the db/web role + a few separated mailserver istances to host their mail (hence the question above).

5) Does the Apache+Nginx web role supports HTTP3? Or I'm force to OLS/LS? Latest nginx does, not sure it's already setup for that on enhance.

That's all for now I think. If I have some more questions I'll add them later 😃
Thanks

rdbf

matrix So If i get it correctly, I can have multiple backup server, but I can only associate one for each webhosting plan/domain. So I have to replicate everything on a second host manually.

Correct. But the replicated backups on other backup role servers won't be used by the system, it will only backup/restore to/from the server that has the backup role defined for the website by the control panel. So why you 'have' to replicate isn't clear to me.

matrix Can you tell me what technology does it uses for backup? ..... Also can I setup a specific backup time?

The Enhance software runs rsync via an SSH tunnel to/from the backup server, you can see the exact command and arguments when it runs, via something like HTOP. The control panel allows you to set retention, allowed times and intervals. It deduplicates by creating 'snapshots' using hardlinks.

matrix About HTTP3 I use Litespeed enterprise on Plesk. But if I split 40 customers to 40 VPS isntances the costs of LSE becomes insane

As mentioned above, many people use OLS. It's not a perfect implementation in Enhance, but good enough for a wide range of companies.

matrix The thing that Enhance doesn't support Apache+Nginx is a big problem for me right now

You pick one webserver which does everything, so choose wisely.

matrix Does the Apache+Nginx web role supports HTTP3? Or I'm force to OLS/LS? Latest nginx does, not sure it's already setup for that on enhance.

On Enhance, OLS and LS support HTTP3. Apache does not. Nginx is built with HTTP3 support, but the Enhance config doesn't use it, but you could make it work if you modify the config. I've seen and measured a lot of variation in performance of HTTP3, ranging from HTTP3 being slightly better to being much much worse on OLS/Nginx, depending on VPS/server/datacenter, type of traffic and client internet connection, so thorough performance testing is a must if you want to rely on it.

HTTP3 is amazing the way it's implemented by Cloudflare, Google, Netflix etc, but when it comes to 'retail' implementations like OLS/Nginx/LS/Apache it's very much béta at best. The Ubuntu 24.04 repository Nginx doesn't even have HTTP3 yet, the latest mainline (which you can't use on Enhance) has experimental support, OpenSSL libraries are massively lagging on QUIC implementation, so I reckon for small hosts like most here proper HTTP3 is years away.

bluelinq-computers

matrix Regarding your 3rd question:

3) I've read on the forums that enhance expect EXT4 as fs to work better. Is XFS still problematic? I'm used to setup DB server as XFS for performance. But if that will get me into trouble i'll just switch everythign to EXT4.

I'm ngl, I've encountered some oddities with XFS and Enhance. It is technically possible, and I have done it, but given my experience with XFS & Enhance, I've moved to EXT4 for now.

shahed

matrix I've read on the forums that using separate mailserver role (rather than web+mail together) makes the quota check not calculating the mail used space. Is that still a thing on the latest version?

As far as I can remember, if you use fixed sized mailbox account, quota will be applied. Incoming mails will be rejected when the mailbox is full.

JohnB

#4. Start testing these things and create a few test sites as a customer and manage them as an admin. Get email actually working with a test domain with DKIM and SPF etc setup. Set quotas and try to exceed them. Actually make changes to the sites, use backups, test disaster recovery (as in entire customer VPS is lost. VPS provider snapshots/backups are not trustworthy backups)

Test Nginx vs OLS. Test optimizing the servers for best site performance. Stress test.

I'd also recommend testing making and restoring a backup of Enhance backup server. Ie if the Enhance backup server is lost how do you handle it.

matrix

JohnB AFAIK there is no way to test it without buying, is that correct? Otherwise I would have already done it by now.

webdig

Hi Matrix,

welcome to Enhance! I had the exact same questions when I started — in my case I didn’t even say hello, I just jumped in and started exploring. And honestly, I’m glad I did.

Yes, you can have multiple backup servers and multiple email servers, and you can choose which one each site uses. In my setup I currently have one dedicated email server and two backup servers, with clients split between them. Backups go to only one destination per site for now, but there’s documentation here on the forum explaining how to duplicate backups to a second location. From what I’ve seen, the data is sent directly without using temporary space on the web server.

About quotas: yes, when you use a separate email server, the quota calculation still doesn’t include email usage. We’re all hoping this will be fixed soon.

Regarding XFS vs EXT4, I can’t help much there — I use only EXT4 across my whole infrastructure and never had issues.

As for common mistakes, Enhance is simple and straightforward. Of course curiosity sometimes leads to small slip-ups, but nothing serious. For your idea of migrating a large Plesk server into multiple individual VPS instances with isolated roles, Enhance fits perfectly — it was practically built for that type of architecture.

About HTTP/3: in Enhance, Apache and Nginx are separate roles — they’re not combined like in Plesk. HTTP/3 is currently only available on OpenLiteSpeed and LiteSpeed Enterprise. If you use OLS with Cloudflare, remember to disable TLS 1.3 on Cloudflare or HTTP/3 won’t work properly.

Enjoy Enhance. I was a big cPanel defender for years, and now I don’t regret switching at all. If you need anything else, I’m around.

matrix

webdig Thanks for the reply. You solved most of my doubts.
So If i get it correctly, I can have multiple backup server, but I can only associate one for each webhosting plan/domain. So I have to replicate everything on a second host manually.
Can you tell me what technology does it uses for backup? rsync o some other incremental script? Also can I setup a specific backup time? So I can rsync again when the backup is over from the 1st backup server to the 2nd? There are eny events trigger in enhance by any chance? Something to know when a task has been completed?

About HTTP3 I use Litespeed enterprise on Plesk. But if I split 40 customers to 40 VPS isntances the costs of LSE becomes insane (they are all above 8GB ram and some fo them have more than 5 domains). So my only options is to migrate to Apache+Nginx or OLS. The thing that Enhance doesn't support Apache+Nginx is a big problem for me right now. Do yo think it's possibile to setup a webserver role as Apache only and then manually setup Nginx as reverse proxy on those web server roles?

cPFence

matrix

The backups use rsync and are incremental and very light. Many enhance users run them two to four times a day and neither they nor their clients notice anything. You can also set up Slack notifications to stay informed if a backup fails.

Since you’re used to litespeed enterprise, ols is a good fit. You won’t see a performance drop, and you can keep enterprise only for clients with heavy dynamic cache needs. Good luck.

webdig

matrix

egarding the backup technology itself, I can’t tell you exactly what method Enhance uses under the hood — but I can say that it works reliably, and I’ve never had a reason to complain. I run backups every two hours and never felt the need to “back up the backup”, especially because I keep my backup servers in a different datacenter from both my hosting servers and my email server. I don’t like having everything in the same place — we all remember what happened with OVH.

About HTTP/3 and the move away from LiteSpeed Enterprise: OLS does reset some config changes by default, but that’s easy to fix. There are tutorials here in the community showing how to keep your custom settings persistent. All my hosting servers run OLS with those adjustments, and honestly, they work perfectly. I no longer even open the OLS admin panel — it just runs.

My advice is simple: try it, test it, break things (we all do), and learn as you go. Enhance + cPFence + OLS has been a great combination for me, and my clients are very happy with performance and stability.

Coming from Plesk, the only feature I really miss is DANE, since I have some customers with specific email requirements. But even without it, everything has been running smoothly — and at a much lower cost compared to the whole WebPros ecosystem.

If you have more questions while testing, feel free to ask.

JohnB

matrix Its $10

matrix

rdbf Thanks for your reply.
About the backups: I keep backups on 2 different locations in case one goes down. That's why it's important to me. If my primary backup host has an hardware failure I must be able to restore from a different server. I understand that I can only restore from the backup role from the panel, but if that goes down can I setup a new backup role server with the same rsync cloned and use that one? Like make enhance believe it is the old one?

About litespeed: I've read there were some problems in keeping some configuration when using OLS? is that resolved? when I searched about it in this forums I read that using LSE is better and retains configs.
Also can I use the LSAdmin freely or is there some I shouldn't touch? for example I use the bot protection with captchas or the included WAF. I also change the LSPHP settings like max user, timeouts, etc.
I suppose litespeed integrated containers are not supported in enhance.

About http3: yeah I know but unfortunately having HTTP3 support is something that sells, so I must provide it at least for some customers.
I can't use nginx only because htaccess anyway. You say the version on Ubuntu 24.04 isn't being ready, so how do you get to the first part by modifying the config? Do you install it from other repos? Is that supported? Does the config get rewritten if I change something in enhance?
I suppose Debian (my preferred distro) isn't supported right?

matrix

bluelinq-computers yes I'm more worried about the quotas management with XFS. I guess I'll switch to Ext4 too. not a big problem.

rdbf

matrix About the backups: I keep backups on 2 different locations in case one goes down. That's why it's important to me. If my primary backup host has an hardware failure I must be able to restore from a different server. I understand that I can only restore from the backup role from the panel, but if that goes down can I setup a new backup role server with the same rsync cloned and use that one? Like make enhance believe it is the old one?

To some degree yes. If your first backup server fails, you mark it as decommissioned, and 'move' over all websites to the second backup server. Enhance only looks at the contents of the /backups path, so if the data is there, the backups will show up on the websites. However, permissions are very important there. Each subfolder has the user ownership, and the UID can (will) be different between backup servers for the same user. So simply rsyncing the /backups folder isn't enough. There's a fix-permissions tool that was used frequently during the V11->V12 period that could be useful, although it can take a very long time to run on frequent/big backups of many websites.

matrix About litespeed: I've read there were some problems in keeping some configuration when using OLS? is that resolved?

No, you get the default settings, and that's it. Any changes will be overwritten by the defaults regularly. cPFence offers some additional functionality on top of OLS.

matrix You say the version on Ubuntu 24.04 isn't being ready, so how do you get to the first part by modifying the config? Do you install it from other repos? Is that supported? Does the config get rewritten if I change something in enhance?

Enhance ships a custom build, 1.28.0 currently, with modsecurity built in, but without stuff like brotli, and built with an old OpenSSL. The config lives in /etc/nginx/ but vhosts are dynamically generated by Enhance with somewhat deprecated syntax, so any changes will not persist. The Enhance Nginx build from their APT repo blocks the other Nginx versions, unless you override that, but who knows what you might break with that. And it's Ubuntu only, as per their documentation.

matrix

webdig
About the backup: It's not about the reliability of the backup itself. I'm sure it works perfect with rsync. It's a double backup location in case the farm decides to close the account without notice. I'm using both Hetzner and OVH. And Hetzner is known for closing account without notice and without the possibility to retrieve data. So it's just a safety measure for those extreme cases. My primary backup server is their storage boxes. (I'm a Hetzner customer for over 10 years, and have dozen of dedicated with them, but in our job the security is never too much). better safe than sorry.

About OLS: I think I'll take this path. I'll start with a customer which is willing to take the risk and test the new infrastructure for a discount. Can you point me to such posts with the configuration changes and\or the things to do to keep the changes?

webdig

matrix

Fortunately, I’ve never had any issues with Hetzner, but you’re absolutely right — we’re never completely safe. They can be quite strict in certain situations, especially with customers who tried to abuse their resources, so I fully understand your concern. In our line of work, extra safety is always welcome.

Regarding OLS, here are the posts I personally use and recommend:

And here’s the GitHub repository where I’m working on my own approach. It has been running well on most servers; only one of them threw an error I still haven’t been able to replicate:

https://github.com/webdighost/openlitespeed-optimizer

If you have any questions while testing, feel free to ask.

matrix

webdig wow even a gh repo, great! I'll read everything and test. thanks!

webdig

matrix

There are several community members with GitHub accounts full of Enhance-related tools and optimizations — these are just a few examples:

https://github.com/Neoboffin

https://gist.github.com/cPFence

https://gist.github.com/xyzulu

New scripts and solutions appear quite often, so it’s worth keeping an eye on the forum and the repos people share.

matrix

shahed yes, but the mailbox size isn't counted in the hosting plan limit. you can just limit the problem by applying a mailbox size.

matrix

webdig great, this look exactly was I was asking for before for double backup https://gist.github.com/cPFence/aaa774c6112a556c119db54f20d84e75