goPanel is an alternative to existing control panel softwares you install on your Unix based servers for web hosting. The app provides a graphical interface and automation tools designed to simplify the process of setting up apache or nginx, mysql, php and mail server and ultimately simplifying the process to host unlimited web sites on unlimited servers. This page includes answers to some common questions about getting started with goPanel, directions to access help, and links to additional documentation and resources.

What exactly is goPanel?

Many providers offer the ability to manage a server via DirectAdmin, cPanel or Plesk. These are ready-to-use interfaces that take over the manual configuration. However, such interfaces require payment of a monthly fee, in many cases above the cost of the VPS itself, and also require additional server resources for the interface to run on the server. In addition, once installed, the add-on is very hard to remove, short of an Operating System reload. 
goPanel is different, it is a one-time purchase, and runs on the Mac desktop, sending direct commands to the servers instead of being hosted on the server. Also, goPanel can control unlimited servers at no extra cost.
goPanel offers complete system administrator capabilities, making it easy to install and configure Apache or Nginx, PHP, MySQL, FTP, domains, Free SSL certs, 3rd Party Scripts and email services on an unlimited number of servers, all via an easy to use native OS X interface. Users must not install any software on their servers, as all software is installed and used from the Mac desktop. Setting up a server to host websites is a 5 minute process using goPanel.

How do I use goPanel?

goPanel it's made to setup in 5minutes a server to host websites, all in few easy steps: 

  • - Get the credentials(access details) from your hosting provider and add as many servers as you want to manage in goPanel,
  • - Choose services you want installed (FTP server + Apache or Nginx and/or MySQL and/or PHP and/or Mail server).
  • - Configure services and modules if needed
  • - Setup MySQL databases, FTP accounts, domains, free SSL certs, emails, cron jobs, backups

What features and services can I manage?

With goPanel you can install/manage/configure on Unlimited servers (VPS or Dedicated):

  • Web Server
    • - FTP Server (Pure-ftpd)
    • - HTTP Server select between Apache or Nginx
    • - Database select between MySQL, MariaDB or Percona Server for MySQ
    • - PHP
    • - Mail Server (Postfix/Dovecot)
  • Security
    • - FREE SSL certs issued by Let’s Encrypt certificate authority 
    • - Fail2Ban (intrusion prevention software)  
    • - ConfigServer Security & Firewall (csf) as 3rd party software - replaces IP Manager if installed
    • - TLS Support for FTP
  • 3rd Party Scripts
    • - WP-CLI + One-click Wordpress installer
    • - Node.js
    • - MongoDB
    • - PostgreSQL
    • - Composer (application-level package manager)  
    • - PHPMyAdmin(database manager)  
    • - Webmailer (roundcube)  
  • - Setup backup for your files or databases locally or on Amazon S3 and FTP external backup 
  • - Setup scheduled cron jobs
  • - View server logs and block IP's
  • - Rollback up to 20 earlier versions of your config files in case you need to
  • - We are working away on many more features

* On some Debian installations a minimal Exim4 email server is installed by default. To remove it from your installation run the following command as root: apt-get purge exim4 exim4-base exim4-config exim4-daemon-light

Can I manage SSL Certificates?

  • - Yes, you can create and manage unlimited SSL certs issued by Let’s Encrypt certificate authority.
  • - You need to install Letsencrypt client service from dashboard, then you can use the SSL Manager menu to add new certificates
  • - If that easy, free, unlimited and automated (a cron job is setup to renew all your certificates).

*Supported distro: Debian, CentOS 7.x and Ubuntu tested and working; centOS 6.x experimental support; AMI linux not supported yet.

What 3rd party Scripts mean?

- These are PHP Open Source scripts that would help you manage better your server (databases / webmail / sites).

What Linux distributions do you support?

  • - Ubuntu 14.04 (LTS) up to 18.10
  • - CentOS 6.x, 7.x
  • - Amazon Linux versions: 2016/2017
  • - Red Hat Enterprise Linux 6.x, 7.x
  • - Debian 7, 8 and 9

Can I use servers with Installed services?

Yes you can use servers with preinstalled Apache and/or MySQL, with few conditions:

  • - Make sure no FTP server is installed (FTP is needed before web server is installed as it will hold all domains within FTP master direcoty).
  • - MySQL and Apache are installed from distribution repositories as we do not support custom packages.
  • - The migration/import of existing servers to goPanel option will be prompted only when you add a new server and only when server can be migrated safely.
  • - FTP server will automatically be installed by the app in the migration process.

What authentication methods do you support?

  • - Username and password
  • - Username and PEM file, with or without passphrase protection
  • - Username and private key (usually called ID_RSA), with or without passphrase protection
  • - Ability to supply a SUDO password if needed when logging in using key pairs or private keys

*we only support authentication with root or a sudo user, logging in with a normal user then using SU to gain root access is not supported.

How do I select my key if it resides in .ssh/ or other hidden folder?

To show hidden files in that dialog you must press SHIFT + COMMAND + period ( i.e. ".") as osx hides system files by default in that dialog regardless of system settings

Can I connect to my MySQL/MariaDB remotely?

make sure you set the bind address to "*" or "0.0.0.0" and the user account you are using is set up to accept external connections (host set to "%").

On some Linux distributions you need to open the MySQL port (by default 3306) in order to allow external connections.
On distributions using Iptables (like Centos 6) you can use something like this (replace 1.2.3.4 with your ip address):
-- iptables -I INPUT -p tcp --dport 3306 -j ACCEPT -s 1.2.3.4
-- service iptables save
-- service iptables reload

On systemd based distributions you can use something like this (replace 1.2.3.4 with your ip address):
-- firewall-cmd --permanent --add-port=3306/tcp --add-source=1.2.3.4
-- firewall-cmd --reload

If you wish to open this port to any ip address remove the "-s 1.2.3.4 " or "--add-source=1.2.3.4" parameters from the commands above.

Do you support Amazon and Digital Ocean servers?

goPanel works perfect with Amazon instances and Digital Ocean droplets as long as you use a linux distribution we accept.
*if you only have the initial/temporary password on DigitalOcean, make sure you change it from terminal before connecting to server using goPanel.

Can I uninstall goPanel from my servers?

goPanel does not install its own software on your servers so if you stop using it there’s nothing to uninstall from your servers.

Does goPanel use many resources to run?

Because nothing is installed on your server goPanel does not use any of your server resources.

What can I configure in apache or nginx or php ?

For now we only let you update some values of config files and enable /disable modules. We are working along with our customers to get some feedback and see what can be improved but at same time keep it easy&safe even for non server guru's - after all this app should not require any knowledge to setup your server

What languages do you support?

The App is in English only for now.

your Linux should be in English too (locale to LANG=en_US), because we parse server responses and app is expecting these to be in English.

Is there a website builder in the goPanel interface ?

Not yet, we are working away to have oneClick install for a well known open source CMS -> WordPress©.

How do I request technical support?

If you require technical support or even have a feature suggestion - submit a ticket using form below. We will try to reply all tickets within 24hrs

Fixing umask issues with Apache/ FTP file permissions

1. Make apache use umask 002 for new files and directories. 

On Ubuntu and Centos 6

Edit your /etc/apache2/evvvars (or /etc/sysconfig/httpd on CentOS 6) file and add these lines at the bottom:

# umask 002 to create files with 0664 and folders with 0775 -> writable by user and group and read only for others
umask 002

Once that is done restart apache:

sudo service apache2 restart

 

On Centos 7 (or any systemd based linux distribution) create a file named "/etc/systemd/system/httpd.service"

Add the following lines to it:

.include /lib/systemd/system/httpd.service
[Service]
UMask = 0002

Reload systemd and apache

systemctl daemon-reload
systemctl restart httpd

2. Reset permissions for the existing files:

either go to the Domains and click on "Default Permissions" for the desired domain
Or go to goPanel's dashboard and get the master ftp username and group. They should be found at the bottom under the "Current Configuration" section. 

They should be similar to this (the 4F5A3D should be different on your system):

4F5A3D_ftp_system_account
4F5A3D_ftp_system_group

 

Execute the following commands (replace the username and group with the ones from your installation)

sudo chown -hR 4F5A3D_ftp_system_account:4F5A3D_ftp_system_group /path/to/your/directory
sudo chmod -R 664 /path/to/your/directory

If 664 doesn't work you can use 775