cPanel and Plesk are two examples of web hosting control panels utilized by many hosting providers. Currently cPanel is only available for use on Linux operating systems, but this is set to change from 2008 when cPanel releases it’s cPanel/WHM 2008 Suite for Windows 2008; Plesk has been available for both Windows and Linux for a while now.

cPanel

cPanel is seen by many as the preferred control panel for Linux operating systems because of its quick loading times which is main due to the fact that the system is based mainly on Perl scripts meaning that it requires little to no database access at most times. cPanel also has greater capabilities than those which Plesk contains, these being that cPanel gives more server side information to the end user which they may need to use at times which can be mission critical in some cases; cPanel is also able to sort add-ons, examples of these include ‘Fantastico’ and ‘RVSkins’ - this add-on functionality also allows developers to build their own custom functions and programs for use within cPanel.

cPanel provides better reseller hosting than Plesk does. This is because cPanel has a specially created control panel included with it called WebHost Manager (WHM for short) which has been designed specifically for the purpose of reselling web hosting services. Plesk is only one control panel and makes setting up reseller account remarkably hard.

cPanel has also made migrating your hosting account to another cPanel hosting provider easy by intergrating a site migration module. This allows people to transfer all their sites and settings without loosing any data. This is something which makes cPanel stand out from the rest as it is something most control panels lack.

Plesk

Plesk is a cross platform control panel which is available in versions for both Windows and Linux. It is seen as the preferred control panel in the Windows hosting industry because its closest rival, HostingController, is remarkably unreliable and has helped give Plesk a big boost in the control panel industry. Plesk is a relatively closed operating system meaning that isn’t open for developers to create their own add-ons, however, it does have intergration for many other programs in different fields such as the ability to allow customers to use SmarterMail in the Windows version of Plesk.

Being a cross platform control panel, Plesk has the advantage over cPanel meaning that companies can run the same control panel on both panels meaning that minimum training is required for technicians as they only have to work out the operations of one control panel - this can save a business both time and money. However, on the security side of things Plesk for Windows doesn’t fair as well as it’s Linux counterpart or competitor do; there have been several holes found within the Plesk software allowing hackers to take control of a Windows server through the Plesk control panel, and the hacker can still gain access a second time after the administrator password on the server has been changed.

Conclusion

If you are after one control panel that suites all then go with Plesk - it can save you both time and money as a business and what you learn can be applied to both systems. However, if you prefer to go with the market leader and are willing to spend some time studying both options (cPanel for Linux, Plesk for Windows) then fo with cPanel as you will be able to customize it more to suite the environment in which you want your customers to control their websites.

The debate over deciding which is better, Windows or Linux, has been one which has been ongoing since the early days of the internet. However, the debate is more or less based on their factors in relation to the web hosting business and what customers want, but factors such as security and usability do come into consideration. Linux is rarely used as a desktop operating system, as its main use is as a server OS; however, Microsoft has released many different versions of Windows meaning that it can be used in almost any scenario.

Linux

Linux is a free, open source operating system which comes in many different versions - these are known as ‘distributions’, ‘distros’ for short. Each distribution has been made for a different use in most cases, but all can be used for similar things; an example of this would be Ubuntu Linux - it was produced mainly for the home user but can be used as a server operating system as well. Linux also has the advantage over Windows that it is less resource intensive meaning that it can be used on older machines or lower specification machines. Security wise, Linux also comes out better than Windows; although viruses do exist for Linux, the number is far less than the number of viruses which can have an affect on the Windows operating system. In most cases viruses can sit in a Linux environment and not have any negative effect, in other words they can sit there in harmony doing nothing.

From a web developer’s point of view, Linux is much easier to work with than Windows is; this is because there is a greater range of free resources and scripting languages that will work within a Linux environment. Also, Linux web hosting is much cheaper than Windows web hosting because the cost of the server software is little or nothing when compared to Windows software.

Windows

Windows is a premium operating system which comes in many different versions, that you can only buy. It is the world’s most commonly used computer operating system and is what has made Bill Gates the richest man in the world. At this moment in time, the current main versions of Microsoft’s operating system are: Vista and Server 2003; Windows Vista is Microsoft’s latest desktop operating system and Windows Server is run on servers. As Windows is widely popular, it is a virus magnet meaning that there is thousands of viruses at the current time capable of causing damage to someone’s computer; this means that people have to fork out more money for anti-virus and internet security software to ensure that their computer is safe.

Windows was the first main-stream computer operating system which gave it a head start within the market; however, Unix based systems like Linux and Mac OSX are starting to eat their way into Microsoft’s market share. If you are a web developer Windows isn’t a very versatile system to work with; you are limited to the languages which will run on Windows, the main ones being Microsoft’s classic ASP and ASP.NET - however, you can get RoR and PHP to run on Windows.

Conclusion

If you are looking for a robust system then you can go with either Windows or Linux, but if you don’t have any experience with Linux then you shouldn’t go with it as the only support that you will receive is community support which may not always give you the answer you need. With Windows you are paying a price, but you are guaranteed support from Microsoft - there is also enough websites on the internet to help you along with both. If you want better security then go with Linux, but if you have the ability to fork the extra money out for Windows’ security software then go with Windows.

Comparing between a SystemDNS connection & a non DNS connection to databases, the latter always seems to do better. This would be even more noticeable for sites which run a multitude of simultaneous connections to the database. However, experts seem to be recommending an OLEDB connection as against the above two. The fact that a faster speed in accessing data as well as establishing database connections is easily achieved  using OLEDB contributes to this. If one sits to compare a DNS-less connection, a SystemDSN connection & an OLEDB connection, the last of the three scores above the other  two.

The connection string for an OLEDB connection would be as follows.
“Host=HostName; Data Source=DatabaseSource; Initial Catalog=DatabaseName; User ID=UserID; Password=Password”

In the registry, search for HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\PLESK\PSA Config\Config . Also the value of USE_WSB_VERSION (REG_SZ) should be set to that of the sitebuilder with which you want to integrate. Once done, the correct version number should be displayed on “Components Management.”

To use a secure protocol (https) specify USE_WSB_SCHEME, USE_WSB_LOGIN, USE_WSB_PASSWORD & USE_WSB_LOGIN, USE_WSB_PORT. For a regular protocol, just set values for port & password.

Except for localhost, all other IP’s are banned for usage of webservices by Sitebuilder. To match this, go to the Service Facade folder in your IIS. Navigate to Websites & then Sitebuilder. In there, put in the IP of the server followed with the path as Properties -> Directory security -> IP address and domain name restrictions -> Edit

Usually Cpanel can be opened from:

https://mydomain.com:2083

http://mydomain.com:2082

http://cpanel.servername.com

Many times local firewalls allows access only to sites on Port 80. In such cases you can use http://cpanel.servername.com

Note:http://cpanel.servername.com is the web based proxy which provides you the option to access your cPanel via http port 80

You can execute the following commands to check if the ports are blocked.

For Windows

-Click Start
-Click Run
-Type cmd
-Type telnet mydomain.com 2083
-Type telnet mydomain.com 2082

For Linux

-Start your Linux/Mac OS console terminal
-Type telnet mydomain.com 2083
-Type telnet mydomain.com 2082

If the port is not blocked the results should look like the above Trying IP_of_the_server ( 91.27.1.10 for an example )…

Connected to servername.com.
Escape character is ‘^]’.

Some another result will ensure that the port is blocked and you should use http://cpanel.servername.com.

You may find that your FLV videos aren’t playing or won’t download. To solve this you will need to add the FLV mime type in IIS. To do this, follow these instructions:

1) Select the site which you want to configure in IIS; right click on it and select ‘Properties’.

2) Under the ‘HTTP Headers’ tab, select “File Types” under the ‘MIME Map’ section and select ‘New Type’.

3) Type ‘.flv’ as the associated extension, and ‘video/x-flv’ as the associated content type.

4) Click ‘OK’, then restart IIS.

That’s it! Your FLV files should now play and download!