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Ensim Corporation


Chapter 1
An introduction to Ensim Pro

About Ensim Pro

Ensim Pro is a powerful Web-hosting platform with a set of control panels that allow efficient management of sites.

Ensim Pro provides the the appliance owner with an easy-to-use Appliance Administrator control panel to manage popular Web hosting software such as the Web server, DNS, Mail, and FTP. It also enables the rapid creation and deployment of hosting plans using templates, where DNS, Mail, FTP, Microsoft® FrontPage®, backup and restore, Web logs, file manager, and many other applications can be enabled or disabled. Ensim Pro supports both IP-based and name-based sites and enables appliance owners to create Site Administrators to administer these sites. Ensim Pro also enables adminstrators to customize the look-and-feel of their Ensim Pro control panels. Skin customizations allow them to extend their corporate look and feel to affiliated Web sites and thus convey brand association and unity.

Ensim Pro provides separate Web-based control panels for four levels of users:

Appliance Administrators

The Appliance Administrator account is set up the first time the appliance owner accesses Ensim Pro. This account holder is different from the UNIX admin user on the server and therefore has no direct access to the server.

Appliance Administrator tasks

Appliance Administrators typically perform the following tasks.

System management tasks

Application management tasks

Reseller management tasks

Site management tasks

Reseller Administrators

The Reseller Administrator is an individual who wants to resell or manage sites without actually owning or maintaining hardware. The reseller buys sites from an ISP or hosting provider and resells them to individual customers. The Reseller Administrator is strictly limited to the Reseller Administrator control panel and has no access to the server.

Reseller Administrator tasks

Reseller Administrators typically perform the following tasks.

System management tasks

Site management tasks

Site Administrators

The Site Administrator account is created when the site is created. It is both a UNIX account and a Ensim Pro control panel account. Each site has an associated site number. The Site Administrator account maps to an “admin” user and group created in /etc/passwd and /etc/group that is associated with the site number (for example, admin1).

The Site Administrator’s access depends on the security level configured for the site.

High security

High security runs certain services (CGI scripts, Telnet/Secure Shell, mod_perl/mod_php) inside the restrictive environment of the site's file system. The Site Administrator cannot access data or resources pertaining to other sites on the Ensim Pro server. The Site Administrator’s access is locked to the home directory, /home/<admin_user>/, where <admin_user> is the user name of the Site Administrator. The Site Administrator’s UNIX account is located at /etc/passwd within the domain.


Important icon

High security could pose problems if the CGI scripts for a site source required libraries or configuration files from outside the site’s file system, in which case, the necessary files must be copied across to the site's file system. For example, if a CGI script uses Perl, then all the Perl libraries and configuration files must be copied into the site's file system.

High security allows mod_perl and mod_php services for a site to be run only as CGI scripts within the site. PHP scripts can still be placed in the document root (html folder). If you want to harness the full power of these services, you must opt for 3.1 compatibility or low security.


3.1 compatibility

3.1 compatibility secures remote login services, though CGI scripts run in a vulnerable environment. mod_perl and mod_php services are enabled for the site. The Site Administrator’s access is locked to the home directory, /home/<admin_user>/, where <admin_user> is the user name of the Site Administrator. The Site Administrator’s UNIX account is located at /etc/passwd within the domain.

Low security

Low security enables all files residing on the Ensim Pro server to be shared or accessed (depending on file access privileges) by the administrator of the site. Users, however, are always restricted to the home directory of the site. The Site Administrator has access to the Ensim Pro server. When a connection is made to the site using SSH or Telnet, the Site Administrator is logged into the home directory, /home/virtual/site#/fst/home/<admin_user>, although the Site Administrator has access to files outside the domain. The Site Administrator’s UNIX account is located at /etc/passwd within the domain. An entry, though, is also made in the /etc/passwd/ file located at the root level.

Site Administrator tasks

Site Administrators typically perform the following tasks.

Site management tasks

User management tasks

User Administrators

The User Administrator is a user on an IP-based or name-based site. The User Administrator has an entry in the virtual site file /home/virtual/site#/fst/etc/passwd and is restricted to /home/virtual/site#/fst.

User Administrator tasks

User Administrators typically perform the following tasks.

User management tasks

Working with Ensim Pro

As the Appliance Administrator, you can perform common administrative tasks in one of two ways. You can log on to Ensim Pro and use the Appliance Administrator control panel or you can use any Telnet or SSH client to access the server running Ensim Pro as a root user and execute a set of scripts from the Command Line Interface.

For information on using the Appliance Administrator control panel, access the integrated online Help. For information on using the Command Line Interface, see Chapter 2, Using Command Line Interface scripts.


Ensim Corporation
www.ensim.com

Contact Ensim
www.ensim.com/about/contact.html

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