NetServa HCP is a lightweight Web, Mail, and DNS server with a PHP-based Hosting Control Panel for managing multiple virtually hosted domains. It's designed to run on the latest Debian or Ubuntu systems and supports both SQLite and MySQL as backend databases.
- Minimal resource requirements: runs in as little as 256 MB RAM
- Ideal for LXD containers, Proxmox virtual machines, and small VPS instances
- Built on NetServa SH shell scripts
- Web Server: nginx with PHP FPM 8+
- Mail Server: Fully functional IMAP/SMTP with personalized spam filtering
- SSL: LetsEncrypt integration
- DNS: Optional PowerDNS for local or public DNS services
- Database: Choice of SQLite or MySQL
- Interface: Built with Bootstrap 5 and DataTables
This project is ideal for small VMs, CTs (containers) or VPS plans.
- NetServa HCP does not reqire Python or Ruby, just PHP and Bash
- Fully functional IMAP/SMTP mailserver with personalised Spam filtering
- LetsEncrypt SSL enabled nginx web server with [PHP FPM 7+]
- Optional PowerDNS installation for local LAN or real-world DNS service
- Always based and tested on the latest release of Ubuntu Server
- It can use either SQLite or MySQL as database backends
- A fresh SQLite based install uses about 70MB ram (without Wordpress)
- An optional "compiled" single file PHP script is less than 200KB in size
The PHP web interface relies on the NetServa SH scripts being installed on the primary and target hosts so the first thing to do, as root...
cd # as root
git clone https://github.com/markc/sh .sh
.sh/bin/shm install
. .shrc
This installs the SH (Shell Helper) aliases and scripts into a /root/.sh
directory and activates the environment variables and special aliases. See the
NetServa SH repo for more information about how to use these aliases and
scripts directly. This HCP project is just a web based frontend for the SH
system which does all the real provisioning and management work.
The next step, after installing the SH scripts, is to make sure the current
host has a hostname and a domainname. The domainname needs to be valid if using
a publically accessible server and that needs the assistence of a real DNS
service. Otherwise, if using a local LAN with private IPs (like 192.168.*,
10.* or 172.*) then you can make up any domainname as long as your are
consistent within your local LAN. Using something like netserva.lan is a good
candidate unless you prefer something else. The hostname of your current host
computer is usually determined when the OS is installed but can be changed by
editing /etc/hostname and making sure /etc/resolv.conf has a reference like
search netserva.lan. Once you get results like this...
~ hostname
myhost
~ hostname -d
netserva.lan
~ hostname -f
myhost.netserva.lan
(where myhost and netserva.lan are your real or made up names) then continue
on with the next step.
Now we "normalize" the host by using setup-host which updates the primary
hosting Desktop or Server system to Noble 24.04 (unless os release is
defined.) using the current hostname -f unless a hostname.domainname is
passed in as the first [domain] argument...
Usage: setup-host [fqdn] [(mysql)|sqlite]
We can now setup the actual NetServa SH/HCP system for testing so, for example,
if we use something like c1.netserva.lan, where c1 will be the container
label and netserva.lan can either be a real domainname (if the server has a
public IP) or whatever internal LAN-wide domainname you care to use...
If the installation procedure can detect an externally available public IP then
it will attempt to install a LetsEncrypt SSL certificate so that the web server
can be accessed via https and the mail server will be SSL enabled and ready
for real-world deployment. Otherwise a self-signed certificate will be installed
The mail, web, sftp and HCP login credentials will be available in
cat ~/.vhosts/$(hostname -f).conf.
The essential configuration settings for the default server will be inside the
container (example only for a local LAN domain called netserva.lan)...
lxc exec c1 bash
cat ~/.vhosts/$(hostname -f)
Or, if you already have a containter or remote server ready to use after a fresh Ubuntu or Debian install then you could install the entire NetServa SH and HCP system by ssh'ing into the target system and...
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/markc/sh/main/bin/setup-sh
# cat setup-sh
. setup-sh
setup-all
This may take 5 to 15 mintes to complete depending on the bandwidth available to
the target server. Once finished you should be able to go to
https://c1.netserva.lan/hcp and login to the HCP web interface using the
simple sitewide HTTP sysadm/1234 authentication first then the real admin
username and password available with cat ~/.vhosts/$(hostname -f).conf.
The main index.php file is actually the configuration for the entire program
so that the rest of the PHP files could actually be included from anywhere else
on the system (not just from lib/php) if the INC const is changed. To
override the default settings (so sensitive information is not committed to some
Git repo) a config override file can be put anywhere (the default being
lib/.ht_conf.php) in which an array is returned where any of the top level
property array values can be overridden. First review the main index.php file
top level properties then compare below as an example of how to override these
property values...
<?php
return [
'cfg' => ['email' => 'YOUR@EMAIL_ADDRESS'],
'db' => ['type' => 'mysql', 'pass' => 'YOUR_MYSQL_PW'],
'out' => [
'doc' => 'YOUR_SITE_LABEL',
'head' => 'YOUR_SITE_LABEL',
'foot' => 'Copyright (C) 2018 YOUR_SITE_LABEL',
],
];
which would change the default email address (for forgotten password etc) to your email address, set the database to use MySQL with it's password and change the site titles and footer copyright notice. The SH/HCP system will use MySQL by default so if you use...
setup-all $(hostname -f) sqlite
for an extremely lightweight system (minus Wordpress) then use a
lib/.ht_conf.php override file like...
<?php
return [
'cfg' => ['email' => 'YOUR@EMAIL_ADDRESS'],
'db' => ['type' => 'sqlite'],
'out' => [
'doc' => 'YOUR_SITE_LABEL',
'head' => 'YOUR_SITE_LABEL',
'foot' => 'Copyright (C) 2018 YOUR_SITE_LABEL',
],
];
Another alternate option for a MySQL password is to create a simple plain text
file called lib/.ht_pw and put ONLY the MySQL password in that file but of
course using lib/.ht_conf.php instead allows you to modify or extend any of
the top level properties in index.php.
The point of the config override is so you can keep doing a git pulland update
the HCP web area (either from the NetServa repo or your own fork) without
interference from locally updated files, and git push (to your own git repo)
will not upload passwords to a possible public git repo.
During installation five random passwords will be auto-created in
/root/.vhosts/$(hostname -f) along with a /root/.my.cnf with DPASS if
MySQL is being used. Example...
~ grep PASS ~/.vhosts/$(hostname -f)
APASS='LheTZOT8eYCrlAk8' # Admin HCP password
DPASS='axVps7OIXb7VY4uT' # Database password, if using MySQL
EPASS='a5cBBxXL59uAyJkc' # SMTP/IMAP password for admin@$VHOST
UPASS='D8G3RgpBgSetyG4o' # SFTP password
WPASS='LheTZOT8eYCrlAk8' # Wordpress admin password, if using MySQL
The initial sysadm user has access to most of the server with SUDO permissions
to the provisioning scripts in /root/.sh/bin/*. This user also "owns" the
default YOUR_DOMAIN/adm web area with the NetServa HCP web interface. All
extra virtual hosts will be owned by u1000 u1001 u1002 etc system users which
will be chrooted, or locked into, their respective VHOST web area. For
instance...
~ shhost
sysadm c1.netserva.org /home/u/c1.netserva.org
u1001 netserva.org /home/u/netserva.org
u1002 netserva.com /home/u/netserva.com
u1003 netserva.net /home/u/netserva.net
where the above resulted from...
~ newlxd c1.netserva.org
# then SSH/exec into the container and...
~ addvhost netserva.org
~ addvhost netserva.com
~ addvhost netserva.net
The authentication point being that using SSH or SFTP (ie; from Dolphin) to this server as...
~ ssh -p9 [email protected]
# or for KDE kio
sftp://[email protected]:9/
would result in access to the whole (non-root) file system whereas...
~ ssh -p9 [email protected]
# or for KDE kio
sftp://[email protected]:9/
would chroot or lock access to the /home/u/netserva.org area with no
possibility of using SUDO so folks only interested in working on a web site have
reasonably safe access to only that web area.
sshm can be used on the host to manage local SSH keys making logging in
to a container or remote server much easier...
~ sshm h c
Create a new SSH Host file in ~/.ssh/config.d/
Usage: sshm create <Name> <Host> [Port] [User] [Skey]
All scripts and documentation are Copyright (C) 1995-2023 Mark Constable and Licensed AGPL-3.0