Okay. Real quick. I’ll tell you my story.

I’ve been hosting websites and online services for at least 20 years. Generally, the way it’s always been done, was that your hosting provider (GoDaddy, NameCheap, Linode/Akamai, etc) would have a deal with some “panel” software company thus giving you a nice graphical interface to control your website. The most common of these for many years has been cPanel.

One of the very cool things about cPanel was/is a set of installation scripts called Softaculous. This would allow you to install web various applications with just a few clicks. The downside is that the software license is expensive and the hosting company simply passes that cost on to the consumer.

Another nagging problem was SSL certificates. For years cPanel has had the ability to install free Let’s Encrypt certificates, however many hosting providers disable the feature so they can sell you more products. I found that exceptionally frustrating.

Should also mention there is a really cool server management tool called YUNOHOST. If you have a serious fear of learning new things but still would like to host your own server this is a really good way to start. Absolutely zero coding knowledge required and they have dozens of applications ready to install. Really good stuff, but not quite as flexible as I would like. So…

Enter Virtualmin.

Over the last few years more applications are being released as either “packages” or ready for a Docker container. What this means is that you now have the ability to install web applications without the need for expensive software scripts.

Virtualmin is the easiest, most secure, and most powerful way to manage all of your web application servers.

Whether you’re hosting a simple WordPress blog or a high-availability network cluster, Virtualmin will make your life easier.

The plan is to create a few posts to show you how to get started.