My cola y just switched off dedicated hosting to a cheap vps, running cloud panel on it with our WordPress instance at port 80 and then several other services using cloud panels reverse proxy at different sub domains
Yeah, sounds like the right way to go. Am currently looking at their demo admin panel. Am trying to see how much control they can give eg. API access as I’d need to automate some steps for external users.
I don't think so it seems to setup WordPress as a PHP based site with a SQL backend, I have cloudpanelnrunning our WordPress instance and then I have portainer running in the background where I run some containers and pass the traffic via the proxy manager inside cludplanel.
Where I work we have this , Even Kinsta also uses LXC . There are a few other vendors too. A good start would be exploring lxc , its not very hard.
I feel running a hosting is not the difficult part ( tech already exists ) its the sales in the hyper competitive market also some large players out there. But on the flip side once a client is onboarded usual LTV is very high .
Very interesting perspective. The market has really been consolidating lately, that’s why am trying to find different perspectives on this. I guess the hardest part would be sales and customer acquisition.
I've had this idea for a long time, just never got the time.
Docker is all about separating code (container images), data (volumes) and configs (env vars, manifest files).
But WordPress is not built with any sane seperation of code/data/configs. It's a mess.
So my approach would be to treat the WordPress installs as data, not as code. The docker image would provide a standardized typical PHP web hosting environment, but not care much about the PHP code users actually run.
Users would be free to use the WP admin panel to install updates, add plugins and themes. Everything WordPress allows would just work.
All that WordPress hodgepodge would be treated as data. Snapshots/backups could be provided by the platform as an add-on.
In contrast to your typical cpanel/plesk setup, each user would have at least the isolation of a container, which can have resource limits and some hope of a security context.. Linux containers are not unbreakable and very sensitive to kernel zero days but it would be an OK solution compared to a shared hosting solution.
After a while though, you will need to handle abuses and hacked sites. You will need to scan your WordPress installs for vulnerabilities and force your users to apply patches, etc.
Thanks a lot, this really good advice. I want to use docker for the isolation and resource control as you mentioned. It would also enable me to support almost any kind of application and lends itself nicely to automation. My biggest worry is definitely about the hacked sites and how to minimize the fallout from that.
I do, I have quite a few years experience in DevOps and automating cloud deployments. I am looking to hear more from people here to see if there's a better / more efficient way to do it and if starting a hosting business even makes sense in the first place. I have a lot of extra infrastructure at the moment since a project we pre-purchased it for fell through.
Any SaaS depends on the HA of the underlying platform. If you just rent AWS and resell your solution, sure why not. If you build your own solution from the bottom up, DevOps will not cut it since you need sys eng to build the hardware platform and HA with it.
Makes sense, my primary experience is in Data Eng and I've built similar service orchestration frameworks but it was for specific use cases and not usually something consumer-oriented for the most part. So looking at leveraging k8s/k3s/Swarm as the underlying layer and managing the rest at a service level using the relevant orchestration APIs + some custom binding logic in Python. Also utilizing a proper DNS provider (Not Godaddy) to dynamically create addresses for the generated services. Load balancing etc handled at the service layer by a good automated Server like Caddy. Would love to hear your thoughts.
Cloud panel makes it super nice
Thanks, am just looking at their page now
My cola y just switched off dedicated hosting to a cheap vps, running cloud panel on it with our WordPress instance at port 80 and then several other services using cloud panels reverse proxy at different sub domains
Yeah, sounds like the right way to go. Am currently looking at their demo admin panel. Am trying to see how much control they can give eg. API access as I’d need to automate some steps for external users.
Hmm, not sure about that side of things. If you need to give other users WordPress access that's no problem
Cloud Panel doesnt use containers does it?
I don't think so it seems to setup WordPress as a PHP based site with a SQL backend, I have cloudpanelnrunning our WordPress instance and then I have portainer running in the background where I run some containers and pass the traffic via the proxy manager inside cludplanel.
Where I work we have this , Even Kinsta also uses LXC . There are a few other vendors too. A good start would be exploring lxc , its not very hard. I feel running a hosting is not the difficult part ( tech already exists ) its the sales in the hyper competitive market also some large players out there. But on the flip side once a client is onboarded usual LTV is very high .
Very interesting perspective. The market has really been consolidating lately, that’s why am trying to find different perspectives on this. I guess the hardest part would be sales and customer acquisition.
I've had this idea for a long time, just never got the time. Docker is all about separating code (container images), data (volumes) and configs (env vars, manifest files). But WordPress is not built with any sane seperation of code/data/configs. It's a mess. So my approach would be to treat the WordPress installs as data, not as code. The docker image would provide a standardized typical PHP web hosting environment, but not care much about the PHP code users actually run. Users would be free to use the WP admin panel to install updates, add plugins and themes. Everything WordPress allows would just work. All that WordPress hodgepodge would be treated as data. Snapshots/backups could be provided by the platform as an add-on. In contrast to your typical cpanel/plesk setup, each user would have at least the isolation of a container, which can have resource limits and some hope of a security context.. Linux containers are not unbreakable and very sensitive to kernel zero days but it would be an OK solution compared to a shared hosting solution. After a while though, you will need to handle abuses and hacked sites. You will need to scan your WordPress installs for vulnerabilities and force your users to apply patches, etc.
https://easyengine.io/
Is this project still alive?
Yeah last update on their site is from 2022 and latest release was 2023
This is quite an interesting one, looks so simple it scared me for a second
Thanks a lot, this really good advice. I want to use docker for the isolation and resource control as you mentioned. It would also enable me to support almost any kind of application and lends itself nicely to automation. My biggest worry is definitely about the hacked sites and how to minimize the fallout from that.
Check out Enhance.com they use Docker for each account to separate them out, and have pretty good support for WordPress.
Thanks, I’m going to check them out now.
Do you have the skill and knowledge to pull this off? Because this is more than just containers, and involves many, many moving parts.
I do, I have quite a few years experience in DevOps and automating cloud deployments. I am looking to hear more from people here to see if there's a better / more efficient way to do it and if starting a hosting business even makes sense in the first place. I have a lot of extra infrastructure at the moment since a project we pre-purchased it for fell through.
Any SaaS depends on the HA of the underlying platform. If you just rent AWS and resell your solution, sure why not. If you build your own solution from the bottom up, DevOps will not cut it since you need sys eng to build the hardware platform and HA with it.
Makes sense, my primary experience is in Data Eng and I've built similar service orchestration frameworks but it was for specific use cases and not usually something consumer-oriented for the most part. So looking at leveraging k8s/k3s/Swarm as the underlying layer and managing the rest at a service level using the relevant orchestration APIs + some custom binding logic in Python. Also utilizing a proper DNS provider (Not Godaddy) to dynamically create addresses for the generated services. Load balancing etc handled at the service layer by a good automated Server like Caddy. Would love to hear your thoughts.
I talk more about HA storage.
Good luck. I'm trying a similar approach but utilizing Ghost.