Hello everyone and thanks in advance or your patience. I am not new to too awful much but I am new to the Virtualmin/Usermin/Webmin control panel package. My first question in what will likely be a series of hopefully short and easy queries follows.
I have a VPS. It's hostname right now while the install script is running on a subdomain, lets call it server11.iserveyou.com. I have been installing and reconfiguring and most importantly learning for about a week 15+ hours a day. My question surrounds the notion that where the panel is being installed at server11.iserveyou.com is a subdomain of a domain I have yet to create. I am going to be hosting a small batch of sites totally not related to the domain www.iserveyou.com. Although I will host a site on that address, but the main purpose here was to install to host the other sites.
I have had some issues surrounding creating the domain for a subdomain that Virtualmin is already installed on. Also some things such as email and other services, I was having a hard time getting things to work for me, or I should say the subdomain install seems to really add to the equasion as far as setup and automatically assigned usernames, folder paths and the like..
To distill this, am I doing the right thing installing to the full FQDN/hostname that itself is a subdomain of a domain yet to be created later in Virtualmin.
I am at the starting over point, so anyone that can confirm/deny how I should have my server set up hostname wise to install the panel to a subdomain it will be not such a big deal as I am at the beginning again of a huge process doing this. I have a second VPS and plan to get the entire panel itself set up with everything ready to do its thing and start setting up the new sites - this way I can just backup that install, upload it and make a few edits for it to work on VPS#2 and not only know they are set up identically, but as well no longer have to invest the time installing from scratch - and this is the main reason for the hostname, each server can be a subdomain installed with an incremental subdomain, server012.iserveyou.com, server013.iserveyou.com, etc. I am open to any suggestions and comments that might insure I get this running properly in the least amount of time.
Thanks and sorry I see I sort of babbled here...
A subdomain is usually how I do it (for example, virtualmin.com runs on cloud.virtualmin.com, before that it was srv1.virtualmin.com). There are still a few quirks to this, but it's much less of a hassle than making the server named virtualmin.com and then trying to add a virtual server named virtualmin.com
But, note that I'm not trying to make that subdomain into a virtual server in Virtualmin. It's only purpose is to be the "container" in which Virtualmin operates. So, there is no website called "cloud.virtualmin.com", for example, only a DNS A record (within the zone that I created on other servers to begin with, and then once I'd created a Virtualmin.com zone on the Virtualmin server, I added the cloud subdomain and pointed the glue records to the new servers).
These are issues common to bootstrapping any domain and zone into existence, and really the only thing additional that Virtualmin adds to the picture is that it likes to create your zone for you (so you either need to not have the name be resolvable to begin with, and then make it resolvable on the host after creating the first parent domain, or you need to host the zone on other servers until the system is up and running fully and you can move DNS hosting for your zone to that machine).
You following that? It's complicated, and I'm kinda rambling, too, trying to keep it simple. But, it is a tricky thing.
Were there other issues than zone creation? You mention mail...but, I think as long as you don't try to create a virtual server with the same name as the hostname of the system, mail is automatic (it's possible to have the hostname match a domain in Virtualmin but it requires manual configuration in Postfix, and I don't bother, since I'm happy with my hostname being something different than the virtual server domains).
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First and foremost I would like to thank you for responding Joe. I knew full well when trying to ask about the topic that I both A) was doing a bad job of it and B) had tried so many combinations, I no longer could get it together to ask properly.
I think you "got it" though - thank goodness. Yes, using your examples here is what I am doing.
I have the full Virtualmin install at "cloud.virtualmin.com" it is working and knows it is there. (knows its own hostname, the cloud.virtualmin.com address.)
All DNS is not resolving as I (have been) and will begin again to host DNS myself between two servers (have not even run an install on the other yet...) So the IP and port number get me to virtualmin.
In the end the purpose is to not screw up with the domain/subdomain for virtualmin. I will be putting something at "virtualmin.com" - but really that is not a domain I care for too much - the point of doing this this way was to have the control panel on a subdomain and later, when I am ready to start setting up the domains I do care about, both the subdomain and the main domain "virtualmin.com" are there to separate the server and control panel from the "real" domains of higher importance to me and that will see traffic. - I did not want the c-panel a subdomain of any of the "real or relevant" domain names. To me this seems the standard. I essentially am setting up the virtualmin.com as a server company selling VPS's (which I am not doing! lol) and having the whole project's virtualmin c-panel on a subdomain of that domain name. I did not want it as a subdomain of "worlds-coolest-site-ever.com" - if that makes any sense. So while I do not intend to be selling VPS's, I am setting it up as one would see a hosting company / provider set up to do business that way. For me this separates the notion of being my own shared hosting provider from the sites I have hosted in the past (and intend to going forward) either with shared hosting, or a VPS and another control panel solution. I am essentially taking the place of the hosting company role.
Thanks again, I think what you wrote is relevant and for that I am grateful. Since I will post any associated failures specific to this subdomain issue to this thread, hopefully the way I have restated my intentions here may help you and others know what I am trying to do without explaining it numerous times, and/or doing so in a confusing manner.
Regards, Douglas