Automated Front-End...

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#1 Sun, 12/04/2005 - 21:08
HarryZink

Automated Front-End...

Yes, a feature request, but I understand that this would not be easy (so, clearly, I'm not expecting it 'tomorrow').

A web-based front-end that would automate a lot of the signing up for virtal hosting would be a swell thing -- as far as I can tell, the majority of functionality to provide this is already available within web/virtualmin. All that would be needed would be a whois feature, a shopping cart, and payment processing with a recurrent billing module.

This could conceivably be a separate module for virtualmin, to help automate the entire signup procedure for new virtual hosts.

Then again, this might also be a monumnetal undertaking, and my lack of understand belies that :-(

Harry

Mon, 12/05/2005 - 10:00
ChrisBlackwell

I think this is pretty much covered already by a thrid party software package called Agile Bill http://www.agilebill.com/Webmin

It supports creation of accounts, registrar services, product and hosting plans, recurring billing.. pretty much everything you would expect from a web hosting billing system.

It uses Webmins API to talk with virtualmin. I've got the trial version installed but not had time to set it up properly, but from what i've seen it looks good.

Chris

Mon, 12/05/2005 - 12:00
HarryZink

I'll try it out.

Thanks.

Harry

Mon, 12/05/2005 - 12:23
ADobkin

Integration with third-party registration and billing applications is clearly one of the most necessary features for Virtualmin to support in the near future. However, I do not believe this functionality should be added to Virtualmin Professional directly, at least not anytime soon. Apparently, these billing programs are more of a "monumental undertaking" as you put it, since almost all of the existing hosting packages have them as separate products, and none of them are 100% comprehensive. There are many different registrars, credit card gateways, etc. which they must support, so it would be a huge diversion for Jamie and Joe to get into something like this.

As Chris pointed out, there is already some third-party support for this request. AgileBill seems like a good product, however it is not cheap, and its support for Virtualmin Professional is still immature. I downloaded and installed the trial version also, and it did not work to set up a domain as expected. I think it can be made to work pretty easily, but I haven't had time to review the code yet.

There has also been interest in another thread for a package called Whois.Cart. This is a much less expensive product and also seems to be pretty good, but it does not support Virtualmin at this time.

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