Internet > Web Hosting & Web Design

Softaculous: To use, or not to use?

(1/3) > >>

jelv:
What do people think about using Softaculous to install packages? Do you think it better to download and install yourself?

Do they apply updates automatically or do you have to ask for updates through the control panel? My concern would be that they may not be that prompt in applying updates. I can see they have an option to report new releases and I guess on the common packages like WordPress they would update very quickly. What are they like on the less common packages?

jelv:
Hmm... I've just experimented and think I have answered my own question. It won't work for me because of an absolute stupidity in the way it's installer works.

It asks for the name of a database to be created and the table name prefix to be used. If you enter the name of an existing database it gives an error so it can't share a database with other packages. What the hell is the point of it asking for a table name prefix if you can't tell it to use an existing database? That's what the table name prefix is for! That means every package has to have it's own database.

My hosting package is limited to one database.

d2d4j:
Hi Jelv

Many thanks and softaculous is a third party integration of which we have no control.  However, we are NOC partner with them and yes, I believe it can auto update an installation but everyone I know prefers to have an email to let you know a new version is available to install.  The reason for this is so that the website does not stop working after an autoupdate which can fail for many reasons, such as code been altered previously by the user.

I am sorry, we set MYSQL databases to 1 db and 1 db user, so it stops users setting up more then they need or using our platforms for other projects requiring db's.

However, that said, I now see and understand your point over the need for more db's, so we have matched the db's to subdomains, which now mean you have 10 db and 10 db users.  This we have completed for all Kitz users on our platforms and updated the kitz template for any new users.

As I have said, we are pretty flexible, so a PM, text/email or support ticket would have resolved this quickly, as I hope others would confirm on here.

Softaculous upon first install does require a unique database and db user and sharing a db from a different installed package or self created db would not work correctly in a shared platform.  However, as above I hope I have understood correctly what you meant and so resolved issue for you.

Also, if creating your own database or db user, you can set the names, same with softaculous but IW may try to place the unix name infront of them, which you can change if needed but I see now point in changing them as they are just names.  If importing a website and not using the import features, so importing manually, you can just edit the names as above or edit your website connector file to reflect new credentials.

I hope that's alright, and if you have not tried softaculous, it does intall in less the 2 minutes (usually about a minute) and you have a default installed package.  A warning though, we have left all packages as installable, but some packages are not installable on our platforms for various reasons such as wrong distro but these are very small and I think over 450 packages are available to install.

Many thanks and I hope you are happy with our service

John

jelv:
John,

It wasn't a criticism of your service in any way. Limiting users to one database is perfectly reasonable and using table name prefixes is a good way around this. I've used previous hosting platforms which also only gave you one database. If it wasn't such a common hosting feature, why would nearly all packages have the ability to specify the prefix? I'm looking at three packages which I have been running (not very well) on my NAS box and a fourth I want to familiarise myself with for some potential new work. All are available through Softaculous and ALL of them have the table name prefix option.

When I hit the problem I Googled it and found a number of posts going back years from people using Softaculous on other hosting providers who were complaining about the same issue. The one thing I wasn't sure about was from one post there was a suggestion that this may have been resolved and I did wonder if there was a switch you could flip in the global Softaculous configuration to allow this. It may be that the person that made the post resolved it by installing the package manually and specifying the prefix.

As I said in my post, the stupidity is on Softaculous' part - they don't allow for what is a very common hosting feature of one database per user. It may be that a lot of people only have hosting to run a single package and hence haven't hit the issue However, I'm sure I'm not the only person to have multiple instances of one package (e.g. Live and dev/test)!

I think it is essential for the db user names to be prefixed with the unix name on a shared platform - otherwise two people could create the same user name on different databases - don't forget the databases can be accessed from externally. I was expecting to have one database and to configure and run MySQL Workbench locally with a user configured on the database against my IP.

d2d4j:
Hi jelv

Many thanks and I’m so sorry if I sounded bad sorry

You could easily now assign more dB users to same dB as we upgraded to 10 dB and 10 user db.

You would need to be careful though if using same dB for live and dev. Usually where  dev are concerned, they have a second dB and just match the dB, which you can now do :)

The only real issue we have seen with softaculous is if say you want to install the same package but on a main and subdomain or main and main but different folders. Let’s say Wordpress. Softaculous knows it’s already installed and stops you installing for a second time.

Now we have only been notified over word press and if using word press, you need to choose multi install.  Other packages from softaculous has not been reported the same issue but it could be because it has not been tried sorry

To answer your original question sorry, softaculous is not the maintainer for the packages but softaculous does check daily for any updates that package maintainers update, and if softaculous is setup with package maintenance, then the update is available to install.

It’s no different to if you manually install a package but the package maintainers do not update in a timely fashion if you see what I mean.

Overall, softaculous is a lovely installer and I use it regularly 

I hope that helps a little

Many thanks

John

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page