I'm about to take the plunge and get a server at Rackshack. I currently have a Cobalt RaQ3 located in the UK but now I'm living on this side of the pond I fancy something a bit closer to home. My RaQ lease expires soon and Rackshack come highly recommended.

Apparently there are 50 million threads here on whether Ensim or Plesk is better. I haven't really found any decent information on the topic, just a bunch of messages saying to search for the other ones. :-( I'm currently leaning more towards Plesk though as I've seen a few respected people express a preference and I like their demo site more than Ensim's - the Plesk demo is more fully functional.

Here are my questions, all comments/advice gratefully received:

1. Plesk vs Ensim - I'm totally happy with Linux, been playing with it for years. Happy to poke around with vi and edit config files, but want some kind of user friendly front end config/management to ease the pain for friends etc. Am I right in saying that Plesk gives me a lot of control through it's front end whilst leaving a fairly standarish Linux install underneath? I've seen negative comments about Ensim in this respect?

2. DNS - I currently have NS1 on my RaQ with secondary name servers at granitecanyon.com. I could do NS1+NS2 on my server here at Rackshack - I get the "if the box is down, it's down" argument, but I like the counter argument about email being queued remotely if NS1 isn't the same box as NS2. Any thoughts on reliability of doing it this way versus free secondaries versus paid service secondaries?

3. DNS continued - With my host in the UK a couple of people offered free secondary services for fellow users. Are there any such arrangements within the Rackshack community?

4. I'm still unclear on the DNS services offered by Rackshack and haven't really found a decent answer. They'll do DNS for the domain name I use when ordering my server - will they do DNS for domains hosted on my server but bought/registered elsewhere?

I think that's my lot for now.. Another factor swaying me towards Plesk are IMP for webmail (already use it, like it a lot). Is there a list of what packages/versions come with Plesk 5/RH7.3? I guess the RedHat site has it, I should RTFM :-)

Thanks again in advance for any/all feedback.
Paul

Plesk doesn't have any auto installers of scripts... I miss cpanel!

D3nnis, can you explain what you mean? Are you talking about CGI scripts being installed for a site hosted on your server? Not sure I understand what you're on about? (it IS late though :confused:

None one else got anything to add for or against Plesk? :-(

1) I think Plesk is a bit “cleaner” than Ensim’s install, but Plesk is still a control panel, I still would not use up2date to automatically update my Plesk box. The other day, I upgraded to perl 5.6.1 and discovered that any other version than perl 5.6.0 causes Apache to fail to load. As always you should check for compatibility before upgrading packages.

IMHO, I like Plesk better; I have had experiences with Ensim’s control panel giving me all sorts of python errors when modifying settings. So far with Plesk I have not encountered any errors with the control panel. I believe there is a problem with Plesk and Horde IMP webmail, but it’s just a couple of simple edits to conf files that RS should do for you via a trouble ticket.

2) I run my own DNS on the same machine as my websites. I figure if my server is down, DNS is the least of my worries…
For me, reliability is not a big factor as I host personal websites, but I run my own DNS for the freedom of adding an A record and having it take into effect immediately rather than waiting for RS DNS to reload.

3) I don’t know, just ask around

4) If you use RS’s DNS, they will do the DNS for all your clients as well.

I hope this helps you out.

1. With the Plesk RPM install you get a standard linux install with Plesk Front end. You still have all the linux stuff located where it should be which makes it easy for the linux person to use.

2/3. I don't know of a service that does secondary dns/mail storage here at RS, but it is easy enough to do for yourself on a second server. We do it and with Plesk it is easy to do.

4. With RS DNS you would have to enter each of your clients in your members area. So each time you add a new site you have to add it (to me it seems like more work than running your own dns).

IMO (which I express often) Plesk is the best control panel. A huge advantage with getting Plesk is that it comes with Qmail. Qmail is much better than sendmail because it is MUCH more secure. Plesk also comes with Horde for webmail and I like it much better than what Ensim comes with.