If you ordered Helm on a Server Matrix server are you happy? Just curious how it's going. It wasn't too long ago Melissa said:
"I do not forsee us offering Helm any time soon. We do support CPanel and WEBppliance" is SM happy that they now "support" Helm?

I ordered a Windows 2003 Server with Helm which was supposed to be an upgrade from my Windows 2003 Ensim Webppliance server. The upgrade was supposed to encompass a CPU Upgrade from the Celeron 1.7 to a P4 2.4 and also because I had the Ensim license for 20 domains and I was pretty close to do that. And the other thing was that Ensim was not offered so I could not just up the number of permitted domains.

First day I got the Helm server, I cannot even log in. Got errors ranging from connection problem to licensing issues. Tried some solution from Helm Forum but that made the system worst. This while getting tech support to work on the log in issue for helm. After several days, tech got the log in issue to work.

Helm makes life difficult by introducing tons of procedures to get a site set up. You first need to create Reseller's Plan and then the Resource for the plan before you can create the Reseller account and then from there set up the plan. The trouble was that in my build, the Resource part of it was not working. So I cannot proceed. The problem was a known problem and should be able in the next build. But I cannot wait for them to get that out. If I recall, that build was supposed to be out just before Christmas.

I needed the server to work because I do not want to pay for two machines and have one just idling there for no reasons. I decided I needed to do something. I went witchhunting and found an Ensim reseller who offers a 100 sites Webppliance License and that was great. Paid about $319 for the 100 sites license and it is mine to keep. No monthly charges and I could recoup it easily. They do offer a monthly leased license but I thought it is better that I own the license.

Ensim offers just 20, 250 domains license. A little drastic as I am not going to breach the 50 sites anyway on a machine. Ensim Sales was friendly and recommended several resellers to hook up with.

So with that at hand, I emailed sales that I do not want Helm any longer and I was permitted to uninstall it from my server and got Ensim onto the machine that very same day.
In fact, the reseller installed Ensim for me and made sure that it worked.

Now I have a nice working machine with no outstanding issues. Ensim works out of the box and I am happy with it.

Ensim does not have all the fanciful features such as billings and so on but it is very simple to use. I can set up plans directly or through a reseller account. PHP and MySQL is installed right into the install.

Life is great now that I have Ensim Webppliance. I am not sure why they had to abandon it.

I just heard great things about Helm but apparently with all that it tries to accomplish, it cannot do the basic things right. It is problematic and hard to use. But if it ever did work, it has great features. It seems like more a work-in-progress and not prime for real production yet. Get Helm if you are not hosting anything crucial on the machine and love to experiment and be a guinea pig.

aren't you supposed to get paid for being a guinea pig?

Yeah but that was yesteryears' concept. In the Internet Revolution years, you have to pay to be a guinea pig and I was dumb enough to fall into that trap but I am glad I got out of it..

Helm is just an overpriced piece of junk.

This comment on another web hosting forum aptly describes the two (Helm and Ensim)

"The trouble was that in my build, the Resource part of it was not working."

There was a problem with adding resources but this was fixed in a release before SM started deploying Helm.

"Helm makes life difficult by introducing tons of procedures to get a site set up. You first need to create Reseller's Plan and then the Resource for the plan before you can create the Reseller account and then from there set up the plan"

Helm IS a complicated system and offers a LOT of flexibility. We're trying to make changes that would still allow the flexibility our customers need while at the same time making it easier to get setup with.

Any suggestions are welcomed.

When I first got the box Helm was non-operational. It took a few days, but with the help of SM's support staff I got things going. I would suggest they work on their Helm server image so that it works on first boot up.

Nicholas

We'll get in touch with SM and make sure they've got things setup as they should.

Mark,

Thank you for taking the time to post here. I appreciate that.

I guess my experience with Helm is just unfortunate and for some reason, I must have gotten some bad build or something installed an older version of the control panel.

I do apologize for the harsh words, it is just that I got the machine thinking I could use it out of the box but just keep facing problems after problems that I decided I cannot go on any further. I needed the server to be up because I had something I need to host urgently for my client.

I may revisit Helm in the future and give it a second chance.

Just a little thought. I find Helm geared towards a web hosting business and thus the features which it provides and the integrated billing system but not everyone would get a control panel for that avenue. I know it is hard to please every one and you do have your objectives and your goals. Basically for my needs is simple, I just need a control panel to simplify the task involved in setting up my sites. I am not reselling although I do set up sites for my clients and managed everything in-house for them from development to hosting and thus I do not need anything fancy. If there is a way to actually provide a means to set up accounts through the Administrator angle and also through the reseller's angle, it would be nice. I know currently this is done only through the reseller's angle.

From the brief experience I had with Helm, it sure is a product which has a lot of potential. It just didn't meet my basic needs.

All the best in your development.

Thanks for your message.

As you rightly say Helm is geared towards hosting companies as they're our main target audience and the most likely candidates for needing a hosting control panel.

We do however have a large number of users in a similar situation to you, website developers for example, who just want to set up sites for their customers but don't actually sell or reseller hosting.

Currently you DO have to go through the process of defining plans, and resellers. This is howevers something we have plans to change so that it's possible to add domains directly as an admin without the need to first create a reseller level. In some cases you won't even want to create plans as you're managing the domains youself.

Again, thanks for you input and I hope you'll revisit Helm in the future..

I am not a Windows/ Helm user but have been looking into either getting a dedicated 2003 or reseller account, just to offer a Windows platform to go with our Linux. Ensim seems the more complete control panel then Helm at the moment.

In what way?

Actually feature for feature, Helm is more power-packed. Ensim is simple to use and is functional but lacks the trimmings that Helm has.

I use Ensim primarily to get things set up in a quick nice fashion. After that, it is direct access to IIS Manager to do the necessary tweaking.

Ensim however installes PHP and MySQL as part of the set up which most web hosters are comfortable with. I am not sure if Helm offers that as I have not explored Helm well enough.

Ensim's strength is in its simplisticity and Helm's strength is in its feature offering.

The Ensim for Windows and Ensim for Linux are two different beast. Some of the things offered in Ensim for Linux like back ups and so on is not found in Ensim for Windows probably because of the platform differences. Ensim for Linux has the Powertools which is not found in the Windows version.

I guess it's personal choice. I was looking into Helm, but there are a lot of issues related to it. I know all CP's have bugs...etc but Helm seems to have more then Ensim.

I would actually prefer Helm because of the features and interface, but possibly looking at Ensim for stability.

HELM = Headache. I had a Cpanel box setup in 4 hours. Helm so far has taken a whole week of my time, $75 for an OS re-install and a bunch of phone calls to a very un-cooperative, un-sympathetic servermatrix personnel.

There is a such thing called QA in the IT world. You just don't release something until you have fully tested it... I'm seriously tired of posting these messages but I am doing to hopefully get someone's attention (if there is such a person).

Well, Mark Hall is definitely the person to see this, he represents WebHostingAutomation which makes Helm.

I have Ensim Webppliance Pro and it took a whole 1 hour to get everything set up and working. Most of the time was transferring files and recreating email accounts. And making sure it works.


In that same time frame, I did not get anything done in Helm

i bursted

Bought the HELM software along with the new offer (SmarterMail and Smarter Stats)

Seems to be SmarterMail works great, i bought the licence from Smartertools, before i bought HELM
HELM doesnt provide me SM and SS licences still yet. I have been keep requesting under tickets, no answer yet. everytime says we will get back to you on this.

Other than this, i had a wonderful problem with HELM , can't add or delete domains under control panel. They says they have a problem with SmarterMail Integration. They updates with New SmarterMail.dll, even after nothing big happend. I literally hungup on my business by not opening to the public yet. More than two weeks. Now tickets history was growing like hell. but nothing happend.

I will update accordingly.

There does seem to be a problem with SM's installation of Helm so we'll get this checked out.

I also admit that Helm can be confusing to get going with sometimes and, as discussed in another topic, it is a complicated system due to the amount of functionality it needs to deliver.

harikrishna: There was a backlog in regards to issuing the SmarterTools Licences but you'll have that today. Out support staff should be able to fix any issues you might be having with SmarterMail but if you aren't getting anywhere let me know directly via email to mark.hall@webhostautomation.com

Apart from the difficult to use issues, it does seems that SM might have a bad build of Helm here which is causes the tons of problems.

I do hope that this issue is resolved.

Helm is a great control panel in the right situation, unfortunately that situation isn't SM with the 'single server' licensing.

I've set up Helm a couple of times and did eventually get it working both times, including working over a number of distributed servers providing database, mail, dns and stats and it does work.

Unfortunately 90% of Helm is totally wasted on a single server license and to be honest the amount of hassle it is to set up with all the config setup and then having to spend hours arsing around setting up resellers, plans, resources, billing etc. etc. that you don't need or want it's a lot easier to use something like Ensim that works straight from the box.

Helms the only choice if you need to control a whole network of machines but for a single server it's way more trouble than it's worth.

I've always managed my servers manually, customers have access to admin their mail but I do anything else for them. I tried a number of Windows control panels over the course of a number of weeks and eventually decided to stick to doing it manually.

In one way or another each of them caused more trouble than it solved.

The joke is where I put trial accounts on the control panels I got more support questions on using the control panels than any other support issue

I downloaded a trial version at home and tested helm for 3 months before installing it on SM servers. Even now i still find it hard to get my head round it but i could not live without it. Yes its hard to setup. No one has said otherwise. But over time its great ! The only ploblems i am having now is with plugins for mailenable and stats and so on...
i have also tested "hosting controller" before helm, it was eaiser but not as stable as helm. HC just has bugs left, right and center and updates are out nearly week.
I decided to go with helm as their support is excellent !
So if you got the time give it a go because in the end i think its worth it

intresting thread so it was widely known to SM & Helm there are issues with it this is just taking the xxxx now. Ok that known so how did you guys who have helm and windows working do this as its major buggy not recommended at all. Also I know ensim is an option do SM still have a contract with ensim where they can supply this ?

Stuart

Helm isn't buggy. What's being said here I think is that some people who have very simple requirement for setting up sites may find that there's a bit of a learning curve when first using Helm as it's geared towards host's, in particular, hosts working with reseller models. I also agree that the real power of Helm is in it's mulit-server features, something you won't get to use with the Single Server license (hense the huge reduction in price). That said, our most popular license is infact the Single Server license (again probably to do with price) and there's literally hundreds of small hosts using Helm successfully to run they're businesses.

That maybe but thats not what im seeing here Ive not checked other locations yet but I will be its SM or Helm who have bugs I dont see Microsoft Windows 2000 Server being bugy for so long with the issue its a bad thing that something dont work very well I see that people on common have problems with Helm a handfull get it running after some fine tuning but the product is not bad from what ive seen so far I like it. But again it dont work like it should and theres loads of info here that points that way not all I will give you some people have it working but also theres some that dont.

I notice that your fast to defend yourselfs but slow to sort problems I know you and robert have tried mark but this is just getting a mess its now back to where it started and that aint good.

Basicly 9 companies all in the webhosting industry each is looking at this as a bit tad annoyed about it also this will have knock on effects. I see plesk have launched a windows control panel I wonder how that works my guess is it wont have the same options but yes it will have issues but it will work unlike helm & windows

Stuart

I would not recommend helm to anyone its full of bugs until I see a machine that works with domains that resolve that will remain my opion and also I will not support the control panel if Mark would like to show me a working server error free and help me sort the SM server out Ill be more than happy to listen learn and watch as there is alot of $$ in this for Helm & SM if they get it right well lets see what Helm & SM have to say on this one.

The gloves are now off. Its time for some sort of action from SM & Helm to prove the product works. If I see it working on my system ill rest my case and then workout a system to help both SM & Helm solve config issues as I am quite good at that

I have helm running on my server fine with SM.
Although i did install it myself and tested at home for 3 months before installing on SM server.
It was me that said
HC = Hosting controller NOT HELM
I have had no problems with helm !

Please explain what problems you are having...

There's a bug where if you delete a database from MySQLFront/PHPMyAdmin/any GUI frontend, it still appears in the control panel.

Matt

That's not true at all. Ensime WebAppliance PRO doesn't even allow you to create the SQL databases. It can't support sub-domains or park domains, you can't define if the package supports ASP, ASP .NET, ColdFusion, etc. doesn't integrate with any stats programs, etc. etc. etc. take your pick.

My Ensim WebApplican Pro for Windows 2003 allows me to creates plans which support ASP and .NET . Analog comes with Ensim Web Appliance and the older version of Urchin integrates with Ensim but the newer version 5 does not. It still works.

I don't have MS SQL so I am not sure how that works.

LOL
hold a sec here. I want to go back a coupe of posts to "thoroughfare"



This is a bug ???
Look at it this way. Helm is the front end ! It creates and delete to its database.
If you delete from using mysql manager instead of helm no wonder people are having problems.
So you delete from mysql manager so a table or data is missing and what do you expect ? For helm to wonder where that database has gone and then to crash ?? No helm still keeps referance of it in the CP. Becuase helm should be used as the frontend !
And then people say this is a bug !

Sorry but deleting data other than helm was designed to is not a bug
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Ok this is now looking more intresting. Ive seen progress but is now all lost but with what ive learned it should not take to long to get back what Helm had done. I finaly understood the dns thing etc.

I think it would be usefull if people could post things that would help more. Ive been on helms forums there they helped alot and I began to understand a few things. After alot of close reading I worked out what was going wrong I got to the point DNS was working. I wanted to sort the www out but hey the machine got reimaged never mind hopefully it will have correct permissions this time and I can start from scratch and to spec I know that I only have to ask Helm or SM for advise and there happy to provide it like forum users.

Stuart

A control panel has to be flexible. It should either not grant my user privileges to delete tables from outside the panel, or actually *look* to see which databases are there when it lists them. It caused a few problems when we deleted about 20 databases through MySQLFront.

And no, Helm is *not* a frontend for editing data in MySQL databases.

There have been other bugs... often requiring us to get the admin to fix something (this was on a shared hosting account), things just kept breaking.

Of all the panels I've used, IMHO, Helm is the worst.

Matt

Hi just an update I have now got helm running thanks to Servermatrix they came through and on thanks giving also Its really made my day. I would say tho that more information about things like how to do things is an idea. If people have problems they seem to be more config related on the server.

Helm well there get there the package dose work as it should I would look forward to seeing some of the planned improvements oneday hopefull soon.

Again thanks SM

Stuart

Cool! Nice to know that you got your problems resolved. Did they tell you what actually went wrong ?

In Helm's defence it DOES work.

I've set it up on Windows 2000 and Windows 2003 servers, both single server setups and distributed network setups - it took some reading and some time but I got it working fine each time.

That said, if I didn't have a background in setting up and running windows web servers manually I don't think I would have ever got it running - you need a lot of knowledge not just of Helm but of Windows DNS, IIS etc. etc. if you don't know the basics I think you could run around in circles forever.

Those of you that are stuck - have you thought of getting a license direct from Helm or one of their resellers (?) if memory servers me right they will install it and get it working for you for free.

I think HELM has a lot of promise. It is very functional. It has its issues and some things are definitely confusing, but it is going to be a great CP over time. As far as the installation and setup on a new box, that is where there needs to be some better instruction. I have a Windows 2003 box with HELM and it has taken me probably 2 or 3 weeks to get everything on the box working correctly. Given the box again, knowing the steps I have taken the first time, the sequence which should be taken, I could have had the box up in no time.

What needs to be done by SM or Webhostautomation is to have a detailed Step-by-Step on how to setup a new box and then add another box to the current HELM setup.

I had problem with HELM from about 20days now. Can't be resolved by WebHost yet.

I had clean installation again yesterday, still having problems. I guess i the most addicted microsoft guy and bought the latest .net Smartermail software. That is causing so much of problems with HELM as and when the new integration announced from HELM.

This is something new for them as well. Making me to pull my hair, i think already they lost their hair on it

Are people still having problems setting up Helm servers or has some of this been resolved? What kind of issues are people typically having?

What software does this come with and what else would we need to install?

Helm doesn't 'come' with anything which is part of the reason people are having so much trouble with it.

You need to install DNS, Mail, MySQL, PHP, Perl etc. etc all manually to the server then set up Helm to work with it - it's not an all inclusive install like Ensim would be.

This is a great advantage as far as flexibility goes but a bit of a culture shock to those folks for whom a control panel traditionally sets up the whole server for you.

This is a good point and something we've thought about quite a lot. Helm's strength is in it's flexibility and abiity to work in a practically limitless number of configurations. If, like some other software, we limited the number of mial server we supported for example we would be able to pre-configure your server for you.

I'm still trying to think of a way we can satisfy both our philiposy of being as flexibile as possible while making Helm much more easy to setup and configure.

Doesn't Win2k/Win2k3 come with some of those services such as web, ftp, dns, mail, and firewall? This should cover the basics. What else do people need?

most of customers don't want to use the ftp, dns and mail software that's installed with windows. They prefer to use other software.

Fair point though, I'd like to have a version of helm that you can install that would work out-of-the-box with the standard MS software.

That would be a good idea I think if you can do it, the windows mail is pretty hopeless but mailenable is good and free - if you could build something around IIS, MS FTP, mailenable and Windows DNS I think you might be onto a winner.

Deciding whether to install PHP / Perl / MySQL is a bit more of a problem - personally I won't run any of these on a Windows server but I know many like to offer everything and the kitchen sink, so perhaps they could choose which services to install ?

Make it so.

As a virtual customer and developer, one of my biggest complaints (other than not having a control panel at all) was that the servers had php but not mysql. This forced me to have a Linux account in addition to the windows account because I had several MS Access/ASP applications as well as mySQL/PHP applications. It would be nice if these were options for install.It would make a windows server more valuable to developers.

Mark,

I hope you don't take this the wrong way. I have had some experience with working with Ensim Webpplicance Pro for Windows and part of Helm and although Ensim is not as versatile as Helm by design but it answers some fundamental issues in the area of :-

1) Ease of Use. Ensim set everything up for you with its integration with the various Windows services and if it did not agree with some of those, it set up alternatives and integrates with them. So basically it works right out of the box.

2) Contains Requested components. I know Ensim is pretty basic compared to Helm but Ensim installs and integrates with PHP, Perl and MySQL right out of the box. It does support ASP and ASP.NET at the same time. These are features which seems to be very much requested today. I know anyone could just install those but at times it can sure be a pain to do so.

Mark, as a software developer myself, I appreciate the framework in which Helm is built upon and why things are the way it is. Some of the features I may not agree upon but that is another issue altogether.

I understand that Helm was built on a concept of a distributed network of systems, either one controller managing a number of web, mail, ftp, database and whatever servers there might be. Which works fine but the concept does not hold true for the single server license user. For them, everything is on the same box so there is really no need to go about controlling anything beyond that. Whatever is on the server should automatically be integrated and be allowed to be enabled or disabled at will. This is something which Ensim does, it sense compatible 3rd party applications and integrates them to the system.

Perhaps the main flagship Helm should be left as it is since it does work well in the environment. It is the single server one should be something which works out of the box. Does the necessary integration and most importantly the ability to create an account without having to go through the nitty gritty of setting up a reseller. Perhaps a wizard somewhere to set up accounts would be nice, you know like type in username, password, domain name, ip address and hit Enter and the account is set up.

Just a thought.

This is my one and ONLY server ever with HELM.

I have never seen software that is so hard to set up and configure. The whole thing reminds me of a bunch of different software modules that do not work together but instead work as individual parts.
It took me 2 weeks and over 100 hours to get my server up an running.

They claim it is set up for resellers yet if you want to give a reseller their own name servers you have to enter and edit no less than 4 files for provide them.
You have to enter as admin enter the name servers then create the reseller then as that reseller you have to create a user create a package create the domain add DNS service to the domain add the A records for the NS to the domain and on and on.

Virtual Directory support is not there, so ASP.NET is almost worthless to most users. Sad thing is Mark admits the function is there for CF support they just have not gotten around to adding it yet. Other things on his plate like more billing options. Guess what Mark I could give a ..... about the billing get a fuctional CP the billing is bells and whtisles.

Allow users to change file premissions inside their wwroot so they can place an Access database and write to it which is standard set up for most front page sites, Not there, so tech support has to do it for the user each time they set a new site up. Marks answer on thier forums to others that ask about this, why would anyone want to do that? Use it the way we set it up with the Db directory. And then he talks about flexablity.

Frankly if I did not already have users on the system I would rip HELM off it so fast and install a REAL control panel it would not even be funny.

I will never buy another server with HELM. I am looking at other panels now for the server I buy next month. But no more HELM for me. In fact I dislike it so bad I am thinking of offering the server and clients on it to a host that likes helm for free just to get rid of the headaches.

I can take a fresh install of Helm (or no Install of Helm) and have it ready to go in 4/5 hours. This includes...



This is a full turnkey hosting/reselling package for Helm on a Windows Server. Could I install and configure Cpanel on a Linux box in the same time and have a fully ready hosting/reselling package? - Nope!

Does that make Cpanel (or Lunix) bad? - Nope! I think Cpanel is a great panel for Linux and always request it (with Fantastico) when I need a Linux box.

It really is not fair to hammer Helm for not understanding Helm (or Windows) Servers. What is fair is to hammer Helm for a product that is flexible but is really lacking in documentation.

AlertServ, I agree that Windows Server can be up and hosting in a few hours but that assumes one has experience with Windows Server products and web hosting. Most people are not installing Helm as many times as you are. Most people do not have the experience setting up Windows server that you or me have. Many don't have the luxury of numerous test boxes or numerous clients running Windows Server like myself. I believe these people are the ones looking for a Windows control panel solution that makes them an admin. I don't believe Helm is the product they are looking for. I believe when they purchase a dedicated server that includes a CP they expect it to be configured and ready to host.
The question is, "are expectations too high or are the products a failure?"

I couldn't agree more. I just didn't want people to get the impression that Helm couldn't be set up in an evening because it can.

I had a couple problems with Helm at the beginning, but nothing I couldn't resolve. At the moment, it's really geared more towards the experienced Windows administrator. Someone who's just looking to buy a server and have it "work" automagically, is going to be disappointed.

Helm is still a fairly young product, and as such, it shows incredible potential. I have no doubt they will be able to increase documentation and out-of-box functionality as time goes on.