Kloxo is a very popular web free web hosting control panel used by many Linux administrators nowadays to lighten the load of running a web presence.
Kloxo control panel features the following services:
- Web server
- DNS
- FTP server
- Email server
Running Kloxo on a VPS provides all the features a web host may need, with the benefit of not having to pay for a VPS license, as Kloxo is a free control panel.
We’ve been using Kloxo for many years, ever since its original inception as LXAdmin and can vouch for its ease of use and maintenance.
Unlike its main rival, the commercial WHM/cPanel control panel, Kloxo uses many of the standard repositories that come with the supported operating systems (OS).
This leads to a less intrusive installation and often means that you can also use a Kloxo based VPS for hosting other services if you have the resources.
However, we usually recommend that you keep your web hosting servers separate from other servers for simplicity.
Kloxo System Requirements
As with any software installation, it is always best to make sure that your VPS meets the minimum hardware and software resource requirements before beginning the installation.
We’d suggest checking the current Kloxo system requirements details on their installation page.
Kloxo Operating System Requirements
At the time of posting the officially supported operating (OS) systems are:
- Red Hat Enterprise Linux (RHEL) 5
- CentOS 5
It should be noted, that in our experience, Kloxo will install fine on RHEL6 and CentOS 6.
However, if you experience any problems with your Kloxo installation and you have installed it on an unsupported OS, you are unlikely to get much help from the Kloxo team.
VPS Hardware Resource Requirements
The following are the minimum VPS resource requirements for installing Kloxo:
- 256MB memory
- 2GB disk space
It should be noted that Kloxo temporarily stores system backups in the /tmp directory, so you must ensure that there will be adequate disk space available to /tmp in order to store the total data of your largest hosted website.
Disable SELinux
Before starting the Kloxo installation script, we must first ensure that SELinux is not running and is disabled.
To check whether SELinux is currently running enter the following command at your VPS terminal window:
sestatus
If SELinux is enabled you can disable it using the by editing the /etc/selinux/config file and setting the following:
SELINUX=disabled
After editing the above file, you need to reboot the VPS so the changes will take effect.
Getting The Kloxo Installation Script
We are now ready to install Kloxo on the VPS.
To do so we need to make sure that the command line application wget is installed.
The following command should be run:
yum install -y wget
Now we need to use wget to retrieve the installation script from the Kloxo website:
wget http://download.lxcenter.org/download/kloxo/production/kloxo-installer.sh
Installing Kloxo On Your VPS
Now we can start the Kloxo installation. However, there are two types of Kloxo server:
- Kloxo Master – runs all services (e.g. web, DNS, MySQl, email, etc.)
- Kloxo Slave – used to distribute services to other Kloxo services
You need to decide which type of Kloxo server you wish to install.
If this is your first Kloxo server, you should choose Master.
Slave servers are used to distribute services to other VPS when you need to spread the load across multiple servers.
For example, you may have web, DNS and MySQL running on the Kloxo Master VPS and email running on a Kloxo Slave VPS.
MySQL Considerations
Kloxo stores much of its configuration information in a local MySQL database.
If you already have MySQL installed on your VPS, you must append the following command to the Master or Slave installation command:
--db-rootpassword=PASSWORD
Where PASSWORD is your MySQL root password.
For example, sh ./kloxo-installer.sh –type=master –db-rootpassword=PASSWORD
Installing A Kloxo Master
To install a Kloxo Master, run the following command:
sh ./kloxo-installer.sh --type=master
Installing A Kloxo Slave
To install a Kloxo Slave , run the following command:
sh ./kloxo-installer.sh --type=slave
Post Installation
After the Kloxo installation script has completed you will be able to login to the administration interface by pointing your web browser at either of the following URLs:
- https://[VPS IP]:7777
- http://[VPS IP]:7778
The default login credential are:
User: admin
Password: admin
You should change the password immediately.