Hestia Control Panel: Empowering Your Web Hosting Management

Introduction:

Hestia Control Panel (HestiaCP) is a powerful and intuitive web hosting control panel that builds upon the foundation laid by its predecessor, VestaCP. With a mission to provide an even more seamless and efficient web hosting management experience, HestiaCP offers a range of enhanced features and user-friendly tools tailored to meet the needs of both beginners and seasoned professionals.

Derived from the reputable VestaCP, HestiaCP has been meticulously refined and optimized to offer a more lightweight, faster, and secure alternative for hosting environments. Designed with simplicity in mind, this open-source control panel strives to make web server administration a breeze, enabling users to effortlessly create, manage, and maintain websites, databases, email accounts, and DNS settings from a centralized, intuitive interface.

In response to the diverse needs of administrators, HestiaCP takes flexibility to a whole new level by offering the choice between MySQL or MariaDB during the installation process. Whether you prefer the tried-and-true MySQL or the performance-optimized MariaDB, HestiaCP empowers you to decide which database management system best suits your hosting environment. This newfound flexibility ensures that you can tailor your database infrastructure precisely to your requirements, making HestiaCP a truly adaptable control panel for your hosting needs.

HestiaCP includes two powerful features, the File Manager and Disk Usage Quota, as standard components of the control panel. HestiaCP freely equips you with an intuitive File Manager to easily navigate and manage your website files directly from the control panel. Additionally, Disk Usage Quota empowers you to monitor and control your account’s disk space consumption, enabling you to optimize resource allocation and ensure efficient usage. Whether you’re a web developer, system administrator, or business owner, HestiaCP empowers you with the tools to take full control of your hosting infrastructure, enabling you to focus on what truly matters – the growth and success of your online ventures. With its familiar foundation in VestaCP, transitioning to HestiaCP is a seamless process, ensuring continuity and familiarity for existing users.

TIPS:

System Requirements
- 64-bit Processors: HestiaCP supports only 64-bit processors, ensuring you get the best performance from modern hardware.
- LTS Systems: Enjoy seamless compatibility with Long-Term Support (LTS) systems, guaranteeing a stable and reliable hosting environment.
Email Services Perfected (Part 1)
- Sieve Recommended: When enabling email services, we suggest Sieve, as well, that is a powerful email filtering language, to streamline and enhance your email management.
- Smart Recommendations: If RAM is less than 2G, HestiaCP advises against enabling SpamAssassin and ClamAV, as they consume significant memory.
Certificate Auto-Renewal
- Domain Configuration: Begin by configuring a web domain that shares the same name as your server. For instance, if your HestiaCP server’s address is identified as “https://this.sample.com:8083,” we recommend establishing a web domain with the name “this.sample.com.” Ensure that a valid SSL certificate is associated with this domain.
- Certificate Backup: Proceed to create backups of the certificate files, both the “.crt” (certificate) and “.key” (private key) files. These files should be located in the directory /usr/local/hestia/ssl/.
  Suggested command lines:
  cp -a /usr/local/hestia/ssl/certificate.crt /usr/local/hestia/ssl/.certificate.crt
  cp -a /usr/local/hestia/ssl/certificate.key /usr/local/hestia/ssl/certificate.key
- upload_max_filesize = 50M
- Symbolic Link Creation: In order to streamline the renewal process, create symbolic links for both the “.crt” and “.key” files within the directory /home/admin/conf/web/this.sample.com/ssl. Name these links as follows: “certificate.crt” for the certificate file and “certificate.key” for the private key file. These symbolic links should point to the corresponding files in /usr/local/hestia/ssl/.
  Suggested command lines:
  ln -s /home/admin/conf/web/this.sample.com/ssl/this.sample.com.crt /usr/local/hestia/ssl/certificate.crt ln -s /home/admin/conf/web/this.sample.com/ssl/this.sample.com.key /usr/local/hestia/ssl/certificate.key
- Restart hestia periodically. Create a cron job as amdin in “CRON” pane to restart hestia every month or every other month.
Email Services Perfected (Part 2)
- Modification of File Permissions: Execute the following command to modify the permissions of all files within the directory:
  chmod 664 /home/admin/conf/web/this.sample.com/ssl/*
- Restart exim4 periodically. Create a cron job as admin in “CRON” pane to restart exim4 every week or even every day.
- Following the above adjustment of permissions for the certificate files, an important outcome ensues. Specifically, users employing email clients are enabled to establish secure and encrypted connections with the server’s EXIM4 service. This enhanced security measure ensures that sensitive communications remain private and protected, fostering a more secure environment for email interactions between users and the server.
Email Services Perfected (Part 3) – Attachment size limit: By default, HestiaCP settings allow email attachment of only 2M if users send emails with webmail. Below are suggested modifications:
- Add two lines to /etc/roundcube/config.inc.php :
  // This will update the message on the webmail page "Maximum allowed file size is 50 MB" $config['max_message_size'] = '80M';
- Create a file /var/lib/roundcube/.user.ini , and add two lines:
  upload_max_filesize = 50M post_max_size = 50M
- Change settings in /etc/php/[VERSION NUMBER]/apache2/php.ini according to the previous bullet or define more than 50M for both items;
- Restart PHP, Apache, and/or Nginx, or just reboot the server once for all.

Finale:

Join the growing community of HestiaCP enthusiasts and unlock the potential of your web hosting experience. Discover the simplicity, speed, and security that Hestia Control Panel has to offer, and elevate your web hosting management to new heights. Check out their Official Website or see how you can contribute to the project on Github. If you would like to translate the text strings of UI, head over to Hestia Translate where you will meet supporters from all over the world.