Newbie questions regarding ssh, databases and apps

[talkingnews]

I feel fairly confident around ispconfig now - I've joined, bought the manual, followed the guide, installed 3.0.3.2 on Ubuntu 10.10 64 on a vps, updated everything, and have 2 sites running perfectly.

Well, almost. In order of urgency:

I can ssh in as the root user. But this isn't good, so I created a new ssh user in ispconfig with chroot jailkit permissions.

I start putty, connect, type username and password, ubuntu welcomes me, and immediately, I get "remote host closed connection". Can't see anything in the logs about why this would be, and there's no other error. The last thing on the screen is "Ubuntu comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by applicable law". I never get as far as the prompt, and I've tried both /bin/bash (default) and also /bin/sh

Next up: databases. For some reason, the links to ispconfig's internal apps like phpmyadmin doesn't appear to work (404). Not to worry, I installed phpmyadmin separately, but now I want to add another database under the same username.
phpmyadmin says no priviledges to do this (even though I granted all from mysql command line), but more importantly, ispconfig wants me to create a NEW user for each NEW database. This is going to make copying between databases in phpmyadmin a little tricky!

Finally, and this is probably a more general linux question, but is it possible to dispense entirely with all the "on board" email systems and have all email, alerts etc generated by the system running through my gmail or other external email service? I don't NEED email for the site itself, so running all this gubbins is just taking space.

Thanks, and thanks for a brilliant application.

[falko]

Originally Posted by talkingnews

I start putty, connect, type username and password, ubuntu welcomes me, and immediately, I get "remote host closed connection". Can't see anything in the logs about why this would be, and there's no other error. The last thing on the screen is "Ubuntu comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY, to the extent permitted by applicable law". I never get as far as the prompt, and I've tried both /bin/bash (default) and also /bin/sh

Any errors in your logs?

Originally Posted by talkingnews

Next up: databases. For some reason, the links to ispconfig's internal apps like phpmyadmin doesn't appear to work (404).

See chapter "4.9.2.4 Interface Config" in the manual.

Originally Posted by talkingnews

This is going to make copying between databases in phpmyadmin a little tricky!

You can do this by logging in as the MySQL root user.

Originally Posted by talkingnews

Finally, and this is probably a more general linux question, but is it possible to dispense entirely with all the "on board" email systems and have all email, alerts etc generated by the system running through my gmail or other external email service? I don't NEED email for the site itself, so running all this gubbins is just taking space.

Take a look at the "always_bcc" directive ( http://www.postfix.org/postconf.5.html ).

Thanks, and thanks for a brilliant application.[/QUOTE]

[talkingnews]

Originally Posted by falko

Any errors in your logs?

Not that I can find, I'm looking in syslog. The strange thing is, I made a second account, and with all the settings identical, one works, the other logs me out immediately. Weird.

Originally Posted by falko

[Regarding making two sql DBs with the same username]You can do this by logging in as the MySQL root user.

Yes, I realise this. I was just hoping ISPCONFIG and command line would keep me away from the root shell a bit more.

Originally Posted by falko

Take a look at the "always_bcc" directive ( http://www.postfix.org/postconf.5.html ).

Confused - looks like this requires postfix to still be running? My goal is to remove ALL mail, pop3, smtp, email system from the server, let google/someone else handle it.

Incidentally, should anything ever appear in the TOOLS>APPS AND ADDONS section, should anything ever appear in "packages" and "updates"? I've got the http://repo.ispconfig.org/addons/ repo in there, but it doesn't really get a mention in the manual, and nothing ever appears despite regularly clicking "update".

[falko]

Originally Posted by talkingnews

Yes, I realise this. I was just hoping ISPCONFIG and command line would keep me away from the root shell a bit more.

Just use phpMyAdmin.

Originally Posted by talkingnews

Confused - looks like this requires postfix to still be running? My goal is to remove ALL mail, pop3, smtp, email system from the server, let google/someone else handle it.

At least Postfix must be running.

Originally Posted by talkingnews

Incidentally, should anything ever appear in the TOOLS>APPS AND ADDONS section, should anything ever appear in "packages" and "updates"? I've got the http://repo.ispconfig.org/addons/ repo in there, but it doesn't really get a mention in the manual, and nothing ever appears despite regularly clicking "update".

The repo is currently empty, so that's ok.

[talkingnews]

OK, big thumbs up and thanks for answering all my questions!