ISP Config Appliance

Looks like it's got plenty of documentation too (300+ page manual - wowsers!) Not sure how big an audience this would get but it definately looks like a polished and professional product that would be of good use to those that were interested. If you get in with a patch soonish it may be ableto make it into the v11 part 2 release.

As for TKLPatch, it's pretty simple really (especially for someone with your skillset). It's basically an archive (.tar.gz) which contains an install script (conf) and any required files (/overlay - generally only setup scripts and/or config files, actual installers etc are generally best downloaded with wget via the conf script). It can also include custom .deb packages (/debs). For more complex setups the conf install script can be broken into 2 (/conf/pre-overlay & /conf/post-overlay). Anyway, the TKLPatch documentation should get you going. As you've probably already worked out I'm no hardcore Linux sys admin (just a tinkerer really) but I'm more than happy to provide any assistance if I can.

Thanks for calling attention to ISP. I'd look forward to seeing it developed.

Some time ago someone suggested using TKLBAM for development work. It didn't ever get beyond that though. I think Alon and Liraz quite liked the idea but it never got taken any further. It certainly lowers the bar and makes it as easy as installing and configuring your desired software. For inhouse development it works well, just not easy to share as yet.

I will get into it soon enough but for now is it easy to produce a "patch" if I have a backup of a working ISP Config Appliance?

As a side note they are the guys that run howtoforge website. They make some revenue from selling the billing module and HTF subscriptions.

Hey Rik. In my experience PHP install scripts simply write entries to a DB and/or fill in entries in config files, etc. When I have done patches such as this I unzip/untar the installation files twice - one to install and one as a reference folder. Run the install to completetion. Then dump the DB (assuming that it wrote to a DB) and then run diff on the twin install dirs (the completely installed one against the original untouched reference version). 

I have found that generally this process works well. Where it does become a little problematic is the point at which the customisation that the installer does, then needs to be reproduced via a firstboot script. Some of the options are ok to be left as default, but others need to be configured depending on the usage scenario.

And I love it. Would be nice to incorporate with observium somehow. I started a patch last night but got stuck when I realized that while the preconfiguration (pages and pages) is easily taken care of, the actual installation is an interactive PHP script. I don't know how to preseed answers to that.

Maybe I do know how to do it. Put in the most generic settings, and then see what they affect and where they're hidden away. Probably a matter of dumping and then importing an .sql and sticking some files in overlay.

My problem is that I don't know how to answer some of the questions for a generic or likely use case.

But if you subscribe to this thread then it probably will get a brief announcement if/when it gets released (and you will get an automated email notification).

The best place to show your support for an appliance candidate (such as ISPConfig) is on the Candidates wiki by adding your github_username as a supporter (full details here).

Now that TKLDev has been released maybe someone wants to take a crack at it?

Additionally, or alternatively, it would also be useful if ISPConfig had a wiki page describing required use cases it should fulfill.

Your feedback is warmly welcome.

When or even if a TKL ISPConfig appliance gets created is anybodies guess though. Currently adding new appliances is not a huge focus for the dev team but your points are relevant and definitely worthy of consideration for if/when the devs do look to add this appliance. Also with the release of TKLDev development of new appliances is much more open that it was previously so if someone else wants to take a shot at it that too would be warmly welcomed.

So thanks again for taking the time to share your thoughts. :)