Cloudlinux vs. cPanel
Providers of shared Web hosting services often have to deal with customers who intentionally or unintentionally use a disproportionate share of server resources. Meeting the inordinate needs of one customer might slow down or even interrupt service for other customers. CloudLinux and cPanel are two tools that can help Web hosting providers reign in resource-greedy accounts.
Other People Are Reading
-
CloudLinux Overview
-
CloudLinux is a Linux-based server operating system designed to facilitate the creation and administration of multiple virtual machines. CloudLinux is a commercial Linux distribution based upon CentOS - a RedHat Enterprise Linux clone. CloudLinux adds its own proprietary virtualization technology known as Lightweight Virtualized Environments or LVE. Although CentOS is free and open source, CloudLinux is available only for customers who purchase licenses for it.
CloudLinux Advantages
-
While other Linux distributions offer server virtualization tools, CloudLinux specifically address the needs of Web hosting service providers. CloudLinux allows server administrators to strictly control the CPU processes, RAM usage and disk access available to each virtual machine, or VM. If a user's VM has a sudden increase in resource usage due to traffic or misbehaving applications, LVE prevents the VM from using any more resources that were originally allocated for it. A CloudLinux VM cannot steal resources from other VMs. Since the limits of each VM is known in advance, providers can efficiently provision more VMs per server.
-
cPanel Overview
-
CPanel is a commercial, Web-based application that lets you control and maintain a Web server with mouse clicks rather than complex Linux terminal commands. Providers of shared Linux Web hosting services often purchase cPanel for use with each hosting account. CPanel users can create email accounts, install Web applications, back up data, monitor website traffic, examine logs, create protected directories, generate GnuPG encryption keys and block unwanted traffic from specific Internet Protocol or IP addresses or a range of IP addresses.
cPanel and CloudLinux
-
CloudLinux and cPanel are linked through a formal business partnership between their respective companies. Users of other Linux distributions who are familiar with cPanel can now use it to administer CloudLinux-based Web servers. CPanel for CloudLinux hosts has LVE-specific displays and controls to monitor the VM host and the performance and resource usage of individual guest VMs. In addition, Web hosting services can provide cPanel to each VM client to administer their own website.
-
References
Resources
- Photo Credit Thinkstock Images/Comstock/Getty Images
