Alright so I was thinking about developing a control panel for websites (like cpanel) by using php and mysql to control all of the files, folders and settings. I know it wouldn't be an easy task, but I'm here before I begin coding to ask if anyone can think of any limitations as to why it wouldn't/couldn't work along with any suggestions anyone may have. The general idea is to build it so that as opposed to other control panels it's relatively lightweight consisting of just apache (or lighthttpd), php, mysql, bind and a POP3/IMAP client. Thus using up less than 90 MB of RAM when fully operational unlike cpanel which will use over 250 MB out of the box. This control panel is still in the planning phases and as of yet its all theoretical, so feel free to branch out with things you'd find as an interesting addition to the software... I'm looking for ideas above all else.
What technical skills do you have to make that happen? Not only do you have to build it but it needs to incredibly secure. Its good, however, that you have identified your point of difference and aren't just recreating the wheel for the sake of it.
I'm a PHP/MYSQL/HTML programmer who has a large amount of experience administrating and developing on linux systems. Thus I know both of the fields that would be involved in making the project a reality. In the security department it would have to have security that would give specific scripts permissions to read/write files, but only if that user is the owner of those files... In reality it is a bit complex, but assuming the system can compensate by creating a different user for each domain path it would be more secure than cpanel for file/folder permissions and it would directly allow the administrator to see exactly how much storage/bandwidth/ram/cpu is being used by each user. Unlike cpanel which doesn't create seperate usergroups, but instead allows the use of "nobody" or "apache" which is why many admins have a hard time figuring out who is abusing. I thought about that, but there are three major problems with me outright making the project opensource: 1. It allows potential hackers to read every line of code looking for exploits, while this may not seem like much of a problem unless I had a team of developers to help me code this I wouldn't consider it right away... 2. There really is no money in opensource... As weird as it may sound some of us do have bills to pay. I was planning on releasing a free version which could host 25 domains and a paid version with either a onetime license fee or small monthly payments in the event this project did get that far. 3. Opensource projects tend to die quickly online for lack of funding and programmers willing to help keep the projects going. --- Thank you both for your thoughts and input... I hope to hear more soon