Topic: Goodbye server-manager!

[ReetP]

Goodbye old friend.

Finally, after nearly 30 years of fantastic service, we are now retiring the old server-manager:

https://bugs.koozali.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13333
https://bugs.koozali.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13300

The libraries it relied on are very old and unmaintained and we need a more modern system.

This has been replaced by smanager - a perl mojolicious based system. It has a modern supported backend. A huge shout out to Michel and Brian who have built it. It has been a massive piece of work.

It should look quite familiar to you!

One new thing is it can have themes, and there has been work on a more responsive theme as well.

The team are in the process of migrating contribs to the new system. Do please help test. You do NOT have to be a coder to help - just be a normal user, run a test VM, try and break it, and report issues.

Or help verify fixes. Just ask us and we will try and give you some guidance - better still come and talk to us on our Rocket.Chat

[wdepot]

Goodbye old friend.

Finally, after nearly 30 years of fantastic service, we are now retiring the old server-manager:

https://bugs.koozali.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13333
https://bugs.koozali.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13300

The libraries it relied on are very old and unmaintained and we need a more modern system.

This has been replaced by smanager - a perl mojolicious based system. It has a modern supported backend. A huge shout out to Michel and Brian who have built it. It has been a massive piece of work.

It should look quite familiar to you!

One new thing is it can have themes, and there has been work on a more responsive theme as well.

The team are in the process of migrating contribs to the new system. Do please help test. You do NOT have to be a coder to help - just be a normal user, run a test VM, try and break it, and report issues.

Or help verify fixes. Just ask us and we will try and give you some guidance - better still come and talk to us on our Rocket.Chat

I'm finally ready to start testing SME11Beta on a test server and have a question about how to get to the new web based server management. Since my test server only has a single ethernet port and is set as Server Only I used to access server management as http://ipaddress/server-manager under SME10 where ipaddress is the actual IP address set for the test server. Since that didn't work with SME11 I looked and found this post. Seeing that the server-manager has been replaced by smanager I tried using http://ipaddress/smanager but that also did not work. So the question is how do I access the new server manager under SME11? The only documentation I found was for SME10.

[ReetP]

Assuming you accepted most defaults during setup, and are on the same network  it should just work.

Tell us what you did during install.

[wdepot]

Assuming you accepted most defaults during setup, and are on the same network  it should just work.

Tell us what you did during install.

Okay, I can get in to the admin directly on the test server terminal itself and the reconfigure dialog matches the install dialog so here is what I did.

Primary Domain: test.local
System Name: sme
Local Network Device: selected only existing ethernet port
Local IP Address: 10.0.3.234
Subnet Mask: 255.255.255.0
Mode: Server Only
Gateway: 10.0.3.1
DHCP: Off Do NOT provide (since gateway does that)
DNS Server: 10.0.3.1 (changed to this since leaving it blank failed to provide internet access)

One thing I did do before trying to access the new server manager from the browser of another computer on the local network was install the PHPMyAdmin and WebHosting contributions since I need those two to actually make the test server useful. Do you think one of those could have caused the problem I'm having. Based on your reply I'm guessing that I would still access the new smanager by using http://10.0.3.234/server-manager in my browser like I did under SME10.

One other thing I should mention. I just tried to connect to the text mode server manager you are supposed to be able to access when you log in directly on the server itself as admin (menu item 6. Access server manager). When I told it Yes I wished to proceed I got the following error message:

Unable to retrieve http://localhost/server-manager: Connection refused

[TerryF]

DNS Server: 10.0.3.1 (changed to this since leaving it blank failed to provide internet access)

This, maybe an indication not all is well with the local network settings, have never had to set it when gateway etc is good and is routing outside to whole network, others may have a different take

Based on your reply I'm guessing that I would still access the new smanager by using http://10.0.3.234/server-manager in my browser like I did under SME10.

NO, install set config, reboot, access server manager now smanager, SM2, with http://10.0.3.234/smanager 

Unable to retrieve http://localhost/server-manager: Connection refused

see answer above, although the old SM is still there, not for much longer tho and has limited functionality, what is possible that by installing those contribs, am not sure if they have been fully verified just yet, before accessing SM2 and doing a full update and reboot MAY have introduced an issue

Edit: just running up a VM and trying to match your setup

[TerryF]

Alos were you able to update the server from the local terminal post install?

Sounds a possible as had issues with internet connectivity

Its easy to miss activating the network during the initial install

Added: and do a signal-event post-upgrade; signal-event reboot ?

[JohnG]

I tried using http://ipaddress/smanager but that also did not work. So the question is how do I access the new server manager under SME11? The only documentation I found was for SME10.

Minor note, i think it should be https://ipaddress/smanager with the "s"

[wdepot]

Alos were you able to update the server from the local terminal post install?

Sounds a possible as had issues with internet connectivity

Its easy to miss activating the network during the initial install

Added: and do a signal-event post-upgrade; signal-event reboot ?

I thought I had seen the install do an update after I installed or else I had done a yum update but apparently I missed that. Based on this suggestion I did dnf update and it listed over 500 updates so that is something I obviously had missed. After the update and the corresponding post-upgrade and reboot I can now access the smanager as I should.

[TerryF]

After the update and the corresponding post-upgrade and reboot I can now access the smanager as I should.

Winner

Essential while still just the Beta iso, there are a multitude of updates, upgrades and fixes since the beta iso was spun up

[steveb]

Not sure if this is considered a bug but seems to be a security issue none the less.
I can open up log into smanager (un/pw credentials for admin) and logout then click login and it will ask for credentials. Good this is to be expected.
If I leave it for a time (5 minutes to overnight doesn't seem to matter) it will show show as logged out but then I can click on Login again and it will allow me in without any credential challenge. I can close the browser, reboot, reopen browser open the smanager page (https://<ip>/smanager). The page will show as not logged in and a click of the login button will then show as logged in and all services available. No saved credentials in the browser or anywhere. Clicking Logout WILL logout.

Client system is Windows 10 Pro, Browser is Brave 1.88.138, server is a recent reload from scratch of sme11beta with all updates (dnf update). Now I have added some contribs and it was while doing this (and getting side tracked) that I discovered the issue. Although all are from smecontribs or smecontribs-testing repos. The same behaviour is seen in Firefox is the latest.

The comparison is made against the old server-manager which would timeout after some time (not sure exact timeout time but in minutes) and then require credentials to reaccess.

Posting here first for discussion before reporting as bug.

Other than that it all looks good and seems to handle the legacy panel contribs (phpki and openvpn bridge) although this did trigger a request for creds.

Bug reported https://bugs.koozali.org/show_bug.cgi?id=13491

[brianr]

See my comment in the bug - looks like not the latest Server-Manager II.