Do you run a control panel on your server?

 Do you run a control panel on your server? If so what is it? When I had my server I use to run webmin, I found it really easy to use.

I like CP's too, My favorite is directadmin, but if you need special configurations you need to skip the CP

I have cpanel and WHM on my server.

My host has CPanel installed. I find it easy to use, no matter what task I have to complete.

ssh access is all you need...

While I understand the reasoning for control panels and won't argue that for quick tasks they are useful, particularly for windows centric users ultimately if you want to seriously get into web based work, you will just have to start learning some basic unix commands and get use to the command line.

Once you have mastered ssh, you can do such simple things as sftp, and secure your file transfers, install and modify pear or indeed any configs, set up advanced cron jobs, just check real time performances of the server etc.

yeah that sounds so good but looks so unreal at the moment ???

Oh I know, I really don't understand why many schools, universities and other education institutions are not teaching unix any more...

Now for the self taught its even harder my only suggestion is immerse yourself, Ubuntu and similar are now so good that they can easily replace windows and of course there is always OS X these have pretty graphical front ends which means you can do the day to day stuff, but will slowly realise that the terminal is your friend. I have a designer friend who runs OS X and finds it funny that I move/delete and generally do anything with files by the command line but its just habit and to give him his credit he is the first to say that ultimately my way is quicker though less aesthetically pleasing perhaps ;) 

Tim we will agree on that :)

I am an ssh guy too. Control panels make your life more difficult when you know how to use the config files :)

I'm Using LxAdmin because is very very light
Regards

looks good, but what if you need some special configurations?

hmm..Special Like?
Lighttpd Support Many conf And Uses Very Low Resources.
And In The Hosting World,You Can Host Around 20% More Customers to Lighttpd Due to this reason.
Apache Increase Ram & Cpu Resource(If Cpanel Is Installed On The Server,This 2 Both Have 200Mb Around Of Ram Only For Them!)
Regards

I remember some german hostmaster told me to use that platform for my web proxies, is this possible?

Sure.
And You Will Have More Power,As proxy uses more cpu usage,lighttpd will not use as resourses as apache!
The result?You will have more resourses free!
Also,I dont understand abou your question,why not to support?
It is a web server,like apache with lower resourses!
Regards!

I don't know so much about servers, people told me that I need to be careful with configurations around the CP like directadmin or plesk

I Dont know exactly if cpanel runs in Lighttpd.
I think Cpanel comes with "Lamp"(webserver,sql server all in one package)
Regards

CP is not cPanel but controle panel :)

oups.
I think you mean Cpanel,Plesk,DA,Etc;)
Also what other config will you need?
The Most Servers Comes Pre-installed With the most importand(Lamp For Example)
Regards

In my current configuration (DA) I need to add this module:
http://dominia.org/djao/limitipconn2.html

but I'm afraid that my server stops working (or at least this module) if they run the next update.

I have a small SLA which includes updates to the last versions (I have a very stable running conf. with php5.2 apache 2.2 mysql 5)

I Dont know this module,as i run lighttpd! Sorry m8!
But maybe DA support Can help you and tell you if its going to stop working or not
Regards

Yeah I will try that, I hope their forum is better than from Plesk :) Thanks

I've been using virtualmin for a while, after trying cpanel and plesk.  The free version is really great for most things, but the pay version has some pretty good extra stuff like a fantastico kind of thing for scripts and it's easier to setup than the free one.  If you liked webmin, you'll love virtualmin, because it's more easy for website configuration.

I also like ssh, and I never could do it with cpanel or plesk, because everything would break.  Virtualmin doesn't screw up things if I modify the apache configuration directly.

You should give it a try.  The free version is at http://www.webmin.com and the pay version is at http://www.virtualmin.com

I use cPanel and I like it. It's expensive but I don't have to do everything for my friends hosting on my server (i.e. they can setup their own email accounts, databases etc).

/Andreas