The History of the Webserv24 Control Panel
2006: Where it all began - First billing
Back in 2006, when I was still a kid but already had a fairly large online project – the chat service mpchat.com and my own community forum, live-co.com – I needed to provide hosting and domain registration services. At the time, I needed a simple billing system and a server control panel. DirectAdmin was chosen as the server control panel, but a suitable simple billing system couldn't be found. In just a couple of weeks, I wrote a draft billing system with registration and payment acceptance via WebMoney and immediately launched it to those wishing to purchase services. Even then, many people loved it for its simplicity and convenience, as it was completely empty. Year after year, the billing system became smarter and more functional. Orders, payment acceptance, and domain registration were already handled automatically. Initially, the billing system was used on the webserv24.com domain. Around the end of 2008, development was frozen, as no one was attracting clients and there was no development.
Billing control panel Allows you to quickly perform actions such as domain registration,
accepting payments, creating and managing accounts on remote servers,
customer service through a ticket and mail system.
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reveal more details about the functions )
Management and moderation (rights)
- Services
- Servers
- Clients
- Tariffs
- Orders
- Operations and payments
- Ticket system
- Hosting pages
Service management
- Setting up hosting parameters
- Setting up domain APIs (Reg.ru/Webnames/Directi/Resell)
- And payment systems (Pay-zone.ru/Webmoney/RoboKassa/Liqpay)
- Specifying the percentage rate for the ref. system
- Obtaining exchange rates from the Central Bank of Russia
- Manage promo codes
- Activate autolock/unlock
- Possibility of specifying costs for accounting
- Built-in texts and templates
Server management
- Adding servers
- Distribution of tariffs by servers
- Specify the priority for selecting a server when ordering hosting
- Setting up API for the control panel (Webserv24/DirectAdmin/GameCP)
- Enable online/offline notifications
- Monitoring server loads with a single list
Client management
- Convenient client registration
- Automatic verification of the correctness of the entered data
- Automatic transliteration of data
- User upload of documents (gif, jpg, png, bmp)
- Password recovery for the owner's email
- Issuance of rights and the ability to change any data
- Login under any user to perform actions
- Filtered search by user data and orders
Order management
- Adding orders manually
- Changing orders
- Convenient search and sorting of orders
- Manual blocking and unblocking of orders with indication of the reason
- Disabling auto-blocking for some orders
- Convenient transition to the client of the selected order
- Order statistics by month, server, and service type
- Order statistics by domain zone and hosting plan
Managing transactions and payments
- Adding manual operations (action, write-off, assignment, costs)
- Display of all operations/actions performed by anyone
- Visual display of the receipt and outflow of funds and all expenses
- Convenient filtered search by parameters and sorting of results
- Monthly transaction statistics (replenished, ordered, costs, profit)
Tariff management
- Adding tariffs for Hosting and Domains
- Changing tariffs without changing the services provided to clients
- Entering auto-expenses for domains
- Ability to use multiple APIs for domains simultaneously
- Customization of all parameters down to the smallest detail
Ticket management
- Possibility to ask the client a question
- Possibility to send an email newsletter to all clients
- Ability to reply to tickets and change their status (answered/not answered)
- When replying, the ticket status is pending, warning others
- Convenient visual sorting of tickets by priority
Managing hosting pages
- Connecting domain hosting and billing
- Uploading files and editing HTML pages
- Using REWRITE to replace .php with .html
- JS news engine for embedding news into the website
- Output of RUR/USD/EUR exchange rates from the Central Bank of Russia into a template
Automatic domain registration, payment acceptance, and refunds
- Instant domain registration and renewal in automatic mode
- Possibility to use several recorders in parallel
- Reg.ru REGRU (ru/рф/su/kz)
- Webnames REGTIME (ru/рф/su/kz)
- Directi/Resell (com/net/org and others)
- Automatic payment acceptance via API - Pay-Zone.ru (all systems connected)
- Or via API - Webmoney/Roboxchange/Liqpay
- There is also manual assignment of payments and expenses
- Automatic withdrawal of funds from the balance to the Pay-Zone.ru system for withdrawal
Automatic account creation on a remote server
- Full support for the Webserv24 server panel
- Automatic tariff change
- Automatic blocking of expired accounts
- Automatic activation upon account renewal
- Manual locking with automatic disabling
- Manual deletion of old accounts
Other functionality
- Integrated FeedBack contact form
- Own Whois service for checking domains
- Monitoring server availability with email notifications
- Setting up automatic renewal of orders when funds are available
- Support service via a ticket system with the ability to ask questions
- Logs of account replenishment, orders, service termination, changes
- Referral system statistics, referral rating
- Complete accounting of income and expenses, correct accounting
- etc.
2009: The Birth of the Webserv24 Server Panel
By 2009, I had gained a fair amount of experience in both programming and Linux. Creating the social network vmeste.eu and the radio broadcasting service myradio24.com made me more technically savvy in complex areas. It was then that I decided to create my own server control panel. At first glance, it seemed impossible to create a good server control panel on my own, given that entire companies have been working on similar systems (cPanel, DirectAdmin, or ISPs) for years. But that didn't scare me off. Firstly, I needed it for my own projects; secondly, I was simply curious; thirdly, I already had some experience, as I hadn't used other people's panels for my own projects for a long time. Why? you might ask. It's probably simple: I didn't like any of the ready-made panels, and the ones I worked with, like DirectAdmin, were riddled with vulnerabilities and technical issues. 2009: Webserv24 Establishment - Let's Go
In late 2009, when I decided to create a server panel, it was just an idea; I wasn't planning on creating a new hosting service. I had to approach the matter very seriously; any errors in the code or careless exploits were simply unacceptable, as the entire server would be at risk. Since I already had a domain, webserv24.com, I quickly decided to use it as a basis, which is where the panel's name and logo came from. So, I dropped everything else and focused all my efforts on developing the new panel. I created the first working version in about 2-3 months; the code was written entirely from scratch, but since I had a lot of previous experience, everything went swimmingly. At that point, the new panel had everything needed to work with websites; it took the best from all the panels I knew and brought it to life. I started using this panel on all my servers and was very happy with it, but it would be foolish to use such a tool alone.
2010: Popularization of Webserv24 - Creation of Webhost1.ru hosting
In March 2010, I decided to create a new hosting service, especially since I'd already had a decent domain, webhost1.ru, for a while. Going it alone wasn't an option this time, as I needed to provide technical support and help new clients while also focusing on development. So, I assembled a team of four people (partners) who also wanted to get involved in hosting. We had a new server control panel, but we needed a corresponding billing system. Of course, I took my old billing system and slightly updated the code. Actually, it was a complete refactoring, security testing, and the creation of a user-friendly interface . All that remained was to add an API for the server control panel and launch the entire system. By the end of March, everything was ready. The Webserv24 control panel was divided into two separate products: the billing and server control panels, the green and the blue ones.
2010: Popularization of Webserv24 - Development of Webhost1.ru hosting
The system was up and running. We built a website, set rock-bottom prices, started participating in forums, and created an affiliate program. While we weren't initially profitable, we experienced strong growth. In the first three years, we acquired several thousand active clients without investing in advertising. And that's no surprise: both panels performed all tasks assigned to them instantly and without errors, no slowdowns, no glitches, just a simple, user-friendly interface. Errors did occur, of course, as with any other system, but they were fixed within minutes, not days as is usually the case.
2013: Popularization of Webserv24 - The Revolution of Webhost1.ru
Since I was constantly working day after day to refine control panels and resolve technical issues, and staying up all night monitoring servers due to frequent DDOS attacks while also handling accounting, everything began to spiral out of control. Rapid growth in popularity meant I simply couldn't cope. To distribute the workload, in 2013 we decided to transfer webhost1.ru to a Russian company, Webhost LLC, registered by one of us, and hire more staff. Since then, the billing panel with all clients has been transferred to the company and has become an integral part of webhost1.ru, and the Webserv24 server panel is provided by me on a lease basis. Another three years have passed, and the hosting company has grown approximately fourfold.
2016: Current Realities of Webserv24
It would seem that everything has already been done, and that years of development have not been in vain, but there's always one BUT: the internet never stands still. New technologies and interfaces emerge, the internet is moving into the mobile space, new operating systems are released, and with them, all software continues to change daily. Everything is evolving faster and faster, and there's no stopping. Therefore, the development of both the billing and server panels never stops. There are always tasks, always problems, always new ideas and suggestions for improvement. It's now the end of 2016—yes, 10 years have passed since the beginning of the story—and I'm still developing these panels as before.
2017: New version development - 1st attempt
In October 2017, the idea of developing a new version 2.0 with a single control center for all servers was born. After several months of work, as the project neared completion, it became clear that this architecture had more drawbacks than advantages. For example, while some management conveniences were added, the speed, security, reliability, and synchronicity of data in the panel suffered. Development of this version was temporarily suspended.
2018: New version development - 2nd attempt
Six months after the new version was frozen, in September 2018, it was decided to retain the old 1.0 architecture of the control panel while incorporating all the useful innovations implemented in the new version. This was the second attempt to fundamentally redesign the control panel. The entire panel was broken down into smaller modules, and the migration of functionality from version 2.0 began, with refactoring of the entire code. By the end of the year, the panel acquired a control center with convenient management and monitoring of all servers. The functionality is constantly being improved and expanded.