OpenEMM Technical Support Forum

Hi all!

I would request some info on the following:

1. Is it possible to install OpenEMM on the a.m. server type? (The specs for the above server state that an SSH is available, but not with root priviledges.)

2. If item 1. is not possible, are there alternate providers of managed servers who allow OpenEmm installation and which you could recommend?

For clarity, I have null experience in managing a server. I'm more concerned with marketing tasks and biz admin. I'd like to shun learning to manage a server.

Peace!
marketeer

Some more information about the technical details would be helpful and then you/we can compare them to the requirements of OpenEMM.

But I think it should be possible to get OpenEMM running the machine.

Thank you for your interest.

To get the info on technical details to you, would you care to follow this link to the providers site. There you would find all of the techn Info available to me. Warning, though, the provider is a German company, so the info is in German language.

http://www.1und1.info/xml/order/ServerH ... _lf=Static

(what a long link!)

Should the info there, which is more like marketing/technical info, not be sufficient, then I could take your specific questions to their support service as I already am a customer of theirs for other products.

PS: Falls Deutsch günstiger für unsere Kommunikation ist, kein Problem.

marketeer wrote:To get the info on technical details to you, would you care to follow this link to the providers site. There you would find all of the techn Info available to me. Warning, though, the provider is a German company, so the info is in German language.

I found some information in english:

http://order.1and1.com/xml/order/ServerManaged

I still cannot find out exactly what sort of SSH access they provide. Can you install things on your own or do you have to use the pre-configured options? OpenEMM is a Java application and needs a Java Runtime Environment which I see no mention of on the 1&1 page.

Why don't you just cut & paste the installation requirements for OpenEMM and contact customer support at 1&1 and ask them if they would do it for you or if it is possible for you to install it yourself?

Since OpenEMM is also available as a WM-ware image, an option for you might be to contact a provider regarding av Virtual Private Server (VPS) on a WM-ware host, where you could upload (or ask the provider to download) the OpenEMM WM-ware image.

Regards,
Martin

Their support says they provide SSH for use, all except root access. On inquiry they say further: you cannot install SW if root access is requred. Otherwise, you can. You would have to use a Root Server, instead of a managed server, root access, i.e. for installation of SW. the managed server comes in preconfiguration with Plesk and Linux etc. pre-installed. and pre-configured.

I haven't handled a root server yet, and wouldn't want to, if their is a work-around, such as a managed server for the server admin.

Why don't you just cut & paste the installation requirements for OpenEMM and contact customer support at 1&1 and ask them if they would do it for you or if it is possible for you to install it yourself?

They don't offer installation support.
And, if I were to choose a managed server and require root access for it (for installation purposes only) they would need to take the managed server out of their support/service pool, which would leave me with a root server (which, again, I can't handle).

The option for a WM-ware host provider I will try. Eh, what does 'WM' stand for?

Thank you for your attention to this matter, Martin.

regs,
marketeer

WM-Ware was supposed to be "VMware", a virtualisation solution. So you can run several virtual servers on one physical machine.

I think there is no other way than root-access (or sudo, but they wont give you the rights) to configure the server for OpenEMM and to do maintenance tasks from time to time.

But you could ask 1und1 directly whether they support OpenEMM or not.

If not, then maybe I can help you out. I work for an internet-provider and webhoster and we use the VMware mentioned above, too. And furthermore we run our own OpenEMM-server as virtual server.

Whether you need a physical or virtual server depends on the load you expect for the server, so whether you want to send a newsletter once per month to about 1.000 recipients (->virtual server) or different newsletters every day to more than 50.000 recipients each (->physical server). And of course when you want to use the server as a webserver, mailserver and so on .. this influences the decision.

In German:
Falls du Hilfe brauchst und/oder noch einen passenden Provider suchst, helfe ich dir gern weiter.

marketeer wrote:They don't offer installation support.

...and since you don't want to do administration yourself I guess you should look for another option?

The option for a WM-ware host provider I will try. Eh, what does 'WM' stand for?

VMware (I always write it incorretcly, it's "VM" and not "WM" and no minus in the company name...) is just one of many companies offering virtualization solutions. See the homepage for information: http://www.vmware.com/

Virtual Private Server (VPS) providers sell parts of physical servers in their data centers to end-users, that will notice little or no difference between a VPS and a physical server.

With VPS you face the same choice as with physical servers - do you want to buy root access to be able to install your virtual guest computer with full flexibility or do you want to start with a standard installation of some O/S like Windows or Linux variant and let the provider manage the system building part for you.

The reason I mentioned VPS in your case is that some providers will let you supply your own "server template" which is like a virtual snapshot of a full server with O/S, installed programs, data on disk etc.

Agnitas supplies a read-to-go VMware-compatible image.

You can try the image out yourself using VMware-player, which is a free desktop virtualization product similar to VirtualBox/Sun xVM (that you might have heard of). From your desktop - the host - you can let parts of your hardware become available to new virtual computers - the guests.

Agnitas publish a separate installation document for the VMware image, see "Setup Guide for OpenEMM Virtual Machine" in the Download Center: http://www.openemm.org/downloads.html.

If you like what you see and you find a VPS-provider that agrees to bootstrap your virtual server from the OpenEMM VMware-image, you should be good to go.

Please note that as just another OpenEMM user I have not tried the VMware image myself, so you might find that all this does not really apply for you. But you should now have enough info to at least investigate further.

It would be interesting to hear back from you here in the forums, regardless of what you decide in the end.
Good luck,
Martin

http://www.emm-xpress.com/
Belongs to Agnitas. Hosting based in Germany. Good prices.