Froxlor is an open source panel developed by experienced server administrators to simplify the effort of managing a hosting platform. If you are not too comfortable with the command line server management then this solution is for you. It provides an intuitive yet powerful web administration portal. Froxlor is a perfect alternative to commercial control panes such as cPanel, DirectAdmin, and Plesk.
In this short tutorial we shall perform the installation of Froxlor control panel on Ubuntu 22.04. After the setup you will be able to manage domain names, FTP accounts, email accounts, and website data that resides in the server. For this setup we require the following requirements.
- A fully qualified domain name
- A DNS A record that points to the domain name used for Froxlor
- A root user access or user with sudo privileges
- A stable internet connection on the server
Here is a screenshot of cloudflare DNS configurations.
Set hostname and update system
Set correct server hostname that matches A record set in your DNS server.
sudo hostnamectl set-hostname froxlor.computingforgeeks.netYou can also update the /etc/hosts file to map IP to hostname.
$ sudo vim /etc/hosts
167.235.68.2 froxlor.computingforgeeks.net froxlorBefore we perform any other steps let’s make sure our system has been updated.
sudo apt update && sudo apt upgrade -yCheck if a reboot is required.
[ -f /var/run/reboot-required ] && sudo reboot -fLogin back to the system and install required dependencies.
sudo apt -y install gnupg2 apt-transport-https lsb-release curl ca-certificatesAdd Froxlor APT repisitory
Next we add the repository into the system. But before that GPG key has to be imported.
curl -sSLo /usr/share/keyrings/deb.froxlor.org-froxlor.gpg https://deb.froxlor.org/froxlor.gpgAdd froxlor repository in your Ubuntu system.
- Ubuntu
sh -c 'echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/deb.froxlor.org-froxlor.gpg] https://deb.froxlor.org/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/froxlor.list'- Debian
sh -c 'echo "deb [signed-by=/usr/share/keyrings/deb.froxlor.org-froxlor.gpg] https://deb.froxlor.org/debian $(lsb_release -sc) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/froxlor.list'Perform package repository index to confirm it works.
sudo apt updateInstall froxlor server management panel
Now that we’ve covered the necessary procedures to configure pre-reqs, we can shift to the actual installation of froxlor control panel on Ubuntu or Debian Linux.
sudo apt install froxlorAccept installation prompts as requested.
0 upgraded, 104 newly installed, 0 to remove and 0 not upgraded.
Need to get 41.2 MB of archives.
After this operation, 235 MB of additional disk space will be used.
Do you want to continue? [Y/n] yThe details of the installed package can be checked with the following commands.
$ apt-cache show froxlor
Package: froxlor
Version: 2.1.6-1
Maintainer: Froxlor Release Team <[email protected]>
Homepage: https://www.froxlor.org
Vcs-Browser: https://github.com/Froxlor/Froxlor
Vcs-Git: git://github.com/Froxlor/Froxlor.git
Architecture: all
Depends: mariadb-server | default-mysql-server, mariadb-client | default-mysql-client, apache2 | lighttpd | nginx, php (>= 2:7.4) | php-cgi (>= 2:7.4) | php-fpm (>= 2:7.4), php-cli (>= 2:7.4), php-bcmath (>= 2:7.4), php-curl (>= 2:7.4), php-gd (>= 2:7.4), php-gmp (>= 2:7.4), php-json (>= 2:7.4) | php (>= 2:8.0), php-mbstring (>= 2:7.4), php-mysql (>= 2:7.4), php-xml (>= 2:7.4), php-zip (>= 2:7.4), goaccess | webalizer | awstats
Recommends: postfix-mysql | exim4-daemon-heavy, libsasl2-modules-sql, maildrop, dovecot-mysql | courier-authlib-mysql, dovecot-imapd | courier-imap, dovecot-pop3d | courier-pop, php-imap (>= 2:7.4), proftpd-mod-mysql | pure-ftpd-mysql, bind9 | pdns-server
Priority: optional
Section: admin
Filename: pool/main/f/froxlor/froxlor_2.1.6-1_all.deb
Size: 2480140
SHA256: d9d211ed7e07df582f308f65b8bc9052830838ab2f6eb0765a7839df76b440a7
SHA1: a649a0a2a276e492dc5ba0cdb3ea2bf013c4d4c1
MD5sum: 7e8bdd807734ac35b1ba14adf031c3a3
Description: Server Management Panel
Froxlor, the Server Management Panel is a server administration tool which
enables an internet service provider to give their customers a web-based
application to administrate their email addresses, their subdomains etc.
Description-md5: 36e5d0610fda75c2b8b56c0273288d72Create privileged database user
Open MySQL shell to create a new privileged user required for froxlor to add/delete customer mysql users and databases.
$ sudo mysql
CREATE USER 'froxroot'@'localhost' IDENTIFIED BY 'Str0ngfroxPassw0rd';
GRANT ALL PRIVILEGES ON *.* TO 'froxroot'@'localhost' WITH GRANT OPTION;
FLUSH PRIVILEGES;
EXIT;The database user froxroot will be specified as the Privileged database user in the froxlor web-installer.
Install Froxlor via Web Installer
Install gnupg PHP module and restart Apache web server.
sudo apt install php-gnupg && sudo systemctl restart apache2Access froxlor via http://ServerIP_or_FQDN/froxlor
Begin installation which initiates system checks as the first step.
Next is the database configurations using details we did set earlier.
- Privileged database user froxroot
- Privileged database user password Str0ngfroxPassw0rd
- Unprivileged database user to be created: froxlor
- Set password for unprivileged froxlor database user
- Database name froxlor
We also need to create first web admin user used to administer and manage froxlor.
Under system check your server specific customization variables such as SSL usage are presented.
Run the commands given to download, install and configure required services on the system according to the data you have given in this installation process.
When done you will get the message “All services have been configured” in the output.
After services are configured, you will be able access Froxlor admin dashboard.
Froxlor control panel dashboard looks similar to the one shown in below screenshot.
If the server was public, you will get Let’ Encrypt SSL certificate automatically configured.
Enable other Froxlor services
You can reconfigure the services after the installation under System –> Configuration
You can choose services to re-configure as default.
After selecting the services you are given the commands to execute in the terminal. Copy and paste them in the terminal to configure accordingly.
Here in an execution sample.
Visit the following Froxlor documentation pages to learn more.
