Web hosting panels can also be referred to as control panels. They allow users to manage various servers and hosted services. They provide several features and advantages that include one-click deployment, automated health alerts, mail server support, domain management, backup and security tasks. There are several Web hosting panels in the market today, the most popular ones are cPanel, Plesk, DirectAdmin, ISPConfig, Webmin etc.

ISPConfig is one of the popularly used Web Hosting Panel. It allows users to manage hosting environments using a web UI. It offers several features that make managing aspects of web hosting easier. The cool features make it a suitable choice for system administrators and hosting providers.

In this guide, we will walk through how to install ISPConfig Web Hosting Panel on Debian 12

Step 1: Configure the hostname

First, you should check the hostname in /etc/hosts and change it when necessary. The line should be: “IP Address – space – full hostname incl. domain – space – subdomain part”

nano /etc/hosts

Then edit the /etc/hostname file:

Verify the made changes:

hostname -f

Update the system and the available packages:

apt update && apt upgrade -y

Step 2: Install the Required Packages

Update Debian 12 repositories to include non free packages.

tee /etc/apt/sources.list<<EOF
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm main contrib non-free non-free-firmware
deb http://deb.debian.org/debian bookworm-updates main non-free contrib non-free-firmware 
deb http://security.debian.org/debian-security bookworm-security main contrib non-free non-free-firmware 
EOF

Install few other dependency packages.

apt update
apt install wget tmux vim rar unrar -y

Step 3: Download and Install ISPConfig

Now download the ISPConfig Web Hosting Panel installer on Debian 12. You can view all the available config options of the ISPConfig installer by executing:

wget -O - https://get.ispconfig.org | sh -s -- --help

When running, the installer, there are several config options you can use. Here, we will use Apache, PHP 8.x, MariaDB, Postfix, Dovecot, Rspamd, BIND, Jailkit, Roundcube, PHPMyAdmin, Mailman, Webalizer, AWStats, GoAcces.

I recommend you begin setup in a tmux session when working on remote system.

tmux
wget -O - https://get.ispconfig.org | sh -s -- --lang=en --unattended-upgrades

You can specify PHP version instead of going with the default. For example;

wget -O - https://get.ispconfig.org | sh -s -- --use-php=8.3 --lang=en --unattended-upgrades

After some time, you will see:

Answer “yes” and hit enter. The installer will now start.

When the installer is finished, it will show you the ISPConfig admin and MySQL root password like this:

Step 4: Access ISPConfig Web Hosting Panel

The ISPConfig Web Hosting Panel web interface can be accessed on port 8080. But first, ensure that the port is allowed through the firewall:

ufw allow 8080/tcp

Then proceed and access the ISPConfig Web UI using the URL

https://IP address or domain_name:8080

Login using the admin credential provided earlier. If everything is okay, you will see the below dashboard.

Now here, you can perform several management tasks. One of them is changing the admin password. Navigate to Tools and set your preferred password:

You can configuring the firewall. This can be done by navigating to System ->Firewall ->Add Firewall record

You can add a new firewall rule as shown.

Create a DNS zone by providing the required information.

Once created, the zone will be available as shown:

Here are some basic operations, you can use ISPConfig now and manipulate what you want

Conclusion

That’s all our guide on how to install ISPConfig Web Hosting Panel on Debian 12. Now you can easily manage your web hosting platform. I hope this was of help to you.