A control panel allows the customers of a web hosting company to manage much of their own affairs. For example, the control panel allows the owner of a domain to create and manipulate email and ftp accounts. The customer gets to do things quicker and without having to pay the hosting company for stuff they could do themselves.

The two big non free control panals are [http://www.cpanel.net/ cpanel] and [http://www.swsoft.com/en/products/plesk/ plesk]

There are quite a few software libre panels and even some that are designed to work with Debian.

[http://www.alternc.org - AlternC] [http://www.acctmgr.com/ ASM] (Account Services Manager) [http://www.sisd.com/freeside. Freeside] [http://www.hostingsoftware.net/ GNU Hosting Helper] [http://www.gplhost.com/software-dtc.html DTC] (Domain Technologie Control)

[http://www.ispconfig.org ISPConfig] BSD license

[http://www.ispman.net/ ISPMan] [http://www.azxws.com/ispman/index.html 3rd party ISPMan Docs] updated on April 26, 2004

[http://www.syscp.de/ syscp]

[http://www.holgilein.de/coolprox/tequila/tequila_en.html Tequila]

[http://www.vhcs.net/ VHCS] - Very good! [http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/vhcs.htm configuring vhcs from source] [http://www.debianhelp.co.uk/vhcsdeb.htm configuring from apt-get]

[http://www.web-cp.net/ web-cp] [http://www.webmin.com/uintro.html usermin] [http://www.webmin.com/ Webmin]

[http://www.virtualmin.com/ virtualmin] Debian package also. GPL and proprietary licenses.

Credits/Sources for this info: [http://www.gplhost.com/software-dtc_9competitors.html GPLHost.com],discussion on [http://lists.debian.org/debian-isp/2006/01/msg00158.html Debian-ISP ] listserv, people at the [http://thecsl.org Community Software Lab]

raw stuff below

Package Name: Links: License: Available in Debian (stable|testing|unstable|: .deb available: Available in Debian unstable: from packages.debian.org: Services administered: Negative comments: Positive: