Install InterWorx Web Hosting Control Panel

Posted on November 25th, 2019

InterWorx is a web hosting control panel and a Linux server management system. InterWorx control panel provides tools for server admins to command their servers and for end-users to supervise the operations on their website. The control panel is further divided into two interfaces:

  1. NodeWorx: This interface is used by the server administrator to manage a server. This interface gives web hosting resellers the ability to securely manage multiple SiteWorx accounts to expect the server daemons and configurations.
  2. SiteWorx: This interface is used by the website owners to manage their website.

Just like every other software, InterWorx has some requirements to work perfectly on the server. Here are the requirements of the InterWorx Control Panel.

InterWorx Installation Requirements

1) Operating System

InterWorx is a Linux-based hosting control panel, and it utilizes the RPM package system for distribution. So, it is required to have an RPM-compatible Linux distribution as the operating system. It is fully compatible with RHEL 6, RHEL 7, CentOS 6, CentOS 7.

Fedora Linux is binary compatible with the Linux distribution to support InterWorx. But it is not recommended to use Fedora Linux since that does not provide up-to-date releases, support, or maintenance.

2) Virtual Machine Support

Any Virtual machine environment that supports the above-operating systems works with InterWorx. Here is the list of virtual machine environment in which we can install InterWorx:

  1. Vmware
  2. Xen
  3. VirtualBox
  4. OpenVZ/Virtuozzo: The ‘Second Level Quotas’ feature must be enabled

3) InterWorx License

InterWorx is a paid service, and you can purchase the license from its official website at https://portal.interworx.com/cart.php.

Now you know what do you need to install InterWorx. Finally, let us see how to install InterWorx on the server.

Install InterWorx

InterWorx is installed via a bash script that essentially does a few things:

  1. SELinux gets in the way of installation, so the script deactivates SELINUX.
  2. The script moves /home to /chroot/home and then creates a symlink for /chroot/home to /home.
  3. The script uninstalls RPM packages that are initially installed if they have any conflict using yum command.
  4. It installs InterWorx, and it’s supporting software packages using yum command.
  5. It enables disk usage quotas on the primary user partition.

To execute the installation script on your server, follow the steps given below.

First of all, login to the server as a root user via SSH. If you are using Windows, you can use Putty to connect to your server via SSH. If you are using Linux or macOS, you can simply use the terminal.

Now, Download the InterWorx installation script using the wget command just like the following command.

# wget http://updates.interworx.com/iworx/scripts/iworx-cp-install.sh

Now, it is time to execute the shell script we just downloaded from the official website. It will automatically install all the required packages on the server. You will see a prompt if significant changes are required on your system. It will halt if it encounters an issue with the installation process. In that case, you can solve the problem and rerun the script.

# sh iworx-cp-install.sh

Some of the options to run the installation script with tweaks are given in the following table:

Option Description
-h Show this help message.
-s <server> You can use this option if you want to specify an rpm host to grab the RPMs from the default ‘update.interworx.com’.
-d This option turns on the debugging mode (hit enter to keep moving, as the output halts for you to see it).
-f Force installation.
-u This option updates the  ‘yum’ command before the InterWorx-CP installation.
-k Force removal of the conflicting packages.
-l Run in headless mode (No Prompt).
-i Install all the packages except ‘InterWorx-CP’.

 

License Activation

After the installation, you need to activate InterWorx with a license key. Activation is just a minimal explanation as this process initializes the InterWorx database and set up cronjobs. You can activate the license through the command-line interface as well as the web browser.

Command-Line License Activation

Log in to the server as root user via SSH. Run the license activation script on the command-line interface.

# /home/interworx/bin/goiworx.pex

The script will prompt for the license key, and you can paste it in the prompt.

After the license key is verified, You will get a prompt to enter the Email address and password for the master Interwrox user. You can change this email address later if you want. It will send all the warning messages regarding the server to this email address.

After entering the credentials, the script will initialize the database and the cronjobs for the InterWorx control panel. Now, you are ready to log in.

The license key authorization fails if:

  1. The license key server (license.interworx.info) cannot contact the TCP port 2443.
  2. If the license key is already active on another server with a different IP address on the first network (eth0) device.

Now, let us learn the browser-based license activation.

Browser-Based License Activation

You can also use a web browser to activate the license. Follow the steps given below to activate your InterWorx panel from the web browser.

  1. Open any web-based browser.
  2. Go to ‘https://[SERVER_IP]:2443/nodeworx’.
  3. Enter the license key in the immediate area.
  4. Enter the email address and password for the master InterWrox user.

After the installation is complete, you can log in to your InterWorx admin panel. Let us learn how to do that.

Login to InterWorx

After the installation and activation of InterWorx and its license key, the setup for the InterWorx control panel is complete. You can log in to InterWorx interfaces using these links:

1) Login to NodeWorx using the following link:

https://[SERVER_IP]:2443/nodeworx

2) Login to SiteWorx using the following link:

https://[SERVER_IP]:2443/siteworx

So, this is how you can install and activate the InterWorx panel on your Linux server. Let us know if you need help with the process in the comment section given below, we will get back to you with help as soon as possible.

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