Ajenti is a modern, lightweight, open source, web-based control panel for managing virtual private servers (VPS). In this article, we will install Ajenti Server Admin Panel in Ubuntu 16.04, followed by the Ajenti V plug-in for managing websites, emails, domains, and more from the panel. Using Ajenti, an administrator can control a Linux server from a browser with its responsive web interface, which otherwise requires the use of a terminal. Optionally, one can extend the functionalities of Ajenti using few existing plug-ins or develop a custom plugin from scratch using Python.

Prerequisites:

• You will require a new Ubuntu 16.04 machine with at least 1 GB of RAM.
• A valid DNS name pointing its A record to the IP address of your Ubuntu machine. For example, an A record named test would point to test.DOMAIN.TLD.

Notes

This tutorial uses variables to represent user-specific configurations, such as server IP addresses, passwords, domain names, and more. Whenever you see one of these variables, you should replace them with your specific details. The following variables are used in this tutorial: SUBDOMAIN, DOMAIN, TLD. In example.ssdnodes.com, example is the SUBDOMAIN, ssdnodes is the DOMAIN, and .com is the TLD. [cta_inline]

Step 1. Configure the FQDN of the host

To change the hostname of your system, use the hostnamectl command. hostnamectl will directly update the kernel about the change in the hostname, and you don’t need to reboot the machine afterward. We’re going to choose the hostname based on the subdomain we’ll use to access the control panel later.

$ sudo hostnamectl set-hostname SUBDOMAIN

Next, edit the file /etc/hosts and add the following line at the end.

$ sudo vi /etc/hosts
IP-ADDRESS SUBDOMAIN.DOMAIN.TLD SUBDOMAIN

Here’s an example using a fake IP, panel as the subdomain/hostname, and example as the domain name, and com as the TLD.

$ sudo vi /etc/hosts
123.456.78.9 panel.example.com panel

Run the command below to restart network manager to apply above changes:

$ sudo systemctl restart NetworkManager.service

Check the hostname and FQDN of the host:

$ hostname
panel
$ hostname -f
panel.example.com

Your result will be different based on your SUBDOMAIN, DOMAIN, and TLD.

Step 2. Install Ajenti

The installation of Ajenti is simple and straightforward. The first step is to add the repository