OpenPanel

Prerequisites

OpenPanel is designed to be installed on a clean server. Having packages installed is not a problem, but having their configuration modified can be a problem. Especially products like cPanel and DirectAdmin tend to modify configuration files to an extent where they’re no longer usable for other software.
OpenPanel supports the following platforms:

• Debian 5 “Lenny”
• Debian 6 “Squeeze”
• Ubuntu 10.04 “Lucid”
• Ubuntu 10.10 “Maverick”

In theory, OpenPanel can be installed on Ubuntu 11.04 “Natty” or Ubuntu 11.10 “Oneiric”. These platforms are not officially supported, though.

Installation

To install OpenPanel, add the following lines to your /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://download.openpanel.com/deb/ <distribution> main
deb-src http://download.openpanel.com/deb/ <distribution> main

where <distribution> should be replaced by the code name for your distribution. e.g. lenny, squeeze or wheezy for Debian, or lucid, maverick, natty, oneiric or precise for Ubuntu.
Then start the installation with the following commands. Make sure you execute these commands as user root. If you’re not root, type sudo -i first.

apt-key adv --keyserver keyserver.ubuntu.com --recv-keys 4EAC69B9
apt-get update
aptitude install openpanel-suggested

If exim4 is currently installed on your system, aptitude will suggest removing it. If so, aptitude will ask you to confirm this. Enter y when asked to do so.
During installation, you may be asked about the configuration for postfix. Set it to ‘internet site’ with all defaults.
If the apt-key step fails, try:

 wget -O- http://openpa.nl/key | apt-key add -

If the install-step fails, try repeating aptitude install -f to resolve iffy dependencies.
After installation you will need to set the password for the openpanel-admin user before you can log in through the gui. The installation procedure may ask you for a password. If not, start openpanel-cli (as root) and enter the following command:

[openpanel]% password user openpanel-admin

The OpenPanel GUI can be reached via https on port 4089 of your machine.

Upgrading

Upgrading via the Software tab in the GUI is currently not entirely reliable. For a full upgrade (to 1.1, for example), do this:

apt-get update
apt-get dist-upgrade

source