The Concept of LXD-based Web Hosting Panel

Abstract

Web hosting is a cheapest alternative to running a website. Web hosting offers a simplicity of website management, but gives very limited access to users. Web hosting users can manage file or database easily because it has been available on this panel, but the features are static. Web hosting users cannot add other service in their environment. On the other side, Virtual Private Server (VPS) provides a flexible access to the operating system by giving root access to it. VPS users can add any services they need as long as the VPS resources are available, but they must do it manually. As result, website management in VPS is more complicated than web hosting. This paper proposed a model of web hosting panel that having capabilities like VPS. Each user will be created a linux container (LXD) that can be modified freely as needed. The proposed model divides the client environment using LXD that usually uses operating system user access. As a result, clients obtain not only a simplicity in web hosting, but also a root access to operating system when they need. For hosting provider, they can provide full operating system services while saving computer resources.