So, another success for both Softaculous and VestaCP when VestaCP added Softaculous as an App to its panel during December 2017. When one adds Softaculous to the VestaCP install script it installs a free version of Softaculous. The free version of course is very limited and excludes the more popular regularly used scripts like WordPress and myBB:
https://www.softaculous.com/softaculous/scripts_in_free
I thought the 12 US$ per year for a Softaculous License for a VPS was doable as an experiment to see how VestaCP can deal with the scripts. Only problem was when I tried to subscribe for the premium version, Softaculous identified the free license number as belonging to a dedicated server – premium license of which was double the price. I then created a Softaculous ticket that was answered very promptly by an Admin who changed the license number so I could get the 12 US$ price. He asked that I go back into my VestaCP Admin Panel and that’s really when the fun started, as all of a sudden I was no longer able to access my apps in the VestaCP Panel. Then learned that in order for that to happen I first needed to add Ioncube.
Ioncube is for the protection of Softaculous php scripts. I soon learned that it’s very difficult to install as first one has to load Zend Guard in a million and one steps. And then Ion Cube. After a few hours of checking out a great number of tutorials I got it successfully loaded on my VPS – accept, the VestaCP Apps page was still unavailable and asking for Ioncube to be loaded. Next I made an inquiry at the VestaCP Forum and after a few hours one of the Admin provided me with a miracle one line command that worked instantly:
/usr/local/vesta/ioncube/ioncube.sh
I finally was able to get into my VestaCP Softaculous App page and change the settings of the server to VPS. Then clicked on the license link to make it premium and successfully subscribed. Am now ready to try out some of the scripts. Think I’ll start with myBB as with my last myBB installation from the command line it took hours and many commands to install in comparison with WordPress that is effortless and fast on the command line. So let’s see how this goes.