How Does MSPControl Work
MSPControl is a distributed web-based application and it consists of five components working together:
- MSPC Portal
- MSPC Enterprise Server
- MSPC Server
- MSPC Scheduler
- MSPC End-User Portal (WebDAV Portal)
All three components are web applications that must be hosted in IIS 7.0 or higher.
MSPC Portal
MSPC Portal is a “user interface” (or presentation layer) part of MSPControl. It is ASP.NET application that does not contain any business logic at all, but it talks to MSPC Enterprise Server via SOAP to perform various operations. Every visual form, any button click invokes appropriate web service at Enterprise Server side.
MSPC Portal web application is accessible to external consumers and works in IIS application pool with “weak” identity.
MSPC Enterprise Server
MSPC Enterprise Server is the most important MSPC component that comprises all the business logic of the application. Enterprise Server uses SQL Server database to store its internal data like user accounts, hosting plans, info about hosted resources, service settings, etc.
Absolutely every operation in MSPControl is available as an XML web service, so those web services could be used for integration with 3rd-party applications. It’s possible to access MSPC Enterprise Server practically from any programming environment like .NET, PHP, Java or Perl.
To manage hosting environment (create web sites, FTP and mail accounts, databases, etc.) Enterprise Server communicates to WSP Server using XML web services.
Enterprise Server is a non-visual web application (no web forms exposed, only web services) and usually it’s available only to computers in your hosting environment (web site listens internal IP addresses only or loopback 127.0.0.1). Enterprise Server application pool works under “weak” identity.
MSPC Server
MSPC Server is non-visual web application performing low-level management operations (working with files/folders and their permissions, working with mail and databases, working with IIS, etc.) on the target server(s).
MSPC Server could be considered as remote “Server Agent” and it must be installed on every server in the hosting environment that needed to be managed in control panel. MSPC Server runs in the application pool with administrative privileges, i.e. its application pool’s identity must be a member of local “Administrators” group or “Domain Admins” group if AD must be managed as well.
MSPC Scheduler
MSPC Scheduler is a non-visual Windows service performing all background tasks like reports, space calculation, archiving etc. It works closely with Enterprise Server component.
MSPC End-User Portal (WebDAV Portal)
MSPC End-User Portal is an "end-user" visual interface for hosted Active Directory users which is managed to get the following functionality:
- See and change personal information like Name, Phone etc
- Access and work with Cloud Folders
- Reset passwords
Common Deployment Scenarios
Standalone Setup
Multi-Server Setup
