>>> Say I have a lot of users and servers where authentication fails. I'd love to be able to pick a period (by dragging along a timeline of logs), zoom into to a period, and get any messages regarding LDAP from that time. Then I'd like to take that group of server and regenerate a certificate for each of them to fix the problem

>> I have no idea what you're talking about.

> It seems like you haven't used Splunk at all.

Hehehe...You misinterpret my remark. I'm saying that what you're describing isn't our problem set with Virtualmin. I'm saying I don't understand why you're talking about something completely outside of the problem domain Virtualmin sets out to solve as though we've failed in being unable to perform the tasks you describe. I'm simply confused by all the smoke and waving hands.

> I know your a lot of your competitors (eg Plesk) are similarly basic. This doesn't mean that it wouldn't be good to innovate.

Here you're exhibiting a lack of knowledge about what we're building (you've already done that earlier by saying, "Virtualmin doesn't really differ from Plesk in a significant way", but I wasn't going to really argue that point), rather than pointing out why we're "similarly basic". The problems you describe aren't the problems the vast majority of virtual hosting customers need or even want to solve.

Splunk seems like a wonderful product, and I'm glad you like it. But it doesn't compete with Virtualmin. It's not even in the same general area--there are some places where Virtualmin overlaps with products that aren't direct competitors (because we are innovating in far-reaching ways and stepping into a lot of different areas that effect hosting providers and their customers).

There's even more where Webmin overlaps, because Webmin covers a lot more ground, including system monitoring and alerts. Splunk doesn't address any of the virtual hosting management problems our products set out to solve--that doesn't make Splunk "similarly limited" to other products that don't do what Virtualmin does. If you don't need Virtualmin features, and you do need Splunk features, then by all means use Splunk.

> One doesn't have to build something to have an opinion on it. If you think otherwise, you may enjoy other forums more.

Certainly. I'm just not sure you've really grasped who our customers are (hosting providers), and what they do with our products (enable their customers to build full-featured websites or applications quickly and without human support). This awareness is a rather vital component in our decision making process. ;-)

That said, we do have timeline features coming in a new analytics product that we're developing (and it shows up in a limited form in the system data analytics graphs provided by Virtualmin). I'm not disagreeing that there are many areas for massive improvement in the analytics and reporting fields...there are. It's barely been touched, even by the best products in the field. But Virtualmin remains a virtual hosting management tool--not an analytics product. It'll work seamlessly with these other products, but their job description is quite different, and their customer set will vary quite a bit.