cPanel: An Overview Details all the features of cPanel

[iGuest 3]

cPanel: An Overview

What all the features in cPanel are, and how to use them

[Written by Cloak / AstaHosting.com]

 

This tutorial is intended to provide a quick overview of all of the features that are available in cPanel when you receive hosting from Xisto. You can find further help when you login to cPanel; this tutorial is best used for quick reference, as I've tried to keep explanations brief, to the point, and easy to understand.

 

It is also assumed that you will be using the default theme when accessing cPanel.

 

This little tutorial is broken into sections relavent to what area they detail in cPanel:

Email Management Tools:

-- Add / Remove E-mails

-- Read Webmail

-- Default E-mails

-- Auto Responders

-- E-Mail Filtering

-- Aliases / Forwarding

-- Email Address Trace

-- Mailing List

-- Spam Assassin

-- Modify Mail Exchange (MX Entry)

Site Management Tools:

-- Change Password

-- FTP Manager

-- Disk Usage Viewer

-- File Manager

-- Index Manager

-- Frontpage Extensions

-- Web Protect

-- Custom Error Pages

-- Hotlink Protection

-- Sub Domains

-- Parked Domains

-- Addon Dmains

-- Manage Redirects

-- MySQL Databases

-- phpMyADmin

-- Backup

-- IP Deny Manager

Analysis and Log Files:

-- Web / FTP Stats

-- Sub Domain Stats

-- Error Log

-- Bandwidth

-- Latest Visitors

-- Raw Log Manager

-- Raw Access Logs

Advanced Tools:

-- Cron Jobs

-- Mime Types

-- Apache Handlers

-- Manage OpenPGP Keys

-- Networking Tools

-- SSL Manager

Preinstalled Scripts:

-- CGI Center

-- Addon Scripts

-- Agora Shopping Cart

-- Java/CGI Chat Room

-- PhpMyChat Room

-- phpBB

-- Search Engine Submit

-- Fantastico

Language and Theme:

-- Language

-- Theme

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

Email Management Tools:

-- Add / Remove E-mails

-- Read Webmail

-- Default E-mails

-- Auto Responders

-- E-Mail Filtering

-- Aliases / Forwarding

-- Email Address Trace

-- Mailing List

-- Spam Assassin

-- Modify Mail Exchange (MX Entry)

Add / Remove Emails

This allows you to add or remove email accounts from your hosting package. So just say you wanted to set up the email address 'me@mysite.com', you would do it from within here.

Read Webmail

cPanel comes packaged with a number of webmail clients. These allow to use your email accounts that are registered with your hosting account (see above) to be used from within a browser window, in the same way that you might use the popular Hotmail or Yahoo! webmail services. These are especially useful for if you are wanting to check our email when you are away from your home computer, so that you don't need to set up any accounts on that computer (eg. in Outlook Express).

Default Emails

Here, you can set your 'default' email account. This controls how undelivered email - that is, email received that is addressed to a non-existant address - is handled, and where it is routed. You also have the option of using :fail: to bounce the message back to the sender, informing them that it wasn't delivered; or :blackhole: to delete all un-delivered email.

Auto Responders

This allows you to have a preset message automatically sent to the sender of each email the selected account receives. For example, you could set it so that each time an email arrives in the inbox of 'me@mysite.com', a message is automatically sent back to the person who sent it saying 'Thank you for contacting me. Your message will be reviewed, and I will get back to you as soon as possible'. They are more or less the equivalent of an answering machine for your email address.

E-mail Filtering

This allows you to set, change, and remove email filters that protect all accounts from SPAM and other unwanted mail. For example, you can filter out messages that contains the text 'Prescription drugs'. You can also define where you want the text to be searched for - eg. in the header, the from field, the subject field, the body field, etc. So if you had a filter that sprung messages containing 'prescription drugs' in the body, it would ignore any messages that contained that string in the subject.

Aliases / Forwarding

An email forwarder, or alias, will automatically send on or forward every message received in one of your accounts to another email address. This is effectively the same as adding email address in the 'Carbon-Copy' field when sending a message.

Email Address Trace

This shows the route each message takes when it is sent via email. It shows each 'hop' the data makes - that is, each server it is sent through.

Mailing List

You can manage your mailing lists here, adding, editing, or deleting existing ones. Mailing lists allow you to have a list of email addresses you want to email at the same time, so you don't have to email each person in a group individually. They are especially useful for areas such as newsletters and other material that is distributed on a regular basis.

 

Site Management Tools:

-- Change Password

-- FTP Manager

-- Disk Usage Viewer

-- File Manager

-- Index Manager

-- Frontpage Extensions

-- Web Protect

-- Custom Error Pages

-- Hotlink Protection

-- Sub Domains

-- Parked Domains

-- Addon Dmains

-- Manage Redirects

-- MySQL Databases

-- phpMyADmin

-- Backup

-- IP Deny Manager

Change Password

As the name obviously suggests, this allows you to change your cPanel password. This will also affect your root FTP password.

FTP Manager

Allows you to manage FTP accounts and sessions. You can create new and delete existing FTP accounts, manage anonymous FTP usage, and control FTP sessions. If, for example, you had a friend who you wanted to be able to upload to your site. You could create a directory '/friend', and then create a new FTP account called 'friend' which allows them to only access the directory you assign to them - in this case, '/friend'. It gives you a safe way of allowing other people to upload to your site without having to give them your root password, which gives whoever has it complete control over your account.

Disk Usage Viewer

This page shows a conveniently-organized summary of how much space each directory in your account is using, sorted in descending order by size (largest first). It makes it easy for you to spot areas of your site which are taking up a lot of space, so can you can easily decide which areas to address if you are running out of space.

File Manager

This is like the HTML equivelent of an FTP client that you can use with your site. It allows you to control all files and directories - edit or delete existing ones, create new ones, move existing file and directory structures around, as well as uploading and downloading files.

Index Manager

This allows you to control how directory indexes are used. As some of you would probobly know, a default index is generally titled 'index.[htm/html/shtml/php/etc]'. However, if no existing index is present, the contents of a directory will be displayed in index form by default. Here, you can control how this information is displayed, or whether to display it at all.

Frontpage Extensions

Here you can control your Frontpage extensions, which allow to publish your websites directly from Microsoft Frontpage. Options include installing Frontpage extensions on a domain, re-installing them incase they become corrupted, or uninstalling them completely.

Web Protect

You can easily password protect different directories under your site using this feature. Whenever someone tries to access that directory, it will use basic HTTP authentication - which is the same form of authentication used to login to cPanel - to allow or deny access to that person. You can also add, remove, or edit different users, so that you can allow more than one person access to that directory.

Custom Error Pages

This feature allows you to customize your error pages as you like, so that when a visitor experiences an error (eg. 404 - Not Found), they might not just get the standard '404 - Not Found' page. (For a complete list of HTTP error codes, see appendix).

Hotlink Protection

This feature allows you to prevent people from 'hotlinking' to your files. 'Hotlinking' is when someone puts links to your files on their website, so it uses up your bandwidth and doesn't give you or your site any credit for the files whatsoever. This is especially a problem with images, where people want your image on their site, but instead of uploading it to their server, they 'hotlink' to it. Preventing this form of data theft is sometimes vital for website owners, however, it mightn't suit everyone. If, for example, your forum avatar or signature is linked to directly from your site, then it won't be displayed.

Sub Domains

A subdomain is like a secondary domain under your domain name - eg. 'subdomain.mysite.com'. Subdomains have many uses, such as seperating different areas of your site, setting up accounts, etc. A subdomain is used in the same way a top-level domain (eg. mysite.com) is used.

Parked Domains

When you register a top-level domain - for example, mysite.com - you need to part it on the server that you wish to host it on. This is where you do that. A Parked domain will act from the root of your account ('/'), so you should only park a domain if you want it to be your main access URL. You also have to set the DNS' for your domain to that of the host - in this case, ns1.astahost.com (primary) and ns2.astahost.com (secondary), and give them 24-72 hours (1-3 days) to propagate accross the Internet. You will not be able to park or use your domain name until you have let the DNS configuration fully propagate. See also 'Add-on Domains'.

Add-On Domains

An add-on domain is similar to a parked domain, however, rather than being set as the root, it is 'added-on' to your account. For example, if 'mysite.com' was parked with your account, then all files in your public_html directory would be able to be accessed via that domain name. If you were to add it on, then a new directory would be created that would act as the root for that site. An add-on domain is useful if you are wanting to host more than one site on your account. Please note that because this is still a top-level domain, DNS propagation needs to take place before using it (see 'Parked Domains').

Manage Redirects

Here you can manage all the redirects within your website. These will automatically redirect traffic from one area of your site to another. This is usually used when a web page or file has been moved to another location, so that anyone visiting your site doesn't become lost and unable to find what they are looking for.

MySQL Databases

MySQL is one of the most widely used and powerful databasing solutions available for online use, and can easily be combined with PHP or Perl. Here, you can setup new databases, manage existing ones, and manage users for your database. It is also worth noting that all databases created under your account will be prefixed with your account name - for example, if your account was 'myaccount', and you created a database 'mydatabase', then it would become 'myaccount_mydatabase'. The same applies to MySQL users. This means that characters such as the underscore will be discarded when creating a database. Also, do not try to add the prefix when creating an account, as it is done automatically and anything in the database name is added thereafter - eg., 'myaccount_mydatabase' would become 'myaccount_myaccountmydatabase'. See also 'phpMyAdmin'.

phpMyAdmin

phpMyAdmin is a very useful utility that comes with your cPanel account. It allows you to browse, create, modify, and delete your databases structure and data. Please note that all changes made with this tool are instant and irreversable - ie. there is no 'undo' function, and it doesn't wait for you to 'save' the changes before making them.

Backup

[to be advised]

IP Deny Manager

This allows you to ban visitors by IP address from accessing any area of your site. Please note that once an IP is banned, anyone using that IP address will not be able to access any area or file within your entire website. It is only applied to the root directory of your site - meaning that you can't only block the person with the IP address xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx from accessing 'mysite.com/directory'; they will not be able to access anything under 'mysite.com' at all. Because many people use dial-up Internet, a lot of your visitors might have dynamic IP addresses, meaning that they change every time the person re-connects to the Internet. People can also use proxy servers, or route through other connections to get to your site. As such, this should not be relied upon as a sole method of protection from a certain user.

 

Analysis and Log Files:

-- Web / FTP Stats

-- Sub Domain Stats

-- Error Log

-- Bandwidth

-- Latest Visitors

-- Raw Log Manager

-- Raw Access Logs

Web / FTP Stats

This shows detailed statistics for every time someone has accessed your site, either by FTP or the web (HTTP). The stats are organized into categories, and are relatively easy to read.

Sub Domain Stats

This shows the same statistics as 'Web / FTP Stats', but only for a selected subdomain. This makes it easy to isolate which areas of your site are receiving the most 'hits' (or visits), taking the most bandwidth, etc. See also 'Web / FTP Stats'.

Error Log

This shows the last 300 errors that users have received when visiting your web site. This includes access errors, permission errors, etc. (See Appendix for HTTP Error codes).

Raw Log Manager

This allows you to schedule a raw log backup or removal at the end of each month.

Raw Access Logs

These are the 'raw' server logs relating to your site. Basically, that means they are the same stats shown in 'Web / FTP Stats', but they have not been organized or formatted in anyway. They are shown exactly as the web server logs them.

 

Advanced Tools:

-- Cron Jobs

-- Mime Types

-- Apache Handlers

-- Manage OpenPGP Keys

-- Networking Tools

-- SSL Manager

Warning: Some of these 'Advanced Tools' could have unwanted consequences if used incorrectly. Please only use these tools if you understand what you are doing.

Cron Jobs

'Cron jobs' are tedious and repetetive tasks that need to be done, but that might take a long time if done by hand. You can configure them to automatically be executed to your choosing. A relative understanding of UNIX-based operating systems would help when using this feature.

Mime Types

A MIME type is what tells your browser what to do with files with certain extensions. It's how your browser knows to download a .zip file seperately, but open a .html file as a web page. Be careful when editing MIME types; if you set something incorrectly, it can cause your site not to function as it should (or at all). See also 'Apache Handlers'.

Apache Handlers

Apache is the web server that powers this host, and all sites under it. Apache Handlers are the server-side equivelent of a MIME type - instead of telling the browser what to do with certain files, they tell the server what to do with them. For example, they tell the server to pass a '.php' file to the PHP engine, but to send a '.html' file straight to the client. Please note that they only operate on files by extension, not content - so if you rename a '.jpg' file to '.html', then it will be treated as a HTML file (or whatever it is set to handle files with a '.html' extension). See also 'MIME Types'.

Manage OpenPGP Keys

[From the documentation]:

OpenPGP is a tool for secure online communication. CPanel uses GnuPG for its public-key cryptography so that users may communicate securely. Each person gets a pair of keys, called the public key and the private key. Each person's public key is published while the private key is kept secret. Messages are encrypted using the intended recipient's public key and can only be decrypted using their private key.

Networking Tools

Offers the domain name lookup (reverse DNS lookup), and trace route utilities, which are used for establishing host/network information.

SSL Manager

Manages SSL certificates, signing requests, and keys. Also allows you to install SSL on the server.

 

Preinstalled Scripts:

-- CGI Center

-- Addon Scripts

-- Agora Shopping Cart

-- Java/CGI Chat Room

-- PhpMyChat Room

-- phpBB

-- Search Engine Submit

-- Fantastico

CGI Center

The CGI center has a variety of pre-installed CGI scripts that you can easily add to your site, without having to manually upload them and then set them up.

Addon Scripts

Provides a number of different fully-featured scripts and packages that can be freely used with your site. It provides an easy alternative to having to obtain, then upload, and then set up the applications included in this library. Some of the popular choices include Invision Power Board, phpBB, and PHP-Nuke. See also 'Fantastico'.

Agora Shopping Cart

An easy-to-use e-commerce tool that allows you to easily setup a shopping cart on your site.

Java/CGI Chat Room

Allows to include real-time Java or CGI chat on your site, such as those seen in public chat servers. Please be aware that these scripts might use large amounts bandwidth, which could quickly exceed your monthly allocation. See also 'PhpMyChat Room'.

PhpMyChat Room

Another real-time chat script, but in PHP. See also 'Java/CGI Chat Room'.

phpBB

Allows you to easily install the phpBB forum on your website. See also 'Addon Scripts'; 'Fantastico'.

Search Engine Submit

Automatically submits your site to a number of popular searc engines, meaning that you don't have to do it manually.

Fantastico

A library of pre-installed scripts that can be easily set up in minutes, saving you the time of manually uploading and then installing, setting up, and managing them. It also automatically takes care of other required processes, such as setting up MySQL databases etc. See also 'Addon Scripts'.

 

Language and Theme:

-- Language

-- Theme

Language

Allows you to select the language in which cPanel is operated in.

Theme

Allows you to select from a range of different themes in which cPanel will appear. It only affects the visual look of cPanel, and does not change any features etc.

 

Appendix

HTTP Error/Status codes

100 - Continue

101 - Switching Protocols

200 - OK

201 - Created

202 - Accepted

203 - Non-Authoritative Information

204 - No Content

205 - Reset Content

206 - Partial Content

300 - Multiple Choices

301 - Moved Permanently

302 - Moved Temporarily

303 - See Other

304 - Not Modified

305 - Use Proxy

400 - Bad Request

401 - Unauthorized

402 - Payment Required

403 - Permission Denied

404 - Not Found

405 - Method Not Allowed

406 - Not Acceptable

407 - Proxy Authentication Required

408 - Request Time-Out

409 - Conflict

410 - Gone

411 - Length Required

412 - Precondition Failed

413 - Request Entity Too Large

414 - Request-URI Too Large

415 - Unsupported Media Type

500 - Internal Server Error

501 - Not Implemented

502 - Bad Gateway

503 - Service Unavailable

504 - Gateway Time-Out

505 - HTTP Version Not Supported

 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

// EOF();

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

 

 

Well, that pretty much does it for now. If you have any questions pertaining to any areas covered in this tutorial, then please feel free to post them here.

 

-Cloak.

[jcguy 0]

I'll fill in the backup part:

 

Backup

This is where you can make a full backup of everything in your account, a home directory backup, and mySQL databases backups. Simply choose your option, and you'll be able to download a zipped file of your backup. Here, you can also restore the backup you've made in the case of you losing any data.

[Matoking1405241541 0]

Holy ****! Lots of things! And Fantastico (or was it Zantastico) too? Haven't used cPanel for loong time. Hope I get enough Hosting Points. Thank you again for those awesome functions!

[Ronel 0]

Woh! Too much of a review!Can anyone explain to me how can I create a subdomain of my subdomain?

[Sten 0]

with the subdomain thing in cpanel, i think thats in the web site management part or whatever its called.but since its a subdomain and u want a subdomain of a subdomain, im not sure if u can.

[Normano 0]

I like all thing in cPanel:Dso much

[WaLhEZ 0]

hi i create one manual or tutorial for use of cpanel, in spanish http://forums.xisto.com/topic/16836-topic/ check , is for latin users.

[skedad 0]

I must say I like how much is involved in the cPanel... It's nice to just be able to do anything in a limited amount of space... And it's kind of like a page not so much a program. As long as I can keep the cPanel separate from other work I am doing, I will be able to upload or whatnot with a breeze!I have just began hosting... actually, it's been only a few hours, or so. I want to try to beef up my hosting credits a bit while also refreshing my mind on hosting and all of the possibilities! I just hope that I can be able to glide along daily, or every few days without worry.I see that in the shoutbox, members are excited for the Xisto - Web Hosting's cPanel... I think I remember hearing that Xisto - Web Hosting is a branch, or partner of Xisto... maybe if I am in need of another domain, I would try it out!So keep up the good work everyone! I am anxious to get my site up and running, and it will be nice to upload through an FTP server again... and not file, by file, by file!Sweeeeet!- bob -

[Chesso 0]

Hi, can anyone explain cron jobs in more detail?I like the idea of being able to time something daily/hourly etc, but what commands and things can be used, or more importantly what kind of things could you expect to be able to do with it?Like update a database, or run a php file that runs a query or something like that?

[masri furniture 0]

explainfull enough

[Sten 0]

ok and umm... wots that got to do with cpanel?and if that was from a google search then it should also be in quotes.

[DeltaWeb 0]

hi i create one manual or tutorial for use of cpanel, in spanish http://forums.xisto.com/topic/16836-topic/ check , is for latin users.

Hey is anyone having trouble? with the cpanel because i am