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Archive for the ‘cPanel Tutorials’ Category

Backup

December 7th, 2008

The Backup area allows you to download the daily backup file of your entire web site, or a particular MySQL, alias, or filter backup file. If your computer crashes, or your personal backups are destroyed, these files allow you to recover your site in a convenient manner (you could also use FTP to download each file - more control, but it would take longer).

How often a backup is created is decided by your web host. Contact your hosting administrator for more details.

Important: You should keep your own backup copy of your web site as well. Do not rely solely on the backup provided by your web host. Having multiple backups in different locations provides security against permanently losing information.

Note: A complete web site backup file includes everything - from web pages to images to scripts to access logs. A large site will have a large backup file, and will take some time to download.

To download a backup file:

  1. Click on the Backup button on the home page.
  2. Click on the link underneath the required area to download today’s backup file.

    Note: To download any previous stored backups, click on the Generate/Download a Full Backup link, and click on any backup that is listed.

cPanel Tutorials

Disk Usage

December 7th, 2008

The Disk Usage Viewer enables you to see exactly how much disk space is being taken up by various parts of your website. Several different viewing options are available:

  • Show Parent Directories - Displays the parent directories as individual items.
  • Show More Directory Depth - Displays directories one level deeper as individual items.
  • Show Less Directory Depth - Displays directories one level higher as individual items.
  • Show Top Level - Displays the top level of the website.
  • Clear File Usage Cache - Deletes all file usage information from the cache.
  • Show Small Files - Displays very small files.
  • Show File Size as bytes/Megabytes - Displays file sizes as bytes or megabytes. There are 1024 bytes to one megabyte.

Most of the above viewing options have a reverse option. For example, if Show Small Files is chosen, Hide Small Files is now displayed.

To use the Disk Usage Viewer:

  1. Click on the Disk Usage button on the home page.
  2. A list of items that take up space on your website is now displayed, from largest to smallest. Click on the required buttons to view the use of space on your website.

cPanel Tutorials

File Manager

December 7th, 2008

The File Manager allows you to manage your site through HTML, rather than an FTP tool or other third-party application. You can upload, create or delete files, organize files in folders, and change file permissions. While not as sophisticated as most FTP tools, File Manager is free and gives you all the basic functionality necessary to manage your site.

Note: All of the other topics in this section assume that you are already in File Manager.

To open and navigate in File Manager:

  1. Click on the File Manager button on the home page.
  2. Navigate by using the following:
    • Open a folder by clicking on the folder icon.
    • Go up a level by clicking on the Up one level link.
    • Use the path links at the top of the window to move up and down the path.
    • Select a folder, so as to view or modify its properties, by clicking on the folder name link.

cPanel Tutorials

Addon Domains

December 7th, 2008

An addon domain is a domain name that that points to a subdirectory within your account. For example, you may want innovation.org.nz to point to business.org.nz/innovation/. Addon domains must be registered domain names and configured to point to your website’s servers.

To add a domain to your website:

  1. Click on the Addon Domains button on the home page.
  2. Enter the domain name in the New Addon Domain field.
  3. Add the directory that the addon domain points to in the Username/directory name field.
  4. Enter the password for the domain in the Password field, if required.
  5. Click on the Add button.

cPanel Tutorials

Parked Domains

December 7th, 2008

You can set up a domain name that you own to point to another domain name. This is known as “parking” a domain.

Example: You own the business.co.nz and innovation.co.nz domain names. You already have a web site for business.co.nz, but you do not want to create a new website for innovation.co.nz at the moment. By parking innovation.co.nz on top of business.co.nz, all URLs for innovation.co.nz will automatically go to business.co.nz instead.

Note: To park the domain, domain should point to the server

To park a domain:

  1. Click on the Parked Domains button on the home page.
  2. Enter the name of the domain that you want to park in the New Domain Name field.
  3. Click on the Add button.

cPanel Tutorials

Spam Assassin

December 7th, 2008

Spam Assassin is a mail filter installed on a mail server used to identify spam. It checks for spam using a large number of pre-set rules that check the header, body, and sender of all e-mail messages sent to your domain mailbox. For more information about Spam Assassin, refer to the following links:

Configuring Spam Assassin

You can change how Spam Assassin deals with spam. The following options are available:

  • required_hits - The number of e-mails received before a certain e-mail is considered spam.
  • rewrite_subject - Alter the subject line of spam e-mail. Enter 1 to enable or 0 to disable.
  • subject_tag - Text added to the subject line of spam e-mails. rewrite_subject must be enabled for this to work.
  • blacklist_from - Enter an e-mail address that you always want classified as spam. The asterix symbol (*) can be used as a wildcard.
  • whitelist_from - Enter an e-mail address that you never want classified as spam. The asterix symbol (*) can be used as a wildcard.

To configure Spam Assassin

  1. Click on the Spam Assassin link in the Mail area.
  2. Click on the Configure Spam Assassin button.
  3. Change the settings as required.
  4. Click on the Save button.

cPanel Tutorials

Email Forwarders

December 7th, 2008

Forwards simply allow you to automatically forward e-mail sent to one account to another account. This is useful when you work at two separate locations, or have gone on holiday.

To forward mail from one account to two or more accounts, just add two or more forwards for the account that is being forwarded.

To add a forwarder:

  1. Click on the Forwarders link in the Mail area.
  2. Click on the Add Forwarder link.
  3. Enter the first part of the e-mail address that will be forwarded in the first field.
  4. Choose the required domain from the drop-down list.
  5. Enter the full e-mail address that the forwarder will forward mail to in the second field.
  6. Click on the Add Forwarder button.

cPanel Tutorials

E-mail Filtering

December 7th, 2008
  1. Click on the E-mail Filtering link in the Mail area.
  2. Click on the Add Filter link.
  3. Click on the required header field in the first drop-down list. These are the various fields in any e-mail message.
  4. Click on the required filter action in the second drop-down list. This action will act on the text entered in the third field.
    • equals - match the text exactly (whole words only). “Credit” will block “Credit”.
    • matches regex - matches the text based on regular expression (regex) rules. Regular expressions are a powerful but complex area. You do not need to use regular expression filters for most circumstances.
    • contains - match the specified text in any circumstance. “porn” will block “porn” and “pornography”.
    • begins with - match the specified text when it is the beginning of a word. “porn” will block “porn” and “pornography” but not “teenporn”.
  5. Enter the filter text in the third field. This text is case sensitive.
  6. Enter the destination for the filtered e-mail in the Destination field. There are three separate types of destination:
    • Destroy the e-mail - Enter Discard in the field.
    • Redirect to another address - Enter the e-mail address to which to redirect the e-mail.
    • Redirect to a script - Enter the full script path on the machine that hosts your website.
  7. Click on the Activate button.

Example:

  • To redirect all e-mail from “john@paradise.net”, enter: From, equals, john@paradise.net, david@corse.org.nz
  • To delete all e-mail from paradise.net, enter: From, contains, paradise.net, Discard
  • To delete all references to pornography, enter: Any Header, contains, porn, Discard
  • To discard all e-mail that Spam Assassin has marked as spam, enter: SpamAssassin Spam Header, begins with, yes, Discard

cPanel Tutorials

Setting your default e-mail address

December 7th, 2008

Any e-mail that is sent to an unknown account at your domain name, such as unknown@yourdomain.com, gets automatically rerouted to your default e-mail account. All web site accounts are automatically assigned a default e-mail address - user@yourdomain.com - which you can change, if required.

To set your default e-mail address:

  1. Click on the Default Address link in the Mail area.
  2. Click on the Set Default Address link.
  3. Enter the complete e-mail address of the new default in the field next to your web site name drop-down list.

    Note: You can enter :blackhole: to throw away all incoming mail, or :fail: no such address here to bounce the e-mail back to the sender.

  4. Click on the Change button. Your new default e-mail address has now been set.

cPanel Tutorials

E-mail Accounts

December 7th, 2008

You can set up as many POP (Post Office Protocol) e-mail accounts as you require, up to your maximum limit. Each one of these is in the standard e-mail formation of address@yourdomain.com. As with your default e-mail address, you can access these accounts through web mail or through your own offline e-mail application.

To add an e-mail account:

  1. Click on the Add/Remove Accounts link in the Mail area.
  2. Click on the Add Account link.
  3. Enter the first part of the e-mail address and the password for the account in E-mail and Password fields.
  4. Enter the maximum size limit of this mailbox in the Quota field, if required. The size limit is in megabytes. Not entering a number means that the mailbox size is only limited by the available disk space.
  5. Click on the Create button.

cPanel Tutorials