Plesk is a web hosting control panel that is available for both Windows and Linux, and helps many web hosts provide customers with both standard shared web hosting as well as reseller hosting. Plesk was developed by a company known as SWSoft, who also own other industry leading web hosting controls panels such as Helm and HSPComplete. The interface for Plesk has been designed around the look of Windows XP, to help give users more confidence in using the control; this is because since the control panel has more or less the same look as the customer or user’s operating system, the customer or user might find it easier to get around the control panel and in turn, make it easier for them to use in general. Plesk is generally used for Windows hosting by most web hosts, since cPanel is the preferred choice for Linux hosting for both the host and its clients and customers. You will generally find Plesk bundled with VPS hosting plans provided by web hosts that use Virtuozzo as their VPS hosting software; this is because Plesk and Viurtozzo are both produced by the same company – SWSoft. Plesk has many features packaged with it which helps make it superior over other web hosting controls panels, most specifically the SiteBuilder application which customers can use to build their own websites. For our example, we will be basing this article on Plesk for Windows since that is what eUKhost use for Windows shared, reseller and semi-dedicated web hosting. Plesk, like cPanel, allows people to manage many different aspects of their shared website hosting, which can be based either on Linux or Windows; this compability with both systems means that if a user wanted to move from one type of hosting to another, they won’t end up having a new control panel that they’ll have to start working out from the ground up again. Plesk also gives webmasters the ability to control and change many different aspects of their website hosting account without the intervention of others. Plesk gives you the abilty to manage many different parts of your web hosting account from the ability to see how much bandwidth your website has been using as well as when, you can also manage the DNS entries that are functioning under your account – this is perfect for you if you need to add custom DNS entries so that you can utilize the services of other web hosts or servers that you might be using.

Other features in Plesk allow you to avoid any images or other files in your website being linked to which could inturn mean that you bandwidth is in affect ‘stolen’ if files you have hosted in your account are displayed on another website which is busy; you will even be able to change the PHP settings if you happen to be hosting any PHP files that require custom settings within your shared website hosting space. Other included features allow you to setup directories which you can then restrict access to with the use of the protected directories feature that is built into Plesk. You are also given the ability to manage any scheduled tasks which you might need to setup in order to allow your website to function corrcectly; this can be very helpful for you if for example your website is running something such as a billing system where it is important that certain tasks are scheduled to run automatically to ensure that requests are fulfilled on time without the need for any manual intervention. You will also be given the ability to manage any databases that you choose to create in your Plesk account; this includes the management of MySQL databases, as well as MSSQL databases if you happen to be coding in classic ASP or ASP.NET and are hosted on the Windows version of Plesk. If you are hosted on the Windows platform then ODBC data sources will also be discussed to aid in the activity of connecting to databases from dynamic web pages. The ability to manage SSL certificates will also be discussed, since this is one of the most important features and can make or break the control panel choice for someone when they are looking around at web hosts.

Mail

The mail feature of Plesk allows you to manage all the different email aspects of your website through Plesk; this feature allows the control of individual email accounts as well as that of mass mailing lists that you might have configured within your shared Plesk website hosting account. When modifying individual email accounts, many different options are presented to you to ensure that you are able to configure your emails accounts the way that you want them to be; you are able to disable a mailbox so that you can just use it as a forwarder address, as well as setup an auto-responder for the email account concerned. If needed, you can also choose for the owner of the email account to have the ability to login to the Plesk control panel so that they can manage aspects of their own email account; you as the web master as well as the owner of the email account can also setup custom spam and anti-virus rules for individual email accounts if you find that you may need them for whatever reason. A preference panel is also provided for each individual email account so that you can reset the password if needed or even change the actual email address of the account, this means that you can change the actual address but still retain any email that it contains. You can also set up the account to ensure that any email received can be retained in the actual email account, and at the same time be forwarded to another email account of your choice – if you disable the mailbox feature of the email account but retain the redirect address then the email account will act like a forwarder. You can also setup multiple email aliases for any email account; this means that any email account can accept email for any aliases that you have attached to the email account that you have setup within your Plesk control panel. As the web master you can also set the size of each individual email account to ensure that one email account doesn’t end up using up all the space that you have assigned to your Plesk shared website hosting account. You can also setup multiple mailing lists through your Plesk control panel website hosting account which gives you the ability to communicate with a large group of people without having to enter each individual email address every time you want to send a message to all the people who are contained within the mailing list.

DNS Settings

The DNS settings feature of Plesk allows you to manage all the different DNS settings that you might have attached to your domain that you have hosted under your shard Plesk website hosting account. DNS allows you to control where requests for certain services for your website; you can set where visitors looking for your website are sent to in terms of the server that they reach – as long as the server that you point your domain to hosts a copy of your website then your website will be displayed if you have entered the correct IP address when setting up the ‘A’ (address) records. You can also define where email for your domain is sent to, if you are wanting to utilize the mail services of another web host or that of an external mail server that might be run by you; this is perfect for you if you are looking to use some sort of enterprise email service such as Microsoft Exchange Server or Zimbra, both of which aren’t available within a Plesk environment since they won’t work along side the mail server that is installed along with Plesk. The fact that you can setup address records from Plesk gives you the ability to setup subdomains for your website but then point them to other servers; this is different from the subdomain feature that is built into Plesk since the Plesk feature sets the address records up but points them all back to the same server that you are hosted on, therefore meaning that the files for the subdomain will also be hosted on the same server as your main website at the end of the day. If your host has not already done it for you, you can use the DNS settings feature of Plesk to setup a TXT (text) DNS record in the form of an SPF record; this ensures that email sent from your domain can be verified and received by email recipients who are utilizing free email services such as Hotmail and Yahoo! – this is especially important if you run a website such as an online shop which requires easy interaction with any email address, whoever hosts it.

Databases

Plesk gives you the ability to create MySQL databases in both its Linux and Windows forms; if you purchase the necessary add-ons then it can also connect to PostgreSQL and MSSQL servers to create both types of database; PostgreSQL is only normally found on Linux, and MSSQL is for Windows hosting only. Third party web based database control panels are built into Plesk and Plesk automatically logs you in to the relevant one when you want to administrate a database over the internet from a location that might happen to not be your own computer; in the case of MySQL databases, PHPMyAdmin is supplied to allow you to manage any MySQL databases that you might have hosted within your shared Plesk website hosting account – if you are hosted on the Windows platform and are utilizing Microsoft SQL databases then ASP.NET Enterprise Manager is supplied to allow you to view and manage any MSSQL databases that you have hosted under your account. In most cases you will be using a database along with a dynamic web page language within your website so that your website is able to communicate with the database so it can pull data to be displayed, as well as store it within the database so that it can be easily accessed again. Plesk also gives you the ability to create users so that the databases you create can be accessed by the scripts that you have created within your web space; without these database users, scripts and other programs that you want to use to access your database or databases won’t be usable since they won’t be able to access the database. Since Plesk gives you the ability to create multiple databases under many different database platforms, it gives you the ability to host many different web applications in a number of dynamic server side scripting languages so that the applications that you do create can easily interact with the databases that you have created within your shared Plesk website hosting account.

Certificates

Plesk gives you the ability to generate the needed codes for as well as the ability to install SSL certificates within your shared website hosting account without the need for any intervention from your web host, or the administrator who is responsible for the server that you are hosted on. SSL certificates encrypt any information that is sent between your website and the computer of the person that is visiting your website; they are highly recommended for situations in which the data being transferred is of the utmost confidentiality, and an example of this situation would be an online store where confidential information such as credit card details is being transferred over the internet – if information such as this was to fall into the hands of fraudsters then the results for the owner of the credit card could be disastrous. Since Plesk generates the needed codes for you such as the CSR and the private keys, all you have to do is copy the relevant information over to your certificate supplier then download and then upload the certificate once the relevant processing has been done; this process doesn’t require any intervention from your web host since most of the processing is done automatically by both your web hosting server as well as the servers that belong to the company that you are buying your SSL certificate. The only manual intervention that might be needed from your web host will be the assigning of a static IP address to your website; SSL certificates can’t run on shared IP addresses, meaning that you must purchase a dedicated IP address from your web host before you can actually install and run your certificate within the environment of your own website. The assigning of the IP address can only be done by your web host since they are the ones who retain ownership of the IP address, since you are only renting it. If you don’t need a dedicated SSL certificate, but still want to make use of secure web space then most web hosts provide shared SSL space within Plesk web hosting accounts which you can then utilize as per your need.

Subdomains

Subdomains are domains that you can create under your hosted domain name; they take on the form of a new name as the forename, and then the second part of the address is your main domain name. Subdomains are a good way to section your website off into different parts if you are providing many different services, or if you want to give different parts of your website their own identity without the need for directories which can easily become very messy. Search engines can also favour subdomains in some situations because they see them as separate domain names, and will rate them above directories in most situations. If you are wanting to sell different products or services under the same company name, but don’t want the websites for each product to be collectively dumped under one domain name, then you should try and utilize subdomains within your website setup where possible. Subdomains are basically address DNS records that have been automatically setup by Plesk to point back to the same server that your website is hosted on; however, you can also utilize the advance DNS settings feature if you wish to use subdomains but want to have the content that they are going to display or the service that they are going to be used for hosted on another server – this will be done via the setup of advanced address records and with the use of IP addresses of other servers through the Plesk control panel. However, most people rarely use subdomains since they are seen as ‘tacky’ by some and others prefer to just use the simple structure of directories when they are designing and building their website which they will then host within their Plesk shared website hosting account. The good thing with subdomains though, is that like directories you can choose what you want the name of the subdomain that you are setting up to be – this means that you can use subdomains for hosting absolutely any content you want.

File Manager

The file manager section of Plesk allows you to view and manage all the files that you have stored within the web space that has been assigned to your shared Plesk website hosting account; you can manage both the files in your directories that are accessible from the main internet as well as the directories which aren’t accessible from the internet – also known as the private directories. The file manager feature differs from the web directories feature in the way that it allows you to manage all the files that you have stored under your web hosting account, whereas the web directories feature only allows you to manage the files and directories within your web space that are directly accessible by all computers on the internet. The file manager allows you to differentiate between files and folders via the use of icons which are individual to each different type. The management abilities of the file manager allow you to remove/delete files and folders which you feel that you no longer need; you can also create new files and directories within directories that are below your ‘main’ or ‘parent’ directory which is where your website and all the files which are related to it physically reside on the main website hosting server’s hard drive – this means that you can create new web pages or other files which you may need others to view quickly and on the fly which means that you can do it from any internet connected computer which has a web browser installed on it. If the size of a particular directory or file is not displayed in the file manager within Plesk then a calculator is built in which you can use to calculate the sizes of certain files or directories automatically without the need for any hard technical work or any head scratching. You can also copy and move directories and files between directories if you feel the need that you want some files or other content to reside in other directory so that it can be kept more private or so that you can remove content from your website which you no longer want to display for your visitors to see.

Protected URLs

The protected URLs feature of Plesk allows you to setup directories within your website that you can restrict access to via the use of login credentials such as usernames and password; this means that people will require a username and password to be able to gain access to a protected directory. When a user tries to access a protected directory, a login box will popup from within their web browser; there is certain text that goes along with the login box which will normally appear above the option boxes which users enter their usernames and passwords into – Plesk gives you the option to set the text that is designed to appear above the two mentioned text boxes. You should use the password protected directories feature if you want to store certain documents or files within a directory, but don’t want the general public to have access to them; in this situation you could assign usernames and password to the people who will need access to any files that you choose to store within a password protected directory. Password protected directories can also be used in the case that you want to offer a private membership area on your website that users must pay to be able to access; although this will mean that you have to set up the accounts for users manually, you will still be able to provide the membersip area that you want without having to pay for a more expensive server side scripting language based solution. The protected directories feature is available in both the WIndows and Linux versions of Plesk, which means that you can move between the two different platforms but still retain features of your website that might help make it distinct, such as the protected directories or password protected membership area that you provide your visitors with. The protected URLs feature is only good for a certain amount of users, which in most cases is 50; if you intend to setup more user accounts than this then you should invest in a more stable and scalable system that utilizes a database backend to make sure that it is always accessible. One thing to note is that on Linux systems, you can use the .htaccess file of your website to ensure that certain directories are password protected.

Domain Templates

The domain templates feature of Plesk allows you to set up web hosting plans for domains to enable you to start selling hosting on your Plesk based Linux or Windows VPS or dedicated server. This Plesk feature gives you many configurable options besides the standard bandwidth and disk space options to ensure that you are able to allocate the domains that you are going to host on your Plesk web hosting server with the correct amount of resources such as the number of databases that one is allowed to host under one of your packages as well as the number of email accounts that you want to limit your customers to within their shared Plesk website hosting account. If you are selling hosting on a Windows based server, and you have purchased the necessary MSSQL server add-on for Plesk, then you will be given the option to choose how many MSSQL databases that you want customers under your web hosting plans to be able to create; this option will be there automatically for MySQL databases on both the Windows and Linux versions of the Plesk web hosting control panel system – if you have the PostgreSQL add-on for Plesk for Linux then you will also be given the option to limit the number of PostgreSQL databases that people hosted under your hosting plans will be able to create. Other options given to you allow you to choose whether or not people under certain plans can run web pages or scripts that have been written in certain server side scripting languages; for example you are able to choose whether or not people under a certain plan have access to the ASP programming language, if you choose to disable this option then people under the web hosting plan concerned will not be able to run scripts or web pages which they have chosen to code in the classic ASP programing language. You are also given the option to limit the amount of CPU usage that websites under the hosting plan concerned can use; this means that you can put a cap on the amount of CPU used to ensure that people with CPU hogging websites will have to upgrade to the next plan above the one that they are on currently to get their website back online since the amount of CPU that they are able to use will increase as they upgrade their website hosting plans. If you have multiple versions of PHP installed on the server that you want to use for selling hosting, you will be given the option to choose which version of PHP that you want websites which are hosted under the plan concerned to run; this means that you can design one plan with the intention of allowing people who want to host their PHP applications in a PHP 4 environment the ability to, and then providing another package for people who want to host their PHP website or application in a PHP 5 environment. You can also limit the amount of visitors that websites are allowed to have connected to them at one time; this option shouldn’t be used in most situations since your customers could find themselves not being able to access their websites after a certain amount of visitors have connected to view it. Another option within this Plesk feature allows you to limit the size of the data pipe to the websites which are hosted under the package concerned – this means that if you make the pipe smaller, then websites will load slower – the opposite is applicable to a larger data pipe.

Web Directories

The web directories feature of Plesk allows you to view and manage all the folders and files in your Plesk shared website hosting account that are viewable and accessible from the internet. This feature can be helpful for you if you need to navigate through some of the files that you stored within your web space, but only need to view and edit the ones which are actually part of your website – files that are part of your website will be viewable from the web directories section of Plesk. If you are on the road and need to edit certain parts of your website by don’t have access to either a WYSIWYG editor or aren’t able to establish an FTP connection to your web hosting space, then you can use this feature to edit your files, and since you are editing them online, you won’t have to upload any changes that you make since they will be automatically applied when you click save after you have made the necessary edits. With the use of this feature you can also set custom settings for PHP and ASP.NET, both of which are server side scripting languages that you can use more dynamically to carry out tasks such as interaction with databases which would not be achievable with regular static HTML based web pages. You are also able to setup new physical directories as well as virtual ones; the difference is that physical directories are ones that actually exist on the server, and virtual ones generally link back to other directories which might still be hosted within your web space but aren’t accessible from the internet. The ability to setup custom error documents for your website is also provided through the easy to use web directories interface; this can be handy for you if you want to make sure that your website still retains its identity, even if errors occur when a visitor is browsing your website. You can also set certain preferences for all the folders in your shared Plesk website hosting account that are accessible from the internet – the preferences that are settable include the default file names which browsers will automatically be forwarded to when no file name is provided, as well as whether anonymous access is allowed and whether an SSL connection is required for files to be viewed.

FTP Accounts

FTP accounts are the accounts which are used in order for users to gain access to your web space via the use of the FTP protocol in the event that anonymous FTP access has been disabled by either you or your web host. Plesk gives you the ability to add, delete and edit the details of FTP accounts that you have already created within your shared Plesk website hosting space; and if you have a dedicated IP address assigned to your website, you are given the ability to enable or disable anonymous FTP access to your web space – however, it is highly recommended that you don’t enable it since it can pose a big security risk for you as well as the other customers of your web host who might be hosted on the same server as you. FTP stands for File Transfer Protocol, and is used for the transfer of files between your web space and your desktop; FTP can also be used to set permissions on certain files and folders if the need arises – without the correct permissions, some files and programs might not function correctly within your shared Plesk website hosting space. When setting FTP accounts up in Plesk, you are given the option to specify a certain directory that the account is allowed to have access to; this means that any directory below and including the one that you specify are the only ones which can be accessed by the FTP account that you are setting up. You are also given the ability to choose whether an FTP account is even allowed to see the files that are contained within the directories that it has been allowed access to; you are also able to choose whether or not it is allowed to save and edit files that are contained within the web space that the FTP account has been assigned to. You can also setup individual directories for each FTP account which means that you can allow others to store their files in one centrally accessible location; you can limit the size of directories for FTP accounts which means that you can always ensure that any FTP accounts you setup are not going to end up using up all of the disk space that you have assigned to your shared Plesk website hosting account.

Scheduled Tasks

The scheduled tasks feature of Plesk allows you to setup certain scripts that you might have running under your website to be run automatically at a certain time to carry out certain tasks which they have been designed for. The most common use of scheduled tasks (sometimes referred to as ‘Cron Jobs’ in terms of Linux website hosting) is to carry out tasks which need to be carried out on a regular basis without manual intervention; an example of a scheduled task in use would be in a web host billing system, where invoices for customers need to be generated at the beginning of the day without any manual intervention. You might also find scheduled tasks running in the situation where notifications of some sort need to be sent out to website visitors on a regular basis to ensure that they are aware of the latest information or of a new update in their account which they need to be made aware of. When setting up a scheduled task within Plesk, you are given the option to enter the full command for the script to ensure that it is executed correctly so that you don’t have to come and run the script manually to make it carry out its assigned task correctly. You can also choose the exact time for the script to be run by Plesk automatically – right down to the last minute, you can also choose for scripts to be run every minute of the day but this isn’t recommended since it could easily use up many server resources, and if you are on shared website hosting, could lead to your Plesk shared website hosting account being suspended because of server resource hogging as it is known. You can also choose for Plesk to send you an email notification to tell you whether the scheduled task has been executed successfully by the server that you are hosted on. You can also select the priority of the task which means that if it is of a high priority, it will be executed before other tasks which might be of a lower priority but still being executed at the same time as yours. You can also specify extra arguments for the execution of the task which you have not specified in the text box labeled for the command.

Site Preview

The site preview function that is built into Plesk allows you to view and interact with your website, even before the DNS for it has fully resolved if your domain is new or if you have decided to move to a new web host for whatever reason. This feature can be helpful to you if you have just finished your website off and have uploaded it, and are wanting to test it out but your new domain or existing domain still hasn’t propogated over to your new web host yet meaning that you can’t use it to view and test your website and its features out. The site preview function is one of Plesk’s most advanced features since it is one which isn’t available in most other web hosting controls that are used in the mainstream hosting market. The feature is a particularly handy one since most people are wanting to test their new website ASAP once they have uploaded it, but DNS propogation can take up to 48 hours, meaning that they will have to wait that long until they are even able to view their website, let alone interact with it. You can also use the site preview feature if you don’t even intend to attach a proper domain to your shared Plesk website hosting account; this is because a domain is not needed for the feature to be able to function properly, since the IP address of the server that you are hosted on is used to access your website. You might not want to attach a proper domain to your website hosting account because you might be intending to use it for the testing of your new website before you put it live for your visitors to see; any problems that your site might being up can be viewed through the site preview function since it displays your website just as if you were viewing it under a proper domain in a live environment, instead of a testing one. You can then proceed to fix any problems which might have been brought up whilst you were testing your website out in the site preview function; once you are sure that your website is functioning correctly, you can move it over into a live environment for your visitors to see it or attach a proper domain to your web hosting account so that people can start visting your new website.

Frontpage Extensions

Frontpage extensions are the extensions that web hosts install on their servers to allow people who have built their websites in Microsoft’s now defunct WYSIWYG editor, Frontpage, to run correctly if special Frontpage functions have been used during the development of the website. Frontpage provides website builders with many different functions that they can insert into their website to help make it more appealing to their visitors; addable functions include ones which can display the weather for a certain location on the same day that someone visits your website, as well as a visitor counter so that your visitors can see how many people have visited your website since you first put the counter on display. You can also add a guestbook to your website that visitors can then sign when they visit your website; you can allow them to comment on anything including the design and layout of your website – you can even use the guestbook as a source of feedback when you are looking to give your website a makeover or an upgrade of some sort in the future. The Frontpage extension manager that is built into Plesk allows you to configure certain preferences regarding the sending of email from web pages which have been designed and configured in Microsoft Frontpage; this means that Frontpage web pages have are able to have the same dynamics as their server side equivalents, but have no need for the use of databases or the setting of permissions to ensure that they are able to function correctly. Access to the Frontpage web admin is also provided so that you are able to manage and configure other features that may play a part in the running of your web pages that you have designed in Frontpage and then uploaded to your shared Plesk website hosting account space. You are also able to setup extra Frontpage management accounts with many configurable preferences including the amount of disk space that they are allowed to use.

ASP.NET

The ASP.NET section of Plesk allows you to view and edit the settings for ASP.NET which are being used on your domain; you are able to see information specific to both your domain as well as the server on which you are hosted – information which is specific to your website is editable. Plesk allows you to choose the version of ASP.NET which is operating under your domain – this means that if you have an ASP.NET application which is written in an older version of the language, you are able to run it within your shared hosting environment effectively without it being affected by the constraints of newer languages which might be a problem in a shared environment provided by web hosts who use other control panels – you can set the version of ASP.NET that is running under your domain to any that your web host has installed on the host node. If you are new to ASP.NET, and the concept of using it to access Microsoft SQL databases, then Plesk automatically generates connection strings which you can easily alter to work with your ASP.NET based website applications which you are then going to host within your shared hosting environement; you can also add and remove connection strings from within the ASP.NET panel of your shared web hosting account for the different Microsoft SQL servers that you might be connecting to, as well as the one which is hosted locally on the same server as your website, which you can then refer back to when needs be in the future. You can also add and edit the settings related to custom error pages within your ASP.NET application; you can choose whether to have the errors as remote only – or you can switch custom errors off completely, or just choose ‘On’ – if you have chosen ‘On’ then you can specify where your websites visitors should be sent to when a specific error is encountered, this means that if an error does happen to come up with your website, you can send your visitors to specific pages to let them know what the problem is, but at the same time be able to keep up your corporate identity which is something that isn’t possible with standard website error pages since most are actually browser defaults. Other configurable features include the ability to set the debugging mode for ASP.NET applications within your website – this will come in handy if you are testing your website, as well as globalization settings such as the different encodings which have been used on files as well as on the data which may be stored in databases.

Web Applications

The web applications feature of Plesk allows you to install any script which has been added to the script respitory; this means that you can setup any script which is listed easily since all the technical work such as the setting and up and configuring of the database as well as the setting of file permissions is all done automatically by Plesk for you. Also, if you want to host either Java based or ASP.NET based applications within your shared hosting environment, then interfaces are provided to ensure that you can setup applications of either type without any fuss and without the need for any intervention from your web host. If you are just starting your website, then you might find this feature helpful since it gives you a chance to get the applications that you might need for your website in place, thus cutting down the amount of work that you will have to carry out when you get around to actually opening your website to visitors; the fact that all the technical work such as the setting up and the configuring of the database needed for most applications to function as well as the setting of file permissions ensures that you can easily install complex applications without the need for any expert knowledge. You can also use this feature if you simply want to expand on your existing website; this is because programs such as blog and forums are provided which means that you can install these to create a community for your visitors to communicate with each other as well as a place where you can write articles for the general public to comment on or for them to just view at their leisure. You could also install a CMS (content management system) if you wanted to help you manage the content of your website – this can the especially handy if you are finding that your website is starting to expand as well as the content which it contains for visitors to view. Other installable programs include shopping carts which you could make use of if you wanted to start selling products or other things on your website to help make a return on your investment into your web hosting package – although the cost of your package might be low, if you receive a large number of visitors then it is worth trying to make a return on those visitors since at the end of the day it could help finance the cost of your hosting package and you could spend any left over profit on anything that you wanted to. You could also install a groupware feature for the purpose of allowing you and your employees to manage resources online as well as have the ability to communicate with each other with ease.

Hotlink Protection

The hotlink protection feature that is built into Plesk allows you to control whats with particular extensions can’t be access by external websites; this means that if other websites do try to link to a particular file or image that is hosted under your domain then the website’s request will be fulfilled meaning that the file concerned will not be displayed on any website apart from yours or the one which is hosted under your shared Plesk website hosting account. You can protect any type of file that is hosted within your Plesk website hosting account; this is because you are able to specify the exact file types that you want to be banned from being linked to by external websites. You should always have hotlinking enabled for certain file extensions, especially images, on your website, especially if your website is one which receives a high volume of traffic; this is because if external websites which receive many visitors link to images which are contained within your web space, and they are images which are large in file size, then you could end up having this external website eating up all the bandwidth that you have assigned to your shared Plesk website hosting account – even if you don’t have high traffic websites linking to the images or files that you have stored within your shared hosting account, your bandwidth could still be eaten up by smaller websites which are hotlinking to files within your web space since the files which are being linked to could easily be large in size meaning that they are eating up a large chunk each time they are used – in the case of smaller files, the amount of bandwidth being eaten up each time is considerably less. If you require for external websites to link to files and images which might be contained within your web space, then you should consider a dedicated hosting solution such as a VPS or dedicated server since the bandwidth which is supplied with these types of products is much more than that which is supplied with standard shared hosting products.

Backup

The backup feature if Plesk allows you to configure the backup settings for all the files that you have contained within your web space which is part of your shared Plesk website hosting account; you are given the option to schedule automatic backups via FTP to an external FTP or backup server, or you can simply create a manual backup to download there and then which you can then store on your local computer for use if you feel that you have incorrectly configured something or have accidentally deleted all your data. Although your web host might take full automatic backups of all the accounts and the data which they contain on the server, it is always a good idea to take your own backups either manually or automatically regularly since those taken by web hosts might not always be that reliable for one reason or another, or your web host might not just take backups at all – one thing to note is that if you ask your web host to restore a backup of your account because something has gone wrong with it because of your own fault then they might actually charge you for the restoration of the backup – some might not even allow this arguing that it might affect the other shared or reseller web hosting accounts that are hosted on the same server as you and your domain do. Backups are a necessity in this day and age though since the risk of data loss is quite possible through many different means; hackers can easily gain access to hosting servers due to lapse security which means that they can easily delete the data which is contained on the server, the hard drives on which the data is contained can also fail and your most might not employ strategic techniques such as RAID to ensure that there is another hard drive available which is a carbon copy of the one which has failed for whatever reason – power failures can cause this and can also cause the whole hardware which is contained within the server to malfunction. One thing to note is that you should only use the FTP backup feature if you have access to an external backup or FTP server over FTP.

Conclusion

In conclusion, Plesk provides you with many features that you can use to manage the most important and technical parts of both your website in terms of what your visitors see, as well as your domain. Plesk provides you with tools to ensure that you can easily manage any databases that you wish to setup under your account which you can then utilize to make your website more dynamic with the use of server side scripting languages which are able to communicate with certain database types to pull and store data within the database; third party web based tools are also built into Plesk to ensure that you are able to manage your databases as well as the information that is contained within them even when you are on the move and only have access to an internet connected computer, and not to one which has the tools installed that you would normally use to administer your databases and the information that they contain effectively. A DNS manager is also provided so that you can control the DNS records that are attached to your domain – this means that you can easily control which servers visitors to your website are sent to, as well as the server which email for your domain is sent to; this means that you can utilize the services of other hosting providers if you feel that your current web host meets your criteria in terms of service and support in one area, but not in another – for example the hosting for your databases and main website might be excellent, but the services that are provided for email might not meet your expectations. If you want to host websites and web pages that you have created within Microsoft’s Frontpage web editor then you can since Plesk comes with Microsoft’s Frontpage extensions and Frontpage manager by default; this means that you are able to utilize any of the special features that Frontpage builds into your web pages for you without the need for the use of any server side scripting languages which create the same affect as the use of Microsoft Frontpage web pages. If you run an online shop or a website where the data being transferred between your website and the visitors who are using your website is sensitive, then you will most likely use something called an SSL certificate to ensure that the information that is transferred is encrypted, which means that if someone such as a hacker does manage to get hold of it, its useless to them since it will be encrypted and they won’t be able to decrypt it; Plesk provides a control panel to ensure that you can generate the needed codes to ensure that you can purchase an SSL certificate and give the vendor the necessary codes without the need for intervention for your web host, Plesk also gives you the ability to install an SSL certificate on your account as long as you have a dedicated IP address for your website without the need for intervention or help from your web host. A directory protection feature is also provided to ensure that you can password protect any directory that you want to, to ensure that only people who have login credentials for the directory concerned can access it; you might want to password protect a directory since you might want to store sensetive information in it which you don’t want the general public to get hold of, you might also want to use this feature to create a private section of your website which only members of your website who have paid for entry to it or your staff can access it. An FTP account manager is also provided to ensure that you can manage all the FTP accounts that you want to have access to your web space so that they can upload and manage files as well as set file permissions to ensure that certain files and programs can run effectively without any problems.

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cPanel provides you with a number of integrated software and service features to help you improve your website as well as to aid you along in the process of creating your website; this section of the popular control panel can aid you a lot if you are new to the concept of website design and hosting. There are several different features that can help you along with the installation of certain programs that can help you get your website started; this is perfect for those novices who don’t yet have any professional desktop website building software such as Adobe Dreamweaver to aid them in the development of their websites, there are also smaller features that you can add to your existing website to help spruce if up if you feel that it needs it since the design it is using might be starting to get quite old and outdated. Other features allow you to setup different modules and packages within your web space that are applicable to certain server side scripting languages such as Perl and PHP; this can be helpful for you if you need a custom configuration but are only able to afford a shared website hosting package, and not a more higher level package such as a Cheap VPS Hosting server or a dedicated server at this point in time. A third party application that helps with the installation of programs that you can use to get your site started will also be discussed; although cPanel provides it’s own solution to aid you with the installation of scripts, the third party one that is used by many web hosts is more powerful than the one that comes packaged with cPanel. It is important to know how to use these tools; this is because you may not have the necessary knowledge to help you build your own website by using a desktop website building program. You can also utilize the features to install a forum or blog for your website so you can expand its possabilties, as well as enable visitors to communicate with each other as well as allow them to comment on the content of your website.

With the use of this article you will be able to expand on your current website by being able to install many different open source programs that can help you create a community in which all of your website visitors can communicate with each, and in the example of a blog, can comment on the contents of your website. You can also set your account up to enable additional modules and packages for your shared website hosting account that you would only be able to set up in the case of a dedicated environment such as VPS server or a dedicated hosting server; these packages can cover server side scripting languages such as Perl and PHP to ensure that your applications are able to function the way you want them to within your shared hosting environment. If you are able to get your applications to work the way you want them to within a shared hosting environment, then it can prevent you from having to dish out more money to upgrade to a higher level package at some time in the future. The use of a third party application which is known as a Fantastico will also be discussed; the main purpose of Fantastico is to allow you to install third party scripts and programs into your web space – the main technical work such as the setting up of the database and the setting of file permissions is done by the program to ensure that you are able to focus on the main purpose which is to get your website up and running as fast as possible – that is unless you have bought your hosting account to help get yourself launched into the website hosting market. You will also learn about how you should apply the features that are included within the software/services section of cPanel to your website in an effective way; this might even help boost the number of visitors your website receives, since it will be more feature packed than it has been previously.

CGI Centre

The CGI centre within cPanel contains many different features that you can easily add to your website to increase its attraction as well as the interactivity that visitors can have with it. There are certain programs that are included within this cPanel feature that can allow you to add a search engine to your site, which visitors can then use to find content within your website; this can be helpful for both you and your website’s visitors if you have a particularly large website which contains many pages, that can’t be gotten to easily – one thing to note is that if you have a dynamic website where the information displayed is retrieved from a database, then this solution won’t work for you since it only bases itself upon the files that are physically contained within your cPanel website hosting space, in your case you would have to build your own searching system that queried the database where the content is stored with the keywords that the the person conducting the search has entered. Other types of programs that are included are guestbooks that you can allow visitors to your website to sign; this can be helpful for you if you want your visitors to comment on your website in general, as well as if you want to get a general idea of where your visitors come from and why they come to your website, as well as why they might find it interesting. You also have the ability to setup a banner rotating system for your website; you can use this feature if you want to display banners/adverts on your website but want them to be rotated over time so that the same one isn’t always displayed. The banner system that is built into cPanel has some disadvantages though; you can only administrate the system through cPanel which means if you want others to control their banners then you have to give the your cPanel password, which means that this isn’t the ideal system for you if you want to sell advertising space on your website – if you do want to sell advertising space on your website then you should decide to take up a PHP based adverts system that will allow users to administrate and add new banners.

Site Software

The site software section of cPanel contains many programs that cPanel will auto-install for you into your web space, dependent upon the options that you choose during the setup; this is a good feature for novices since all the technical work such as the setting up of databases and setting of file permissions is all done automatically by cPanel. You can use the programs that are included within this feature to get your website started; this is because you could use a CMS system that is included in this feature to help get the main part of your site started, since it will allow to add, edit and delete the content of the system as you need to. You can also use the site software feature to install programs on your website that your visitors can use to communicate with each other; these programs include forums that visitors can sign up to so that they are able to create new topics and to also respond to existing ones – other software included within this feature also allows you to install a chat room onto your website so that visitors can talk to each other in real time about any topics that they wish, although you can moderate the chat rooms to ensure that only certain topics are discussed; also, if you want to add a shop to your website then you can quite easily since an PHP/MySQL based shopping cart is included to allow you to install it into your web space so that you can start selling yours or others products through your website with ease. If you feel that you no longer need certain applications on your website that you have installed through the site software feature, then they can be easily removed; this means that you can easily test software that is contained within the site software feature on your website, and if you feel that you don’t need it then you can easily remove it through the site software feature since it acts as a manger.

Perl Module Manager

You can use the Perl module manager section of cPanel to view the Perl modules that are installed server wide for all users to use, as well as to view and install the Perl modules that are relevant to your shared cPanel website hosting account only. This feature is great for you if you require special Perl modules to be installed within the context of your shared cPanel hosting account to allow your applications to function correctly; custom modules are only usually installable within a dedicated hosting environment such as that provided by a VPS server and a dedicated server – although both come at a much higher cost than a standard shared cPanel website hosting account. You are able to install any kind of Perl modules that you want to within your hosting account; this is because all you have to do is type in the name of the module that you want to install, and as long as it exists cPanel will automatically install it into your hosting environment so that you can use it for any applications and website that are Perl based which you might want to host within your shared cPanel website hosting account. Although most web hosts provide a lot of Perl modules that are already install system wide, there are some that they might miss out which you can easily install yourself; they might be missed out since they might interfere with applications that people want to host in their shared website hosting account – but although others want to use it, it can’t be removed if it is installed system wide – therefore, if the people who want to use it install it within their own accounts, then it doesn’t affect the websites and applications of those who don’t want to use it for the reason that it might interfere with their websites and applications that they have hosted on the server.

PHP Pear Packages

PHP Pear packages are collections of functions that allow you to carry out different tasks via the use of PHP. Most web hosts provide you with a large selection of pear packages that are installed server wide so that any website that resides on that hosting sever can make use of the pear packages to carry out different tasks with the use of PHP; if you require a pear package that your web host has not installed server wide then you can easily install it by using the package manager that is included with cPanel. There are certain packages that your web host might not have installed server wide for many reasons including the fact that they might have corrupted the running of some applications or websites that are run by people with their shared cPanel website hosting accounts on the same server as you; in this case, if you require the use of these certain packages then you can make use of the package manager to ensure that you can install them within your shared cPanel website hosting account. Since you are installing the packages within the surroundings of the web space that has been assigned to you, they do not effect the running of other websites and applications that might be hosted on the same server as your website is; this also means that the actions of the packages are exclusive to your account meaning that they do not have any influence on pear packages that other users might have installed on their shared cPanel website hosting account. Pear packages have many different uses within the context of PHP; this is because there are many different developers who develop using PHP and have developed their own pear packages which they have decided to share with the general public – this also means that you can extend the possibilities of your website or application since there are many more features that you can add to it if you are using PHP because of the many different pear packages that are available.

PHP Configuration

The PHP configuration that is assigned to your affordable web hosting account is only editable by the server administrator, since it is usually applied to every account that is hosted on the web hosting server – in other words the PHP configuration. The PHP configuration option that is available within cPanel allows you to see the PHP configuration for the web hosting server that your shared cPanel website hosting account is hosted on, and can be very helpful to reference to when you are building a PHP based application for hosting with your cPanel website hosting account; this is because that in some cases the final PHP application that you build might not work on the server that you are hosted on because the PHP configuration has put certain restrictions on how PHP applications are able to run within the server. However, via the use of .htaccess, you can create your own PHP configuration file (also known as php.ini) which you can then assign to your own website hosting space, and will not have any effect on other websites that are hosted on the same server that you are; this can be helpful is you need to enable or disable certain PHP options since they are conflicting with the operation of your PHP based website or application – you can also use this option to change the settings of certain PHP components to ensure that your PHP website or application is able to run without any interuption within your shared cPanel website hosting account. One thing to note is that you should always be careful when using a custom PHP configuration within the context of your shared cPanel website hosting account; this is because if you disable certain PHP options or components then you could restrict the running of any PHP based website or application within your hosting account.

Fantastico De Luxe

Fantastico is an auto-installer program that will automatically install certain PHP/MySQL based website applications for you, and works in a similar way to the site software feature that is also part of cPanel; however, unlike the site software feature of cPanel, Fantastico is a third party application that needs to be purchased by your web host in order for them to be able to install on your web hosting server – but many cPanel web hosts provide Fantastico these days as it is seen as one of the most popular cPanel add-ons. Also, Fantastico’s program directory is much larger than that of cPanel’s site software feature. You can use Fantastico to help get your website started, or to even help improve it; this is because it contains a number of programs that can help you form a basic website – for example you could install a blog or a CMS (content management system) to help you to start building up the contents of your website via the means of producing it through the administration area that most programs that fall under either of these categories posess, you can then come back to edit and delete the content if needed at a better date. You could also install a forum or bulletin board through Fantastico; you can then use the forum or bulletin board to help expand your website by allow your visitors to communicate with each other – this can be done via the creation of topics, if your visitors then sign up to either the forum or bulletin board they can then reply to the topics or create new topics – and as more topics get created, more people will sign up and reply to these topics which means that both your website and either forum or bulletin board will expand – you can then cash in on this expansion by putting adverts on your website, if you haven’t already so that you can earn money from the visitors that you receive. One thing to note is that Fantastico is perfect for beginners since the technical work such as the setting up of the database and the setting of file permissions to ensure that the application can run correctly are all done automatically by it.
Conclusion

In conclusion, cPanel provides you with many features that you can take advantage of to ensure that you can get your website kick started without the need for any technical knowledge; it also provides tool which you can utilize to help expand your website and to allow the visitors of your website to communicate with each other. Other tools provided within cPanel allow you to setup custom configurations to ensure that PHP and Perl based websites and applications that you wish to host within the surroundings of your cPanel website hosting account are able to run correctly; this is because you are given the ability to setup and configure additional modules that you might require for your PHP and Perl based websites and applications, since they might need them to ensure that they can be run reliably. You can also use the PHP configuration feature of cPanel to find out details of certain PHP options and components that might be installed on your hosting server; this information might be able to aid you in the development of PHP based websites and applications that will be one day deployed within the environment of your shared cPanel hosting account – this is because your code might require some tweaking to an extent to make sure that it can be run reliably within your shared cPanel website hosting account. You can also use the CGI program feature of cPanel to extend the interaction that visitors can have with your website; for example you can install a search engine to help your visitors find information within your website when they need to, without having to troll through many pages just to find the information that they want to find, you could also install a banner program to enable you to rotate different banners and adverts within the content that you have on your website.

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Since cPanel is made to run on the Linux operating system, it’s main database features are based around the hugely popular open source MySQL database system; MySQL is best known for being used with the open source programming language (PHP). cPanel provides you with many tools to aid you in the creation of MySQL databases, as well as the management and editing of them which allows you to ensure that the data that they contain will not be stale which means that the database won’t be using up any unneeded disk space that you have assigned to your web hosting package. Most people uses databases in web hosting to allow them to build dynamic websites so that people are able to do activities on their site that require dynamic database interaction; these kind of activities include signing up as a member, as well as writing on a forum and commenting on a blog post. Others might also use a dynamic in the form of a CMS (content management system) to allow them to edit and change the contents of their website quickly and easily from any internet connection computer in any part of the world. Databases allow you to store information and allow you to access it at any time; most of the actions mentioned previously will make use of the MySQL database system within the context of a shared cPanel hosting environment where the Linux operating system is used, and will make use of a scripting language such as PHP or Perl to ensure that the data can be retrieved from the database and manipulated as needed into the context that will allow it to be displayed on an ordinary website. In some cases other programming languages such as Ruby on Rails (RoR) can be used in conjunction with MySQL to provide a better coded website solution; other database systems might also be deployed in conjunction with other programming languages, for example PostgreSQL has been deployed in some cPanel shared website hosting environments.

With this article you will be given the ability to create and manage MySQL databases within the environment that has been provided for you by your shared cPanel website hosting account. You will be able to deploy MySQL databases which you can then use in conjunction with the applications that you might choose to host within your web hosting account; these applications might be based on open source programming solutions such as PHP and Perl that can both be easily integrated and used with MySQL databases. The ability to manage your MySQL databases via the web based PhpMyAdmin solution that is incorporated with cPanel will also be taught; this includes the ability to execute MySQL queries on the database itself to ensure that tables can be easily setup with scripts that might be provided by programs that have been bought from third party developers, and which you want to use on your website to either help your visitors communicate with each other or to allow you to manage the content that you publish on your website with ease. If you have your own MySQL server or if you want to use the services of a third party MySQL hosting provider, then you will also be able to setup and configure the connection to a remote MySQL server from within the surroundings of your cPanel shared website hosting account; this means that any MySQL databases you setup within your hosting account will actually be setup on a remote server, if you want them to be, and will not be hosted locally on the server that your shared cPanel website hosting account is on – you can also use this feature to configure a backup MySQL server to be used in the event that the local MySQL server fails for some reason or another.

MySQL Databases

The MySQL database section of cPanel allows you to setup and configure MySQL databases as well as the users to go with them to ensure that they can be accessed successfully within your cPanel shared website hosting environment. MySQL databases allow you to store data in a centralized location that can then be accessed by applications that you might have installed on your website; applications that utilize MySQL databases might include bulletin boards, CMSs (content management systems) as well as blogs – basically any type of application that is written in a dynamic server side scripting language such as PHP that needs information to be stored in one centralized location so that it can be called on multiple web pages within the same application. Like most database programs, MySQL allows for the information that is stored in it to be encrypted (normally using the MD5 aglorathim) to ensure that if the database is accessed by a malicious attacker such as a hacker for whatever reason, the important data is encrypted meaning that it will be of no use to the attacker unless they have a method which they can utilize to decrypt the information. As mentioned previously, server side scripting languages such as PHP or Perl can be used to access and display the data that is stored within a MySQL database, as long as the correct MySQL login details are used. One thing to note when using MySQL databases is that you should always ensure that the important data that they store such as credit card details or the names and addresses of customers or members of your websites, then encryption should be used to ensure that this data is unreadable and useless to a malicious attacker such as a hacker if they some how manage to gain access to the database.

MySQL Wizard

The MySQL wizard allows you to easily create and manage both MySQL databases and the users that are required to access them by third party scripts; the wizard is for people who might find the actual MySQL database creation to confusing and in a sense ‘intimidating’. Unlike the main MySQL management panel, it takes you through the creation of a MySQL database and it’s users in steps, and instructions are included with each step to ensure that you are not confused by the process of the creation of a MySQL database. MySQL is utilized by many web based applications that are based on open source programming languages such as Perl and PHP to ensure that they have a centralized location where they can store all their necessary data and configuration settings. Like the programming languages that are used to access it, MySQL is an open source application; open source means ‘free’ and most open source products are ones that are maintained by a community of developers at no cost in most cases. Unfortunately for those of you who might find the actual MySQL panel a little daunting, then the bad news is that you can only use the MySQL wizard for the creation of MySQL databases and the users needed to go with them – you cannot utilize it to manage, edit and delete databases that you have already created using it. One thing to note about the MySQL wizard is that you can only use it for the creation of MySQL databases and the users that access it; you cannot utilize the wizard to manage databases and users that you have already created – that includes the editing and deletion of them.

PHPMyAdmin

PHPMyAdmin is a program that is based on the PHP server side scripting language and is included within cPanel to allow you to manage and administrate the databases that you have created within your cPanel shared website hosting account through your browser. PHPMyAdmin can be run if several different languages which is dependent on yourself, and gives you much needed information about MySQL server on the web hosting server in which you account resides; this information includes facts such as the MySQL version number that your web host has running on the server as well as the PHP extensions that it is utilizing. When a MySQL database is selected for editing or management, PHPMyAdmin allows you to carry out many different actions on the database so that you can manage it effectively; these include the running of SQL queries to create new tables within the database or to clean the database up if you believe that the information it contains may be stale to an extent. If you want to move your database or table to another server, or wish to take a backup of it, then you can easily use the backup tab that is displayed when you look at an individual database within PHPMyAdmin; this option creates a ‘dump’ of the database or table which is infact a t simple text fie that contains the MySQL query that can be used to recreate the database or table on another MySQL server. PHPMyAdmin also gives you many different actions that you can carry out on individual tables that you have hosted within the database; information about the individual tables is also displayed such as the coolation that has been used on it as well as the type of table it is, how many records it contains and its actual size. One thing to note is that when using PHPMyAdmin, you should always be careful as to which options you choose; this is because it is almost a ‘warren’ of many different pages that you could easily muck a database up because you have chosen an incorrect option.

Remote MySQL Server

The remote MySQL server option within cPanel allows you to setup a second custom MySQL server within cPanel that you can use to either create your MySQL databases on, or to backup the MySQL databases that you currently have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account to. You can also use the feature to allow other MySQL database servers or regular web servers that you might have you gain access to your databases by adding their IP address or subnet with the use of wildcards. You should only use this feature of cPanel if you have the required technical knowledge to enable you to configure the two servers to ensure that any type of data transfer is done successfully and securely; another reason for this is because you could easily mess up the other MySQL server if you do it incorrectly, and might even end up reinstalling the other MySQL server if you do not set the access rights and permissions in the correct way. The advantages of using this feature are high though; if you backup your MySQL databases to another server then you can set your scripts up to use the other server to retrieve and store the data if for some reason the local MySQL server that is on the hosting node on which you shared website hosting account resides on fails. One thing to note is that you should always be careful when transferring databases over since the data could be easily intercepted by a malicious attacker such as a hacker, who then might be able to use it for harmful purposes such as identity fraud.

Conclusion

In conclusion, cPanel provides you with a number of features which you can use to allow you to create and manage any MySQL databases that you want to have hosted under your shared cPanel website hosting account. You can also use other features to ensure that you can back your databases up to an external database server to ensure that they are safe; you can then use this other server as a database server if needs be – this might be because that the main MySQL database server that is hosted on the hosting server in which your cPanel shared website hosting account resides has failed for whatever reason. With the use of a third party application such as PHPMyAdmin which is incorporated into cPanel, you are able to view and manage all the MySQL databases that you have hosted under your hosting account on the fly; this can be helpful for you if you need to see if any new information has been added to your database via the means of your website, or to check if records that you have stored in your database are beginning to become stale. The use of open source scripting languages to interact with MySQL databases from a website has also been discussed; you can use server side scripting languages such as PHP, Ruby on Rails and Perl to interact with your databases from your website to ensure that your website is dynamic in a sense and to also make sure that the information that is displayed is up to date.

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cPanel contains many features that you can use to setup and configure email accounts for any domains that you might have attached to your shared cPanel website hosting account. Email is a growing form of electronic communication that has already replaced hand written letters as well as electronic faxes; this is because emails give you the ability to send any type of file you want as well as the ability to communicate standard text messages over the internet with ease, although the speed at which the message is sent depends on the speed of your internet connection as well as the size of the email that you are trying to send. cPanel provides you with options that you can use to setup your own spam filtering rules to ensure that you can keep out any spam you receive; normally custom spam filter rules are only available within dedicated server hosting environments, but cPanel allows you to set them up within a shared website hosting environment. Other options given also allow you to access the webmail interface for any email account that you have setup; this can be a helpful feature since it allows you to view the emails of an account without having to set the account up in a desktop email client such as Microsoft Outlook or Mozilla Thunderbird. You are also able to setup auto-responders and email forwarders within cPanel. All these different options within cPanel allow you to set up the email for your domain just how you want it; some of the options given to you are fairly exclusive and make cPanel stand out as an industry leader since such options are normally only achievable if you are hosted in a dedicated hosting environment such as a VPS server or dedicated server. One thing to note is that you should always been careful when changing email options within any type of control panel since you can easily delete an email account, and any emails that it contains; if you incorrectly configure some options you could even end up stopping any email being received by any email accounts that you have hosted under your cPanel web hosting account.

With the use of this article you will be able to configure the email for your domain that is based on cPanel shared hosting with ease and with effect. By the end of this article you should be able to setup custom spam rules to help keep the worst of the spam out of the email inboxes that you have configured within cPanel; you will also be able to create email aliases which you can then use to forward email on to existent email addresses from non-existent email addresses. You will also be able to configure the MX entry for your domain that is contained within the DNS of your domain; this is only used in the situation where your email is going to be hosted either by yourself or by another web hosting or email hosting provider. Another thing that you’ll be able to do is setup custom mailing lists that you can then use to communicate with a large customer base. You will also be able to setup automatic response messages for email accounts that are configured within your cPanel shared hosting account; these messages will then be to the sender of any email that has been received by the specified address or addresses that you have configured automatic response messages for. You will be able to setup DomainKeys and SPF records for your domains through cPanel; these are needed to ensure that your email messages can be receive by people who are using free email services such as Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail.

Email Accounts

The email accounts part of cPanel is the section that you can use to manage the email accounts for all your domains that you have hosted under your shared cPanel web hosting account; this panel gives you the ability to add, modify and delete email accounts for any of your domains. You are given the option to create and manage email accounts under any domain which you have attached to your hosting account. When setting up an email account in cPanel, you are given the ability to choose the domain you want it to be created under as well as the amount of disk space that you want the account to have to store email in; another configurable option given to you allows you to set the password for the account – if you are unable to think of a password at the time then you are able to use a cPanel function that will generate a random password for you that you can then use. In most cases, you are able to set up as many email accounts as you want within cPanel; however, you are theoretically limited in the number that you can set up by the amount of disk space that has been assigned to your web hosting account – the less space you have the less the number of email accounts that you can set up, you might also be limited by the specifications of your web hosting plan if you have chosen a low end one. You can also choose to manage the email accounts for individual domains and sub-domains that you have attached to your account via the use of the drop down option box that can be found in the top right hand corner of the email accounts panel. One thing to note is that when configuring email accounts, you should always be careful as to which options you decide to change or view; if you change information without realizing it then you could prevent users from being able to access their email inboxes, since you have modified the information that they use to login.

Webmail

A webmail interface is one that allows you to view your emails through a web browser without the need for a desktop email client such as Microsoft Outlook or Mozailla Thunderbird. Webmail clients are perfect for you if you are a worker who needs to check their email regularly, but spends a lot of time traveling between different locations; this is because you are able to access your email account from any internet connected computer – although the same is partially applicable to a desktop email client, you can only use one computer since the emails are downloaded and saved to the computer’s hard disk. cPanel gives you the choice to either use the Horde or SquirelMail webmail clients; you can’t choose to use one or the other – once logged into the the /webmail directory of your website, you are prompted to either use Horde or SquirrelMail and this process must be completed every time that you use cPanel webmail. You should not use webmail as a permenant solution for checking and writing emails since the features supplied in a standard webmail application are very limited when compared to those provided by a desktop email application. If you don’t like the webmail client that is provided with your shared cPanel website hosting then you can easily use a third party solution such as NeoMail; these solutions are normally pretty easy to install on any website but do require a certain level of technical knowledge since they normally involve the configuration of a database as well as the setting of file permissions to allow the webmail client to work properly. If you feel the need, you can also use a third party email solution – both free and premium products in this field are available; an example of a free product under this category would be Google Apps – with this you are able to set up your email accounts and then utilize the very well known GMail interface to read your emails, a premium product within this field would be shared Microsoft Exchange Server hosting that you would have to purchase from another web host in most circumstances. One thing to note when using webmail clients is that you should always be careful of what details you enter and what information you are sending since the computer that you are using may have a virus of sorts, or the connection that you are using may not be entirely secure.

BoxTrapper

BoxTrapper is a function within cPanel that makes senders (who are not on your ‘white list’) of emails to addresses that you have specified within your cPanel shared hosting account reply to a verification message; this type of practice is being put in place to help aid the fight against spam. The idea is that an auto-responder verification email is sent to anyone that sends an email to an email address that you have created within your cPanel account; the sender is then required to respond to the verification message with the email that they sent the first time – the email will then be properly delivered to the recipient user’s email inbox where they can read it. Since most spam email is sent from email addresses that don’t actually exist; in this case when the verification email is sent, it won’t be received by any email inbox meaning that there won’t be anyone to reply to it with the original spam message – this means that the spam that they sent first time will not be delivered to the inbox of the intended recipient. BoxTrapper can become quite an annoyance if you are permenantly communicating with people via email; this is because if you don’t choose for people who send email’s to you to be white listed after they have responded to the verification message and have been verified successfully, they have to respond to the verification message with the same email that they have just written every time they want to contact you via email. One thing to note is that when using BoxTrapper, you should always check your BoxTrapper queue regularly since it might contain emails which you were meant to receive, but didn’t since the sender didn’t respond to the verification email that was sent to them; this is a common occurence in spam email as well as emails that you might have received from online shops confirming an order that you have place with them.

SpamAssassin

SpamAssassin is a program that does what it says on the tin; it is used by many web hosts and by many companies within their email servers to help filter out any spam emails that are sent to email accounts that happen to be hosted on their email servers. SpamAssassin works in the way that it scans the headers and the body of incoming emails, then gives them a certain score that is known as a ‘Spam Score’ – the higher the score, the more likely the email is a spam one; all SpamAssassin servers have a ‘threshold’ rating which means that any emails that obtain a spam score above the threshold are automatically deleted or even rejected by the email server. Within cPanel you are given the ability to set your own threshold for all the domains that you may have hosted within your shared cPanel web hosting account; you are also able to choose whether or not emails that receive a spam score above the threshold are automatically deleted or not. You are also given advanced configuration options that allow you define email addresses for both your SpamAssassin black list and white list; these options should only be used if you know what you are doing since you could end up blocking emails from particular senders if you enter the details incorrectly. You should also make sure that the threshold score that you use is neither too low nor too high; if you use a score that is too low then you could end up restricting any email from being received into your email inbox, if you choose a high threshold then you could end up having your inbox filled with spam. One thing to note is that when you are configuring any type of spam protection service, you should always be careful and picky as to which options to configure; this is because that you could end up making the email server that receives email for all the domains that the server hosts reject any incoming mail, which could cause disruption for many people.

Email Forwarders

Email forwarders (sometimes known as mail aliases) are ‘virtual’ email addresses who forward any email that they receive to another email address, which can either be a virtual one or a real one. Forwarders are normally used in situations where mail piping is being used; this is when the email that is received by the alias is parsered by a script, and then added into a database in most cases – an example of this in action would be a ticket system since the emails are parsered by either a PHP or Perl scripts and then added to a database and assigned a ticket id. One thing to note is that email piping normally requires that the email server receiving the emails is hosted on the same server as the web server in order for the script to run. Email forwarders are also used in the situation where you want the emails of several different addresses to be forwarded to one real email address so that all the emails end up being in the same imbox; this is normally done in the situation where you are running several different companies but want the queries for say the support, billing and sales departments to be delivered to the three categorized email inboxes to ensure that there is no confusion, and so that many different email inboxes don’t have to be continually checked. One thing to note when using email forwarders is that you should always make sure that the email address that the emails are being forwarded to is correct, since you could end up forwarding all your private and confidential emails to someone else who just happens to hold the email address that your emails are being forwarded to; you should also make sure that if you are using a script to parser the emails, you enter the correct location and command to make sure that the emails are forwarded and parsered and not just dumped or rejected.

Auto-Responders

Auto-responders are messages that you define which are then sent to any person who sends you an email; the message is sent out each and every time to the sender of any email that you receive. Auto-responders should be used for example when you are not in your office, and won’t be able to check your email; auto-responders should also be deployed in other situations where you will not be near a computer for a certain amount of time meaning that you won’t be able to check your emails. Auto-responders should also be deployed in an environment where it would be a good idea if the sender of an email received some sort of receipt acknowledging the receipt of the mail; an example of this type of environment would include a help support desk for use by a company’s customers. The message that is contained within an auto-responder should only be a small one since the sender will not want to read a large auto-responder, but the information contained must be detailed as to avoid confusion; a message footer should also be attached to any auto-responder, although in most cases a legal denoting footer is attached to any outgoing emails – although this scenario is normally only appliable to a corporate email environment where the information being exchanged is confidential. You should try to avoid the use of auto-responders unless you absolutely have to use them; this is because if you end up having an email account which receives lots of emails, then it means that an auto responder is being sent out for every email you receive – this can easily put a strain on server resources, which is not something that your web host will take a liking to, especially within a shared web hosting environment. One thing to note when using auto-responders is that you should only use them to inform the sender of an email that you have received the email; you should not make the message too long since confusion can be easily caused if this is done.

Default E-Mail Address

The default email address (sometimes referred to as ‘catch all’) will receive any email that has been sent to your domain but the email address that the emails are intended for doesn’t exist, hence the term ‘catch all’ meaning that it catches all rampant email for your domain. Many experts and website hosts do not advise you to use catch all email accounts; this is because if an email attack is directed at your domain then the catch all account will receive all the emails although most will be intended for recipients that don’t even exist – this will put pressure on server resources and might even take the server down if the attack being aimed at your domain is big enough. Some web hosts don’t even allow the use of catch all email accounts since they recognize the risk that they can being to the uptime of the server; at the end of the day, web hosts want to keep their servers up and don’t want silly things such as catch all accounts affecting the performance of their servers since other customers will end up getting annoyed with the down time, and some might even decide to leave in search of another web host. A default email address is good for you if you run a small website which doesn’t receive many visitors, and you are the sole administrator of it; this is because you will not need to create any separate email account, and also means that you can give out any email address you want to people since the email for any email address under your domain will then be hauled into the catch all email account for your viewing. One thing to note when using default email addresses is that you should never use them with a website which receives a large amount of visitors; this is because since your website is very busy, spammers and hackers are more likely to want to take it down meaning that the risk of an email attack is greater, and if you use a catch all or default email account then the attack could really put a strain on server resources and end up taking the server down.

Mailing Lists

The mailing lists function that is built into cPanel allows you to create mailing lists within your shared cPanel website hosting environment. Mailing lists are mainly used to send newsletter out to a large number of people, or to communicate with a large customer base. By using a mailing list, you won’t have to enter all the email addresses of those that you need to communicate with through the list; in most cases this can help people save a lot of time. Using a mailing list can also make the process of sending a message to a large group of people easy; this is because all the details of the list are stored within your cPanel account, so all you have to do when you want to send the group an email is define the email’s subject, as well as the message that you want to send them. When creating a mailing list within cPanel, you are able define the list name as well as the domain name which you want emails from the list to be sent from; you will also be asked to provide a password that you can use to protect the subscription list to stop others that you don’t want signing up from signing up. cPanel as well as external mailing list applications such as PHPList allow you to add and manage multiple mailing lists; this can be helpful for you in the future if you intend to expand your mailing list offerings. One thing to note when using mailing lists within cPanel is that you have to manually add any recipients that you want yourself; if you want members of the general public who are visiting your website to sign up then you must use a PHP/MySQL based mailing list application such as PHPList to manage your mailing lists, however, external applications might not work within your shared web hosting environment since your web host might have applied policies such as mod_security which don’t allow some PHP based website applications to function properly, but this can be sorted easily through the use of the .htaccess file.

User Level Filtering

User level filtering is the name given to the option in cPanel which allows you to setup specific email filters for specific email accounts that you have setup under your cPanel shared website hosting. User level filtering is a helpful tool for you if you are finding that specific email accounts that you have setup are being targeted in individual ways; the user level filtering allows you to setup custom email filters which are specific to only the email account for which you have set them up. cPanel also gives you a test area within the control panel that allows you to test email messages to see how the filters that you have setup for individual email accounts will cope with them; this can be helpful for example if you think that the filters might end up blocking out important emails from other companies. User level filtering is a feature that should only be deployed on the basis that you think the spam emails that are reaching individual email accounts are being specially targeted at that account; this is because if you set the filters up incorrectly, you could end up stopping any email from received by the account that you have applied the filters to. Also, some filters that you set up might end up conflicting with the server side ones which have been set by your web host; this in itself could stop emails from being received and could cause you or the person that the email account belongs to a lot of stress and annoyance. One thing to note when setting user level filters is that you must be careful as to which filters you deploy, and how they are used; you should always use the test message feature after you have setup new filters since this feature will give you an insight into how the email message will be handled by the filter, and will point out any problems for you if there are any.

Account Level Filtering

Account level filtering is the name that is given to the process of setting up individual email filters for any accounts/domains that you have hosted within your shared cPanel website hosting account. The filters that you create within the account level filtering panel are unique to your shared cPanel website hosting account only, and none others that may be hosted on the same server as you. Like user level filtering, a test message panel is is provided; you can use this to ensure that the filters you setup handle email messages in the correct way. The filters that you setup within the account level filtering panel will be applied to any email account that you have hosted within your account; this means that when setting the filters up, you should make sure that they work with all the emails that the email accounts you have setup within your account receive. However, you should make sure that you setup the filters in a way that will still allow normal emails to come through, but still stop any spam in its way; spam is unharmful, but can be a great annoyance, especially if you receive large amounts of it – also, if spam is kept for too long it can start taking up disk space that you have assigned to your shared cPanel website hosting account. One thing to note when setting up account level filtering is that you should always make sure that you setup your filters correctly, if you don’t set them up correctly then they could stop some email accounts that you have setup under your account from receiving emails; you should always use the test email feature to see how the filters that you have setup will react to different email messages – this can ensure that there are no problems with receiving emails, and if there are any problems then they can be easily sorted and the necessary action can be taken to sort them out.

Email Delivery Route

This cPanel feature allows you to see how the server will handle the sending or receiving of a particular email message when a certain email address; this can be helpful when trying to locate a particular problem when emails aren’t being received by their intended recipients. The cPanel pane that displays this feature includes a legend so that you can make out at what points errors are being caused, as well as where email aliases are being hit; this legend can also help you find out whether an email box that you are trying to deliver to is a local one or not. Specific details including the IP addresses of the mail hosts that are being used to reach the intended email address are also displayed; this as well can aid in the process of finding out where a specific problem is taking place since you can then contact the owner of the host/server and ask them to sort the problem out. You can also use this feature just to see where your emails go when you send them, if you’re interested in that; this can help boost your knowledge if you are new to the concept of website hosting, and also if your web host asks to know the servers that your emails go through if you believe that there might be a problem at whatever level. One thing to note is that when using this feature, you should always read the legend first, and refer back to it if you are confused about something; this is because you think there might be some sort of error when in fact it might just be that the routing feature has hit an alias/forwarder file or that the email has actually reached its intended destination. If you are totally new to cPanel website hosting, then it is suggested that you don’t touch a feature as complicated as this because it could cause some confusion or mis-understanding; this is because you might not understand some of the terms that are displayed in the completed route.

MX Entry

The MX entry feature of cPanel allows you to setup another MX record for your domain as well as the one that is already setup and point to the web hosting on which you are hosted. MX stands for ‘mail exchanger’ and refers to the server or servers that you use under your domain name to allow email to be sent and received under it. This feature is helpful to you if you want to utilize a backup mail server that you might have, or if you want to move your email hosting away from your cPanel shared website hosting account to a third party email provider. The main purpose of this function is to allow you to choose where you want your domains email to be delivered to; this is something that many web hosts who use their own branded control panels do not allow you to do, since they want you to keep any form of hosting that you may have purchased from them, with them and restrict you from using any service with any other web host who you might have gone and purchased an email hosting service from for whatever reason. You should only change your MX entry if you have to, since if you change it to a server that doesn’t host the email for your domain then you could end up without the ability to receive email for any email accounts that you have setup under your domain in cPanel; also, you should only do it if you know what you are doing and have the technical ability to sort a problem out if one arises because you changed your MX entry. One thing to note when using the MX entry feature is that you should make sure that you point your domain to a mail server or mail servers that actually exist; failure to do so may result in you being unable to send and receive email under that domain until you have sorted the problems out.

Email Authentication

Email authentication is the name given to the process of user’s logging into their email account to check their email either through a webmail client or through a desktop email client; authentication is the process that is carried out to check that the user actually exists with the password that they have provided – if they have been authenticated then they are able to login. Email authentication is also the name given to how mail servers handle both incoming and outgoing emails; domain keys and SPF records are creatable through cPanel to make sure that emails from your domain are accepted by other email servers which you might be trying to send emails to. Domain keys are added to outgoing email messages under your domain name, and are used by the recipient email server to verify the source of the email; this can be useful since some email servers might not accept emails from your domain if they do not include domain keys within their headers. SPF records are TXT DNS records and contain the hosts that emails for your domain can be sent from; you should always use SPF records these days for any domain since free email services such as Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail will not accept email from domains where there is no SPF record – if they don’t reject any emails then they might either filter them through to the junk email folder. One thing to note when using email authentication settings is that you should always make sure you enter the correct details; if you enter incorrect details for domain keys then your emails could be rejected by other email servers since the source can’t be verified or the actual domain key included is incorrect, the same also applies to SPF records since if the record is incorrect then emails from your domain might end up being blocked by other email servers and services.

Conclusion

In conclusion, cPanel provides you with a number of different resources that you can use to check your email, protect it from spam and viruses as well as be given the ability to make sure that emails that are sent from your domain are accepted by other email servers that might otherwise reject your emails because of various reasons. With the use of user level and account level filtering you are able to make you that any email accounts that you have configured under your hosting account stay clear of spam; you can also use custom SpamAssassin rules to ensure that any spam that does get past your user and account level filters will be killed off and deleted by SpamAssassin. With the use of the MX entry feature you are also given the ability to move your email hosting away to a third party provider, but still retain your cPanel website hosting account so that you can keep your website running from cPanel; you can also use the MX entry feature to configure a backup email server for your domain, this means that if the primary server that your website is hosted on was to fail, there would still be another server where email for your domain could be delivered to meaning that you wouldn’t loose any emails even if there was a small amount of downtime. If your emails are being rejected by other email servers or by the servers of free email services such as Hotmail and Yahoo! Mail, then you can use the email authentication feature that gives you access to domain keys and SPF record generators to ensure that your emails are accepted by all the email servers that you try to send emails to.

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cPanel provides you with many different features that you are able to utilize to manage the files that you have hosted within your cPanel shared website hosting account; the file features that cPanel provides you with also give you the ability to generate your own backups as well as the ability to manage the FTP accounts that will give you and others who you have set FTP accounts up for access to your FTP/web space. cPanel file features give you the ability to make sure that your data is safe, this is something which is becoming increasingly important in today’s society where data security is becoming one of the most important points of web hosting; you will also learn how to make use of cPanel’s file manager to ensure that you can take a look at as well as have the ability to edit or delete files when you are on the road or at an internet connected computer but are not able to access your web space using FTP for the sole reason that port 21 might be blocked on the router that you are behind. You will also have the ability to check the disk space usage of your account as well as be able to upload your website to your web space so that you can let visitors through to it, and build up your customer or visitor base. Having the ability to manage and backup yours files is very useful; this is because a web host could easily go bust any time, and the server you are on could easily crash – the backups that are taken by some web hosts are always reliable or even full backups, which is the reason why most people advise you to have your own backups, just in case. Being able to manage your files since you could end up having unneeded files taking up space within your shared web hosting account.

With the use of this article you will be able to create your own backups from cPanel, and be able to download them which means that you can restore the backup if you go and do something wrong which causes an error within your shared hosting account for whatever reason. You will also be given the ability to manage your files effectively to ensure that you don’t have any unwanted files taking up the disk space that you have assigned to your affordable web hosting account – one thing to remember is that the space being taken up could be needed for something else that could be much more important. The ability to setup and configure FTP accounts within cPanel will also be discussed, which will then allow you to setup and configure your own FTP accounts that you can then use to gain FTP access to the web space of your website which will then allow you to upload any files that you may have for it. You will also be taught how to use the FTP session control feature of cPanel that allows you to see and control who is logged into your web space via FTP, and to terminate their connection if you don’t want them to be logged in or if you suspect that it is some sort of hacker. Another feature that allows you to see how and where the space that has been assigned to your shared web hosting account is being used; this can be helpful for you if you have a large website with many different folders and that also takes advantage of private folders that can’t be accessed by the general public. One thing to note though is that when using any type of file feature within cPanel, you should always be careful; this is because if you press one wrong button then you could easily end up erasing all of the data and files that are stored within your shared web hosting account.

Backups

The backups feature built into cPanel allows you to download a zipped up copy of your complete site/home directory which includes things such as site files, databases, emails and email filters that you have put into place. The backup that is downloaded is a fresh one and not an automatically scheduled one meaning that all the information contained within the file is up to date; in some cases automatic scheduled backups might not even be available since they are a feature that needs to be configured by the server owner/administrator. It is a good idea that you take your own backup every few days since the backups that are being taken by your web host might not be all that reliable; this could be down to a number of reasons including the fact that the cron job create to automate the backup schedule might not have run for whatever reason. Another reason for taking your own backup is that you might accidentally corrupt a part of you website which means that you’ll have to restore it; you can use the backup that you have taken yourself to restore your site since some most might actually charge to restore your website is you have corrupted a part of it yourself. When restoring and taking backups, cPanel gives you the option to take or restore backups of specific features; for example you are given the ability to take or restore a backup of a MySQL database that you might have, or a backup of a email forwarders or custom email filters. One thing to note when taking backups is to make sure that you take a backup of your whole site, you should not take a backup of individual features unless you absolutely have to otherwise when it comes to restoring your site from your own backups, you won’t have the correct backups; you should also be careful when restoring backups since you could easily restore the wrong backup which would mean that you end up with having stale website and database data.

Backup Wizard

The backup wizard built into cPanel allows you to either take a backup or restore a backup of your shared cPanel web hosting account with ease; this is because it generates one zip file that you only have to download. Unlike the standard backup screen, the wizard presents you with easily configurable options that allow you to choose what parts of your hosting account you want to backup and download; you can either backup your entire ‘home’ directory (the directory on the server in which all files related to your website reside), MySQL databases, or the email filters and forwarders configuration. The backup wizard is good for you if you find the main backup screen too confusing, as well as if you are unsure on how to restore a backup that you have taken previously through the backup wizard; this is because unlike the standard backup screen, it takes you through several different steps and explains each step individually to ensure that you are able to understand it all and that either a backup is produced of what you want, or a backup is restored of data that you want to be restored to your hosting account. Once you have chosen what parts of your hosting account you want to backup, you are taken to the download page where your full backup is ready and waiting for you to download it. One thing to note though when using the backup wizard is that you should only use it for taking backups, as the restoration process that it uses can be quite confusing; if you just want to restore a backup, then it is suggested that you use the regular backup panel as all you are required to do there is select the location on your hard drive where the backup is stored and then click ‘Restore’.

File Manager

The file manager that comes with cPanel allows you to view, edit and delete files effectively that are contained within your web space. The file manager gives you the ability to manage all the files that are located within your ‘home’ directory; this is where all the files for your website, including configuration files reside on the Linux server that is hosting your website. Unless you are able to gain access to your web space via the use of FTP on port 21, you should use the file manager to keep tabs on all the files that are currently contained within the web space that has been assigned to your shared cPanel website hosting account; another good use of the file manager is to edit files on the fly – this is because the file manager is accessible from any internet connected computer that allows access via the cPanel port, and also because the file manager has a built in code editor to allow you edit your coded website scripts with ease, a regular text editor is also provided if you want to use a more basic option to view and edit the contents of your website’s scripts and files. You can also carry out mass file actions within the cPanel file manager since you are able to select as many files as you want within the same folder and carry out one action that will effect all of them; you might want to use this feature for example if you need to set the permissions of certain files within the same folder to the same permission setting to allow them to function correctly. One thing to note is that you should be careful when using the cPanel file manager since it is fairly easy to select the wrong file when maintaining your web space; this in turn could lead to you accidentally deleting the file and not being able to retrieve it.

Legacy File Manager

The cPanel legacy file manager is the name given to the file manager that was used in previous versions of cPanel, until the new one took over its main role. The legacy file manager can be found in the new cPanel 11, but it is advised that you use the new file manager that has been included with the new release of the industry leading control panel. The legacy/previous file manager has been included even in the new release because people were use to using the it, and might find it hard to adapt to the new file manager that has been included because it contains more features and the layout of it has been changed as well; also, unlike its successor, the legacy file manager utilizes page refreshes to ensure that the data is posted to the correct pages and that the correct actions ar applied – the new file manager however uses a technology known as ‘ajax’ which doesn’t utilize page refreshes but instead posts the required data back to the server via the use of javascript to ensure that the requested actions are completed successfully. Although the legacy file manager might still be used by many, it is highly likely that cPanel will drop it in future versions of the popular control panel to ensure that the main focus is on the new file manager, and not the aging legacy one, who’s days are most likely numbered – some might argue that point though saying that it is much more established than the new file manager that has been included within cPanel 11. One thing to note is that when using the legacy file manager, you should always be careful as to which files you edit or view; this is because it is very easy to delete files within the legacy file manager, but unlike its successor it is always easy to retrieve any file that you may have accidentally deleted.

Web Disk

The web disk feature within cPanel allows you to configure certain settings on your computer that will then allow you to simply drag and drop files from your desktop/computer into your cPanel shared website hosting space. It creates a folder for you on your computer that acts like a regular folder that is stored on your computer; however, the folder is actually a link to your home directory that is where all the files for your website reside on the main hosting server that is provided by your web hosting company. The web disk feature also gives you the ability to navigate through all the files and folders that are contained within your shared cPanel website hosting space as if they were locally stored on your computer. This feature can be handy for you if you are unsure as to how FTP access on your web hosting account works; this is because cPanel provides you with the necessary file downloads as well as access instructions on how to use the web disk feature – that is something that is doesn’t do with regular FTP access. Within cPanel, you are able to setup separate web disk accounts which means that you can give web disk access to as many people as you want; you can also specify a certain folder that each web disk account has access to – which means for example that you could have one master account for web disk access that can view all the files and folders that are contained within your hosting space, and have separate accounts for individual people who have their own folders within the web space where they can store their own files so that they can then reach them at a later date.

Disk Space Usage

The disk space usage feature of cPanel allows you to see how much space individual folders within your web space are using; this is a helpful for people who might be using the web disk feature as it can help them keep tabs on the amount of disk space that is being used by folders that might have individual web disk users assigned to them. The main directories that cPanel sets up within your web space are signified on the disk space usage page by using colors – a key is assigned to the page as well so that you are able to differentiate between the different folders; is it helpful that cPanel colour codes the main directories since this might help you when trying to work out which main directory has started to use up all the disk space that is assigned to your shared website hosting account. cPanel also gives you the option to select the directories that are using up the most disk space, and then allows you to delete them if you want; this option can be good since it means that you don’t have to click all the way to the file manager whilst remembering the directories in question – the amount of disk space being used up is also totaled up and displayed at the bottom for your reference. You are also given the option to increase or decrease the depth of the directories that are taking up the most disk space; this can be helpful since it can help you pinpoint the exact file or inner folder of the directory concerned that is taking up the most disk space. Other options given to you allow you to hide small files as well as go up to the parent directories of the directories that are taking up the most space. One thing to note is that you should always be careful when using the disk space usage feature; this is because you could easily delete the entire contents of an important folder with a few wrong clicks.

FTP Accounts

FTP accounts are the account or accounts that you use to gain access to your website hosting space via the use of the FTP protocol, which generally runs on port 21 TCP on most web hosting servers, although it can vary from server to server. The use of FTP can be seen as an alternative to the use of the web disk feature that cPanel provides you with; this is because in a similar way with web disk you can drag and drop files into your hosting space with ease – in most cases you can also set file/folder permissions as well as delete files off the hosting server that you feel you don’t want anymore. When setting FTP accounts up within cPanel, you are given the option to choose the username and password of the FTP account; this means that you are able to customize the login names and the password of people who you want to have access to your web space via the use of FTP. In most cases you are also able to specify the root directory fro the FTP account; this means that you could set up an individual directory within your hosting space for each FTP account to give people who have FTP access the ability to upload and store their files within an internet connected environment that they should be able to access from any internet connection computer, just as long as port 21 hasn’t been blocked on the router. One thing to note is that when creating FTP accounts, you should always make a note of the user name and password that you assign to the account so that they are not forgotten; you should also consider having one master account which will have access to all the files, but create a separate account to use for the purpose of uploading your files to your main web space.

FTP Session Control

With the use of the FTP session control feature that is built into cPanel, you are given the ability to control all the FTP sessions that are currently connected to your hosting account space. This feature can be useful to you if you wish to disconnect someone from your FTP space who you don’t think is supposed to be logged in. Several details of the different session that are currently connected to your space are given; these include the IP address of the ‘visitor’, the FTP user name that they are using as well as the length of time that they have been logged in for. This feature can also be helpful if you think that the FTP account details of someone who you have allowed to have access to your FTP space have been stolen; this is because you can easily log the IP address down of the so called ‘hacker’, and then use the IP deny manager to ensure that their IP address can’t access your web space again. The status of the session is also displayed, and this can be anther helpful feature of the FTP session control section of cPanel; this is because an FTP session might appear to be connected but it might not be active since the person who is actually connection might not actually be connected anymore – they might have just disconnected but the session might still be coming up as active. One thing to note is that when using the FTP session control manager is that you should ensure that you are careful about which FTP sessions you terminate; this is because you could easily end up terminating an FTP session that you mean to be connected, but you accidentally disconnect is because you believe it to be a fraudulent one.

Conclusion

In conclusion, cPanel provides you with a number of tools that you can use to ensure that you are able to manage the files that are stored within your shared cPanel web hosting from any location; other tools provided even allow you to connect with your files and communicate with them just like any files or folders that you have stored on your local PC. The file features of cPanel also include some security features to ensure that you can disconnect any FTP session that you suspect to be fraudulent, as well as clear up any web directories that are large in size when you don’t want them or when they’re not meant to be; all these tools put together ensure that you can conveniently manage all the files that are stored within your cPanel hosting space but at the same time keep them secure from malicious attackers such as spammers and hackers. You can also keep your files safe yourself by taking a full backup every so often from the backup section of the cPanel file features; if you feel that you don’t have the necessary knowledge to use this panel then a backup wizard is provided to ensure that you are able to take and restore your own backups with ease – instructions are even included to ensure that no confusion is caused. The new file manager that is provided within cPanel allows you to manage your files effectively, and via the use of ajax ensures that any requests you make to it are posted back to the server and processed in the correct way; if you are use to using the old version of the file manager, then that is included in cPanel 11 under the name of ‘Legacy File Manager’ to ensure that you can still manage your files on the fly effectively, even if you are use to the older version of the file management program. The disk space usage feature also ensures that you are able to keep tabs on how and where the web space that has been assigned to your shared cPanel website hosting is package is being used; this is helpful for you if you suspect that a hacker has some how gained access to your web space and is currently using it to store their files in – it is also helpful to you if you use the web disk feature with individual folders for each account – this is because you are able to see how much space each individual folder is taking up, and if you suspect one of the folders is taking up too much space then you can easily do it without having to go back and do it from the file manager. Finally, if you do wish to use FTP to access your web space then an FTP account manager is provided so that you can create, edit and delete and FTP accounts that you have setup under your shared cPanel web hosting account.

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