Using PHPMyAdmin MySQL Database Manager

PHPMyAdmin is the third party web based MySQL database management panel that is provided and installed as standard with both the cPanel and Plesk control panels, and in the case with Plesk it is provided with both versions (Linux and Windows); if you run your own server without a control panel, then it is also available for download and manual installation since it is open source software meaning that anyone is able to download it for use as many times and on as many machines as they want. With the use of PHPMyAdmin, you are able to manage any databases that you have created from either your cPanel or Plesk web hosting account on the fly, since it is an application that is accessible from your control panel’s homepage and can be used through your web browser, which means that you are able to manage your databases from any internet connected location where you are able to use a computer that has a web browser installed on it.

The main features of PHPMyAdmin allow you to create new tables in your database, as well as to edit and delete others which you have created previously in your database; you can also view and modify the data that has been entered into each individual table, which means that you can easily delete a row for example if you think it might be a fraudulent sign up, in the case that you are running an online shop or some sort of membership system for your website or online community. If you have decided to go with your own install of PHPMyAdmin on your control panel-less server, then you are also given the ability to create new databases on the fly through the system if you are logged into it as the server administrator, or if you are running it on a Linux machine - ‘root’; this makes PHPMyAdmin an all in one solution for someone who wants to be able to manage their stand-alone MySQL databases server on the fly without having to use a desktop database management system.

With the use of PHPMyAdmin in conjunction with a hosting control panel, such as cPanel or Plesk, you are able to manage all the MySQL databases that you have created without the need to open a new window or new program session each time you want to administer a different database; this means that if you are wanting to mange multiple databases that you have created for different purposes throughout your website, you are able to do so without having to use a complicated desktop database management system that might not even let you administer multiple databases, forcing you to open a new session to the server that you are wanting to use each time you want to manage a different databases, even if all the databases that you want to manage are hosted on the same server.

If you are using a control panel in conjunction with PHPMyAdmin, then you will not be able to use it to create new databases for your hosting account, since it is a limit that most web hosts choose to put on the web based administration program since it easily allows customers to create more databases than they are allowed to limited by the amount that has been assigned to their web hosting account; in this case you will have to use your web hosting control panel to add, edit and delete MySQL databases for your web hosting account.

In most cases, you will be using PHPMyAdmin to manage MySQL databases that you have created to be used in conjunction with your PHP based website or application that you are hosting within your web hosting account, which in most cases should be either Plesk or cPanel based to give you the most functionality; this is because PHP and MySQL are known to be the best combination when it comes to databases and scripting languages, since both are open source and can run on either the Linux operating system or on Windows based systems, meaning that PHP and MySQL based websites and applications can be hosted in almost any environment - other combinations are only able to run in certain environments, for example MSSQL and ASP.NET based applications will only run on Windows based servers.

As previously mentioned, MySQL is a database technology that is commonly used in conjunction with the PHP server side scripting language to give developers maximum flexibility when it comes to building their websites and what functionality they are able to achieve with the use of MySQL as the database engine to drive the backends of their websites and projects.

Launching PHPMyAdmin From cPanel

PHPMyAdmin comes installed as default with any cPanel installation, meaning that once you have cPanel installed and configured correctly, you can quickly and easily setup a web hosting account and start adding the databases that you want or need; once you have done that, you can then start using PHPMyAdmin to administer your MySQL databases. Launching PHPMyAdmin from cPanel is a relatively easy task, and is one that can be carried out from any internet connected location, just so long that you can access cPanel from the web browser that you are using; in order to launch PHPMyAdmin from cPanel, you will need to select the icon labeled ‘PHPMyAdmin’ from the ‘databases’ section of cPanel:

One thing to note is that through PHPMyAdmin in cPanel, you are able to administer all the MySQL databases that you have created under your web hosting account, meaning that you don’t have to launch a new window of PHPMyAdmin each time you want to administer a different MySQL database that you have under your web hosting account. Once you have selected the appropriate icon, you should be directed to a page notifying you that PHPMyAdmin is loading, then after that to the PHPMyAdmin homepage:

Launching PHPMyAdmin From Plesk

PHPMyAdmin is also available with both the Linux and Windows versions of the Plesk control panel to allow you to manage any MySQL databases that you have created or want to create within your Plesk based website hosting account; this means that you are able to host your PHP based website or application in a Windows or Linux based environment just so long as the Plesk control panel is installed and that the web server has been appropriately configured to allow this. In order to launch PHPMyAdmin for a MySQL database that you have created through Plesk, you will first need to select the ‘databases’ icon from the hosting control panel for the domain that you want to manage the database for:

You will then be presented with a list of databases that you have previously created in your Plesk website hosting account, the following features are displayed along with the databases name:

• database type (circled red) - this is shown as an image: if the database is a MySQL database then a dolphin will appear in the column concerned, and if it is a Microsoft SQL database then the Microsoft Windows logo will be displayed within this column
• name (circled green) - this is the name of the actual database which you chosen when you were creating it, this is the name that you will need to use in your server side scripts if you are wanting to use them in conjunction with a database that you have created
• server (circled blue) - this is the server that the database is hosted on, in most cases this is the local server on which your website is hosted, although the name of the external database hosting server will be displayed if different
• web admin (circled purple) - if you click on the image in this column, it will load the necessary web administration panel for the database that you have selected it for.

In order to launch PHPMyAdmin for a MySQL database that you have hosted within your website hosting account, you will need to select the web administration icon for a MySQL database that you have hosted within your web hosting account; PHPMyAdmin should then load for the database that you have selected to administrate. One thing to note is that unlike the cPanel version of PHPMyAdmin, the Plesk version will only administer one database at a time meaning that you will have to go back to the Plesk control panel and launch a new session of PHPMyAdmin for each individual database that you want to administer.

The PHPMyAdmin Homepage

Once you have launched PHPMyAdmin from either Plesk or cPanel, you should be taken to the homepage where you can then start to administer the database or databases concerned, with ease. PHPMyAdmin is able to provide you with many different details about the server on which you are hosted, and specifically the MySQL installation that is hosted on the same server as your website, these details might be needed when you are developing your PHP based website or application; the main details that the PHPMyAdmin homepage is able to provide you with include:

• MySQL server version (circled red) - this piece of information is important when developing PHP based websites and applications, since newer versions of PHP might not be compatible with older versions of MySQL and newer versions of MySQL might notbe compatible with older versions of PHP, which is normally the case in most situations
• server and username (circled green) - these two pieces of information are important since you will need them when developing server side PHP based scripts and applications which are going to be utilizing the MySQL database that you are administrating - the server name is the server on which the database is hosted, and the username is what you will need to gain access to the database concerned along with the password that you have specified for the username
• MySQL character set (circled blue) - this piece of information might be important to you when you are developing language related applications, which might be using a range of different languages and characters.

If you have decided to go with a stand-alone MySQL server with a manual PHPMyAdmin installation, then you will also be given the ability to create new MySQL databases through the PHPMyAdmin control panel, although this isn’t possible if you are using a cPanel or Plesk installation meaning that you will have to use your hosting control panel if you want to create new databases for use with your dynamic websites or applications. Links are also provided on the homepage to take you to different parts of the control panel to allow you to manage and administer different features of your MySQL databases, these will be discussed further on.

Administrating a Database

To administrate a MySQL database that you have hosted within your web hosting account, you will need to select one that you have created from within PHPMyAdmin. You will see that all the MySQL databases you have created under your hosting account are listed down on the left hand side of PHPMyAdmin if you are using the cPanel version, and if you are using the Plesk version you should notice that the MySQL database that you have chosen to administrate is listed down on the left hand panel as well:

Once you have clicked on the name of the database that you want to administrate, you should be redirected to the following management page for the database that you want to administrate:

From the management page for the database that you have chosen to create, you are able to carry out the following actions to help administrate your MySQL database effectively:

• create new tables - you will probably find that you will need to create new tables for your database every so often if you are looking to expand the functionality of your PHP based website or application, and new tables will be needed to hold the data so that the new parts of your website or application are able to function dynamically like the rest of the website or application
• management of existing tables - if you already have tables created in the MySQL database that you are managing, then you are able to edit and delete them from the same screen where you can create them from - this means that you can manage your tables easily and effectively through your web browser with the help of PHPMyAdmin.

The above options are available under the ’structure’ tab of the database management panel, other available options include:

• SQL (circled red) - you can use this part of the database management panel to execute SQL queries on your database, for example to create a mass of a new tables without doing it manually, or to do a lookup on your database so that you can search and pull up a specific record that you might have stored within your MySQL database
• search (circled green) - you can use this feature of the database management panel to search through all the records which you have stored in your database, and pull up a specific one for modification or deletion if needed
• query (circled blue) - this feature works in the same way as the SQL feature does, although it is much more manual an better for beginners since it allows you to specify the actual search parameters yourself, meaning that PHPMyAdmin will automatically create the necessary SQL query - basically it works in the same way but without the need for you to enter your own complete SQL query
• export (circled purple) - the export feature of PHPMyAdmin creates a ‘dump’ of your database which is basically an SQL file which you can download and use as a backup of your database, meaning that if your database does happen to get deleted for any reason then all you have to do is run the SQL query contained within the dump file which will then automatically recreate your original database for you
• import (circled yellow) - the import feature of PHPMyAdmin is the opposite to the export feature, meaning that it allows you to import any dumps that you have taken of your database.

Creating a New Table

As mentioned previously, you may want to be creating new tables for your database from time to time so that you are able expand the functionality of your PHP based website or application that is interacting with the MySQL database that you are currently managing through PHPMyAdmin. With expanded functionality, you might be able to bring in more visitors to your website if you are expanding it by increasing the number of services that you are able to provide your customers with, for example. In order to create a new table, you will first need to select the structures tab from the database management panel of the database that you are managing:

Once on the structure page, you will then need to scroll down to the section labeled ‘create a new table on database x’, and will need to enter the following details to aid in the creation of your new table:

• name (circled red) - this is the name that you want to give your table, you should make the name relevant to what the table is going to be used for - i.e. you should call it ‘members’ if it is going to be holding information related to the members of your website
• number of fields (circled green) - this is the number of different rows of data that you want your new table to have, a field is individual meaning that one field is dedicated to one piece of information i.e. a telephone number.

You will then be redirected to the management screen for the table that you have just created, where you will be able to create and manage the fields that you want your new table to contain and in order to help manage and organize the data that you want to store in your new MySQL database efficiently. You should create new tables for each different section of your website to help keep the stored data as segregated as possible to ensure maximum ease when administrating your MySQL database in the future. You should also use as many fields as possible to help keep the stored data segregated, just as you would with tables; if you keep your data organized then will be easier to view and find through the PHPMyAdmin MySQL database management system, and it will be much easier for your scripts and web pages to find the data that you want.

Creating a Field

Fields are the individual table rows in which MySQL stores your data, whether it be the data that you have entered into it through PHPMyAdmin or the data that has been added when visitors sign up to your website. Fields are needed to ensure that your database can be used properly, to store data; without fields in tables, data can’t be stored in your database since there isn’t any way that the data can be categorized and stored in the correct place as would be possible with the use of fields. In order to create a new field under the table that you have previously created, you will need to select a table from the ’structure’ tab of the management panel for the database that you are administrating; you will then be prompted to enter the following data in order to create a new field for the table concerned:

• field (circled red) - this is the name that you want to give your new field, you should make the name relevant to the data that is going to be stored within it - you need to give a field a name since it needs to be identifiable so that it can be used in conjunction with your PHP based websites and applications
• type (circled green) - this is the type of data that you are going to be storing in your new field - the two main types of data are varchar and int, a varchar being just regular words including numbers and int being short for ‘integer’ which in other words is a number which means that this would be the type if you are storing phone numbers under your new field
• length/values (circled blue) - this is what you want to limit the length of the data in the field to - if you are going to be using your database in conjunction with a PHP based website or application then you needn’t worry about this option since you can use your own code in your scripts to limit the length of certain fields
• null (circled purple) - if you choose to make the field null, then you are allowing for the field to be empty when used, meaning that you could end up having many blank fields - if you choose to make it not null then there will have to be data in the field for it to be entered into the MySQL database properly
• extra/auto-increment (circled orange) - if you want to make this the primary field which will be the id field for each separate database record, then you might want to turn on auto increment to ensure that each individual record receives an individual id when it is created or entered into the MySQL database that you are managing
• primary key (circled pink) - if you choose to make the field that you are creating the primary key field, then it will be the one which holds the individual key to identify each different record if needed, it is recommended that you make this field auto-increment as well to ensure that each record receives an individual id.

Once you click ‘create’, you should then be redirected to a page hopefully telling you that your new field has been successfully created and that you can start adding data using it. In most cases you are able to create as many different fields in your database tables as you want, although it is recommended that you only create the ones which you need, since too many can start to affect the performance of your database as well as MySQL in general. One thing to note is that every table needs a primary key field which should auto increment to ensure that each individual record which is created within the table receives a unique id so that they can easily distinguished between and sorted easily.

With the use of MySQL databases, you can easily expand the possibilities and functionality of your PHP based website or application since you are able to make use of the dynamics of having a database and using server side components to make the most out of your web hosting account. For example, you could start a membership system for your website to allow visitors to sign up and view premium content, and in this case a MySQL database would come in handy since you would need somewhere to centrally store the details of all the people who have signed up to your website.

Creating a Dump/Backup

You should regularly backup the contents of your database to ensure that if it does happen to get deleted or corrupted for some reason or another, you can easily restore it without experiencing too much unneeded downtime allowing you to get your website up and running again quicker than others who don’t have any sort of database backup might be able to. In most cases, the database is the centre or heart of your website and without it your website wouldn’t be able to run since all the website’s content is stored within it, and if your website has no content or is broken then you ight find your visitors going elsewhere - it is because of this that you should always take regular backups of your database to ensure that you don’t loose any website critical data or information that can’t get deleted. In order to create your dump/backup, you will first need to navigate to the ‘export’ tab of the database that you want to backup:

You will then be asked to select which tables you want to backup in the case that you are backing up an entire database, by default all the tables that your database contains are selected. You are given a number of different formats that your dump or backup can be downloaded as, some of these different formats being:

• CSV - comma separated values - this is a common file format that is usable on almost any operating system because of its age, dating back to the early days of business computing - is normally used with tabular data, such as that which you are trying to backup from your MySQL database
• CSV for MS Excel 2000 - comma separated values for Microsoft Excel 2000 - see above, the only difference being that this one is designed for use with Excel 2000
• Microsoft Word 2000
• PDF - portable document format - created by Adobe to allow easy exchange of documents, in most cases it is a read-only format meaning that you will be unable to modify the data contained within the backup
• SQL - structured query language - this will create an SQL file which will contain the code which you can easily run as an SQL query on another database or on a new one if the database that you happen to be administrating gets deleted or lost for some reason or another - will restore all original data in seconds, although the timescale does depend on the amount of data being backed up or restored
• XML - extensible markup language - this is normally used by developers since it allows them to specify and create their own tags when they are coding websites or applications - with a backup it utilizes custom tags to arrange the data efficiently within the file that you will be able to download.

Conclusion

In conclusion, PHPMyAdmin is a powerful third party web based database administration tool that will allow you to effectively manage all of your MySQL databases with ease from any internet connected location in the world, thus allowing you to manage your MySQL databases whilst you are on the move. With its management features you are given the ability to create and manage both tables and fields within your MySQL databases so that you can effectively manage and organize the data which you want them to hold; this means that can easily access the information held by your database from your PHP based websites and applications, giving your website maximum flexibility when it comes to expanding the functionality of it. You are given many different expansion options for your PHP based website or application when it comes to MySQL since you can easily create different features that utilize a database to hold your data in either the short term or the long term.

PHPMyAdmin is also an industry leader when it comes to open source database management systems, since it is bundled with both the cPanel and Plesk web hosting control panels, meaning that you are given a large amount of freedom to configure your MySQL databases the way you want them to be when it comes down to being hosting on a shared hosting package utilizes either Plesk or cPanel to manage your website as well as the other on the server as well as the server itself on which you are hosted. If you choose to use PHPMyAdmin on a stand-alone MySQL server then you are given even more advanced functionalities, such as the ability to use it to create new databases if you are logged into it as the root or administrator user thus meaning that you don’t need a third party control panel if you just want to administrate the databases that you are hosting on your server.

PHPMyAdmin is the right solution for you if you are looking to administrate your databases whether you are on the fly, at home or in your office; it contains features that make it superior to may desktop database management systems which gives one advantage, but the best advantage has to be the fact that it is web based meaning that you can access it from any internet connected location, and use any of its features - meaning that for example you could be sitting on a beach in Hawaii with a wifi laptop and be creating new tables for your database so that at the same time you are able to expand the functionality of your PHP website or application - although thats the last thing almost anyone would be doing! PHPMyAdmin is an open source application, meaning that it is freely available for download and use by anyone and can be used as many times as one wants to, meaning that you aren’t restricted by any license terms as you would be with a commercial application of the same type.

As mentioned previously, PHP and MySQL make the best programming and database combination since they are both open source and come with a range of tools and add-ons that allow you to make the most out of both. If you are looking to learn a dynamic server side language which you can use in conjunction with a database system, then you should look no further than PHP and MySQL - there are also a wide range of tutorials available in this blog and on the internet that you can use to aid you in the learning process. You can also buy a wide range of commercial books based around teaching you PHP and MySQL.

Getting Started With cPanel Control Panel

cPanel is the control panel of choice for many web hosts to allow them to provide their customers with Linux based website hosting solutions, and with the launch of the Windows version, Windows based website hosting solutions. cPanel is well known for its loading speeds, since it is very fast when compared to other control panels that are in the same market as it is; the key to its loading speeds is down to it system architecture - for example unlike other control panels, cPanel doesn’t rely on any databases meaning that it has no database application to slow down it down. cPanel provides many features that can be confusing for people who are new to the concept of web hosting, and who have never used a control panel before to manage any aspect of a website or website hosting package; the main aim which most people have is to get their website online and to get the email services for their website configured to that they can start using their new domain and website hosting package - this might be confusing for some at first since there are several different purposes involved with setting up both features, although on further inspection it can be easy for someone with little technical knowledge to achieve their main aim.

If you are an advanced user with a respectable amount of technical knowledge, then you might want to consider customizing your shared hosting environment as to ensure that your custom applications can run without the need for a more expensive hosting solution such as a VPS Server or a Dedicated Server, both of which carry price tags that can be substantially different than those for basic shared website hosting packages. cPanel provides tools and features that you can utilize to manage your hosting account effectively, since it gives you the ability to manage the contents of your web space online which means that you can easily upload and download files that you host from any internet connected location that allows you to connect to cPanel via the cPanel port.

You are also given the ability to view the amount of visitors that your website has received in any period of time; this can be done via the use of a third party program known as ‘AWStats’ which most web hosts provide as standard with their shared cpanel website hosting accounts, this means that if you want to see if an advertising campaign that you have put into practice is working or not since if it was you should be able to notice an increase the amount of visitors to your website.

Other management tools include ‘PHPMyAdmin’ which you can use to manage the MySQL databases that you have created in your cPanel hosting account; PHPMyAdmin is a web interface that is accessible through cPanel which means that you are able to administer your MySQL databases from any internet connected location without the need for any type of desktop database management program. As standard with most control panels, webmail applications are included to allow you to view and manage your emails from any internet connected location; however, unlike other control panels, cPanel give you a choice since both the Horde and SquirrelMail webmail applications are included to allow you to remotely check your email. Other advanced features of cPanel allow you to create and manage custom email filter rules, meaning that you can easily keep out spam that is being specifically targeted at you and your website; this type of configuration is not normally achievable with other control panels, and cPanel also allows you to create custom SpamAssassin rules to ensure that you receive as little spam as possible.

If you are new to using cPanel, then with the use of this article you will be able to upload your new website and configure it so that visitors can start coming, and will also be able to create and configure email accounts for yourself and your colleagues so that you can start communicating electronically; if you have a dynamic website that is based on PHP, then you will also be able to create a MySQL database from scratch - screenshots have been provided to make the learning process even easier.

The Main cPanel Homepage

When you first login to cPanel, you will reach the main homepage for the control panel that will provide you with all the information that you might need to know about the server for your dynamic applications, as well as with all the different options and categories that you might need to make the most of your new website, domain and hosting package. In most cases, you will be using the new cPanel 11, where the main homepage looks like this:

The main cPanel categories that all the different options have been grouped into to ensure maximum ease are:

• preferences - options in this category are mainly to do with the administration of your actual hosting account, such as the password for it and the main contact email address that you want to use with it
• mail - options in this category are related to the email services for your domain name and website
• files - options grouped under this category are related to the management of files that you have hosted within your web space, as well as the management of FTP accounts
• logs - this group of options is related to visitor statistics for your website
• security - options under this category are related to the security of your website, and allow you to password protect any directories that you have as well as the management of any SSL certificates that you might have
• domains - options under this category are related to the management of domain features for your domain
• databases - these options are related to the creation and management of databases under your hosting account
• software/services - items under this category are related to the advanced customization of your hosting environment
• advanced - these features are related to advanced aspects of your hosting environment, and should only be touched if you know what you are doing.

The cPanel homepage allows you to access all the different features that you have been provided with to manage your new hosting account, meaning that you are able to carry out the actions that you need to without any intervention from your hosting company, although you are normally able to turn to them if you require some sort of support for any cPanel feature. Like most control panels, the homepage is able to provide you with detailed technical information regarding your account such as the amount of disk space you are using out of the total amount that has been assigned to you, as well as the amount of bandwidth that has been used up by your visitors in relation to the amount that has been assigned to your hosting package; you are also able to see how many email accounts you have created out of the number you are allowed to create for your new domain.

Creating a Subdomain

You might want to create new domains under your existing domains to split your website up into more manageable areas; these subs are known as ’subdomains’. They can be easily created through cPanel, and allow you to easily upload content to their folders so that you can start serving content from them as soon as the necessary content has been uploading into your web space. In order to create and manage subdomains through cPanel, you will need to choose the subdomains icon from under the domains category:

You will then be taken to the following screen:

To create a subdomain, you will need to enter the following information into the required text boxes:

• subdomain (circled red) - this is where you enter the actual identity of the subdomain that you want to create
• domain (drop down box - circled green) - you will be required to select the domain that you want the sub to be created under, in the case that you are hosting multiple domains under your cPanel hosting account
• document root (circled blue) - this is where any files that you want to be accessible under the new subdomain will be held, it can be anything you want just as long as it is under your account’s ‘home’ directory - cPanel will automatically make this ‘/public_html/chosensubdomain’ when you place your cursor in the text field.

Once you have clicked ‘Create Subdomain’, you will be redirected to a screen which should hopefully confirm that you have successfully created a new subdomain:

Once you have created your new subdomain, you can then move on to uploading your content into the folder that you have pointed the new subdomain towards so that visitors can start accessing it. In most cases subdomains are used to give products their own unique identity in terms of domains, and search engines will normally favour a website that has used subdomains over one which has uses ordinary directories to order their content; this is because it is easier for a search engine to crawl a subdomain website rather than once which uses directories since in most cases the content is much easier for them to find and use, meaning that it would probably be easy for a human to find and use a website which is utilizing subdomains when compared to one which is using directories.

Creating an Email Account

If you want to start communicating with others electronically using emails, then you will need to create email accounts under your hosting account that you and your colleagues can use to communicate with each other as well as with clients and others. cPanel provides you with many different features in order to help you manage your email accounts and to stop any spam from reaching your account, however the management of these features is very complicated and is for advanced users only really; on the other hand, creating an email account is a very simple task which can be achieved by almost anyone. In order to create an email account, you will need to select the ‘email accounts’ option from the mail category:

You will then be taken to the management panel where you will be able to create and manage any email accounts that you want under your hosting account. In order to create an email account, you will need to provide the following information:

• email (circled red) - this is the identity that you want to give the email address - for example the identity in ‘email@domain.com’ would be ‘email
• domain (circled green) - you will need to choose the domain for which you want the email account to be created for in the case that you are hosting more than one domain in your cPanel web hosting account
• password (circled blue) - you will need to choose a password that you will have to use to gain access to the email account, if you are unable to think of one then cPanel will automatically generate one for you
• quota (circled purple) - if you want to limit the amount of space that is used by an email account, then you should enter the amount which you want to limit the account to - just ensure that you have enough space left in your hosting account.

Once you click ‘create’, you will then be taken to a screen that should hopefully confirm that the email account which you want has been successfully created. You will also notice that on the email management panel that there is a table that contains the email accounts which you have already created; this means that you can easily manage the email account which you have just created, as well as others which you might have already created.

Emails are being increasingly used in todays internet connected society to allow people to communicate with each other almost instantly, this means that you can allow you and your colleagues to communicate with each other and clients electronically almost instantly. cPanel also provides webmail applications to allow you to access your email accounts from any internet connected location, enabling you to check your email from almost anywhere in the world; an automatic Outlook configuration file generator is also provided to allow you to configure your Outlook installation to work with your email account if you don’t have the necessary knowledge or information to do it yourself.

Creating a MySQL Database and MySQL User

If you run a PHP based dynamic website which needs to utilize a database, then you will most likely consider using a MySQL database to store the data which your PHP based application will need to access and use to ensure that it is able to run effectively and efficiently. MySQL is an open source database platform, which means it is free and is one reason why you will find it as part of almost any Linux based website hosting package; it is installed as part of cPanel which means that you will find it included with almost any cPanel based website hosting package.

If you create a MySQL database, then you will need to create a MySQL user so that your PHP applications are able to access your MySQL database so that they are able to delete and add new data to the database. In order to create a MySQL database, you will need to choose the ‘MySQL Databases’ option from the databases category. You will then be taken to the following page:

The only piece of information that you will be required to enter is the name of the database that you want to create. Once you click ‘create’, you will be taken to a page which should confirm that the database has been successfully created. However, once you have created a database, you will want to create a MySQL user to allow your PHP and dynamic web applications to access the database.

In order to create a MySQL database user, you will need to return to the MySQL databases homepage. You will then need to scroll down to the MySQL users section:

You will then be required to enter the following information in order to create the user account:

• username (circled red) - this is the login that will be used in order for your scripts to access the database
• password (circled green) - you should apply a password to the user account, otherwise hackers might be able to find a way into your database.

Once you click ‘create’, you should then be redirected to a page which should hopefully confirm that the user account has been successfully created. In order for the user account to be functional with the MySQL database that you have just created, you will need to scroll down to the section labeled ‘Add User to Database’:

You will need to select the user account that you want to assign, then the database to which you want to assign the user account. Once you have done that, you should then be redirected to a page confirming that the user has been successfully assigned to the database.

With the use of MySQL databases, you should be able to make your website more dynamic in the way that it functions since you will be able to store the content and data that it requires in one central location; this means that users will be able to have a more interactive experience with your website - this means that you are able to provide your website’s visitors with a range of new services based around a database. cPanel allows you to manage any MySQL databases that you create with ease; you can use the web based third party PHPMyAdmin application in order for you to manage your databases via an online interface from any internet connected location, meaning that you are able to manage your cPanel MySQL databases from almost anywhere in the world.

Uploading Your Website

One of the main things that you will be wanting to achieve with your new cpanel website hosting package is the ability to host your website under the domain that you have purchased for your new hosting account. With a website you will be able to show off your business to prospective clients, or provide existing clients with a place where they can manage the account that they have with you; this means that you could easily gain your business an extra source of income with the use of a website to sell your products online.

When uploading your website to your web space, you have the choice to make of how to upload it - you can use the classic method of FTP which means that you connect to your web space via FTP using an FTP account that you have created through cPanel, or you can use the cPanel file manager to upload all your files into your web space although it could take considerably longer.

If you want to upload your website via FTP, you will first need to go to the FTP account manager by select the ‘FTP accounts’ option located under the files category on the cPanel homepage:

To create an FTP account, you should look at the first section of the page which is titled ‘add FTP account’; in this section, you will need to enter the following information:

• login (circled red) - this is the name of the actual FTP account and is what you will use to login into your web space via FTP
• password (circled green) - it is highly recommended that you password your new FTP account for maximum security
• home directory (circled blue) - this is the highest level directory to which you want the account to have access.

You should then be directed to a page which should hopefully confirm that the FTP account has been successfully created. You can then proceed to use your favourite FTP client to upload your website’s files to your web space using the FTP account that you have just created.

If you want to upload your website’s files using the cPanel file manager, then you will need to select the option labeled ‘file manager’ from the file category of the cPanel homepage:

The following box will pop up, and you will need to select ‘web root’ (circled red):

You will then need to navigate to the folder where you want to upload your website’s files to if necessary. You will then need to select the ‘upload’ option from the toolbar of the file manager:

You will then be taken to the following page:

As you can see, you are given three boxes in which you are able to upload files. You are given the option to add additional boxes if needed.

In theory, it is much easier for you as a beginner to upload your files to your cPanel web space via the means of FTP, since you can get more files placed into your web space in one go than is possible with the web based file manager. However, in terms of ease it can be sometimes easier to use the web based file manager since you are able to upload files using it from any internet connected location so long as you have a reasonable connection speed and are able to access your cPanel account. So in practice, if you want to upload your files conveniently and efficiently then you should use FTP to upload your files, but if you don’t have much time on your hands and are in a public place such as an internet cafe that might block the FTP port then you should use the web based file manager.

If you want to build a dynamic website which has the ability to communicate with databases and servers to ensure that it is both functional and efficient, then you will need to have knowledge of a programming language to ensure that these tasks can be easily achieved; there are many different programming languages, each of which have been designed for use in specific server environments, and although most possess more or less the same basic features at heart, some do contain more advanced and complicated features that others may not have. When choosing a programming language to learn, you should always consider how easy it will be to learn and ask others who have a good deal of knowledge about the language you are wanting to learn just how long it took them to learn it, and how easy they find it to use within a complicated server environment; you should also take into consideration the server environment in which the code that you produce will be hosted - for example you don’t want to go and learn a language which you then can’t use effectively since it hasn’t been designed to work in a server environment such as the one which you want to host it in. You should also take into consideration the external factors of a programming language which can affect your ability to code in it as well as the dynamic functionality that it is able to achieve; for example you should always consider the external database programs that you are able to use with your chosen programming language - this is because some database programs might not be able to function in the same environment as that in which the programming language that you have chosen to use does, this means that you should consider a database program that it is able to function with both the programming language that you have chosen to use as well as within the same environment as that in which the programming language that you have chosen to learn. Other factors you should consider when choosing a programming language to learn is the amount of support that is available for it; this is because if you are new to programming then you might need some support to help send you in the right direction if you happen to come across a problem or are unable to figure something out when you are in the middle of learning that language that you have chosen to learn. If you are new to programming, and have not learnt any server side scripting language previously, then you will open your website to a whole new set of opportunities which you most likely did not know about previously; this is because with the use of a server side scripting language, you can allow the pages of your website to interact with the server and also configure your pages to work with a database which means that your visitors can have much more interaction with your website if you use these opportunities to add new features to your website such as a password protected area or a forum where people can discuss certain topics with each other.

Features

You should always consider the features that a programming language has when you are looking to learning a language to aid you in the process of a building a dynamic server side script based website; this is because that although more or less every server side scripting language has the core features such as interaction with databases and the server, the more advanced features can settings can easily differ from language to language meaning that some are better suited to one use than another might be. Some languages are starting to incorporate new features that will help them stay up to date with the latest internet trends as they start to grow; for example Microsoft has started to release an AJAX toolkit for its ASP.NET server side scripting language to ensure that developers who use the language for their websites are able to keep their websites up to date in terms of the technology which is used to enable their scripts and web pages to interact with the server on which they are hosted. Most programming languages are able to work with a wide range of database programs which means that you are given a selection of database programs meaning that you can choose one which suits your requirements perfectly, both in terms of specification and the languages that it is able to function with; with the use of a database and a dynamic server side scripting language, you are able to store data which can be accessed by any dynamic script or web page which as the necessary database login details - this means that you could setup a private area on your website which requires a user name and password to gain access, or you could build a content management system to base your website on which will store all the content for your website in a centralized database. Another thing that should you take into consideration is the libraries that are available for the scripting language which you wish to learn; libraries are normally ‘add-ons’ for scripting languages that allow you to expand the capability of the programming language that you have chosen to learn since they are normally made for one purpose which expands on an existing function of the scripting language, or adds a completely new set of functions entirely. You should also consider the operating environment in which the programming language has been designed to run; for example PHP has been designed to allow it to run in both Linux and Windows environments, which means that you can easily install the necessary files in both operating systems to ensure that it can run effectively - on the other hand, ASP.NET has been designed by Microsoft which means that it can only be run on a server which is running Microsoft Windows Server. You should also consider the language’s ability to run alongside other web pages which have been written in different programming languages; for example PHP pages might interfere with the running of ASP.NET scripts and pages within the context of a Windows based web hosting environment.

Environment

One of the main factors that you should consider when choosing a programming language to learn is the environment for which the language you have chosen is able to operate in; this is because some programming languages have been written to allow them to run in a certain operating system only, meaning that you have to be using that operating system in order for you to be able to host and view the files that you have written in the dynamic server side scripting language concerned. For example, if you want others on the internet to be able to view the files or web pages that you have written in either the classic ASP or ASP.NET programming languages, you have to be running a server or computer which has either Microsoft Windows Server installed on it, or Microsoft Windows XP Professional - although it is recommended that you use Windows XP Professional to view server side scripts if you are wanting to test them, since it isn’t as suited to the position as Windows Server is; this is because that Microsoft has designed both programming languages to be run on Microsoft operating systems only and to only be executed through Microsoft’s web server, IIS (Internet Information Services) - this means that you might have to fork out extra for Windows based web hosting in order for you to have the ability to execute and view the classic ASP and ASP.NET web pages and scripts that you have written. On the other hand, programming language such as Ruby on Rails (RoR) and PHP will run on most operating systems, and are open source meaning that they are free; the fact that they are open source means that you can pick up a cheap cPanel and Linux based website hosting account that in most cases should have the ability to run Ruby and PHP based website applications. Although ASP.NET and classic ASP are both free to use programming languages, they are still classed as commercial since the running of them is only possible through the purchase of a Windows Server license, this means that their cores cannot be accessed by the likes of you and me which means that the cores can’t be customized to the way that we want them in order to make the engines behind both languages run more efficiently and faster; however, the source code for both Ruby and PHP can be downloaded which means that any developer with a sufficient amount of knowledge can easily modify the source to the way that they want it to be and then rebuild for use within their own server environment. Other environmental factors for the running of the programming language that you have chosen to learn can include the necessary file permissions which might be required to ensure that the language which you have chosen to learn can run effectively without any problem, which is a must when you are wanting to use the language within your own dedicated server environment; if the correct file permissions are not set then the core of the language might be restricted from accessing the resources that it needs to ensure that it can run effectively and fast.

Support

If you are new to the world of server side programming languages, then you should always take into consideration the support that is available to you if you find that you need help with a certain feature of the programming language that you have chosen to use; this is important because the best known languages have many forums that are dedicated to them which should more than meet your needs, but on the other hand the lesser known languages don’t have such a good amount of support available for them - or the case may be that there is enough support available for them, but the support just isn’t informative enough which isn’t what you need when you’re starting out with something new. For example, Microsoft’s ASP.NET language may be a commercial one, but the company itself doesn’t provide any official support past the regular documentation that you should be able to find with any programming language that you want to learn, especially the best ones; in this case you should be able to rely on internet based communities to help you out in the learning process, since these communities are normally full of many knowledgable members who can give you tips on how best to learn the language as well, since everyone had to learn the language at some point in their development career. You will never find any source of official support for any open source scripting languages beyond the documentation that you should be able to find for almost any scripting language, regardless of whether you choose to learn it or not since everyone needs some sort of official source which they can refer back to; however, you should be able to find more internet based communities which can help you out with the language that you would for an commercial server side scripting language, this is because that people are able to view the source code of the actual language which in turn means that they should be able to tell you exactly what to do if you happen to run into a problem with the language that you have chosen to learn. If this is your first time learning a programming language, then it is important that you try and learn a language which has lots of support available to you; this is because it is inevitable that you will get stuck during the learning process at some stage or another since programming languages are very complicated things to learn. One thing to note is that the documentation that is provided by the makers of the scripting languages for their products are in most cases very complicated; this means that you should try and gain a good amount of knowledge before attempting to read one of the documentation manuals since you should then be able to solve your problem much more efficiently, and at the same time will be gaining knowledge on the language which you have chosen to learn. If you gain a good amount of knowledge of your chosen language, you might end up becoming a programmer - which in most cases is highly paid job because of the skill that is involved.

Commercial and Open Source

Commercial programming languages are ones which require you to purchase something in order for you to have the ability to run them so that visitors to your website are able to view the finished article, and so that the server which is hosted the script or web page concerned is able to process the file in a correct manner so that it can output it to the visitor’s browser in the correct format. Commercial languages are generally made for use on one operating system only, which restricts you from how and where you are able to use your skills if you choose to learn a commercial server side scripting language; an example of a commercial server side scripting language would be Microsoft’s ASP.NET, this is because you can only use it under Microsoft’s web server, IIS, which itself will only run on a Microsoft operating system such as Windows XP Professional or Windows Server 2003 - their more modern counterparts being Windows Vista Business and Ultimate, as well as Windows Server 2008. On the other hand, open source programming languages generally allow you to run them on any operating system, which means that you are able to apply your knowledge and skills across a wide range of operating systems if you do choose to learn and open source server side scripting/programming language; you can also expand open source scripting languages more easily than their commercial counter parts, this is because many developers have spent their time developing free add-ons for the open source languages to help make them much more feature filled, and in tun allowing people who develop using them to build more feature filled and efficient web based applications and websites. You will also find that the support for open source programming languages is much greater than that of commercial programming languages; the main reason for this is that people and developers tend to go more with open source languages for the simple reason that they are free, and because there is a large number of experienced developers who decide to use open source languages, there is a large amount of people who are willing to help out those who are new to the world of server side programming. The amount of support that is available for commercial server side programming languages is very little when compare to that which is available for open source languages; this is because that most developers don’t have the money to invest in the needed technologies to ensure that their scripts and web pages, which means that they normally take up open source programming languages because of the fact that there is little to no cost of getting started with these - you will also find that larger corporations with money will be utilizing commercial scripting languages, and they will be unwilling to provide any outsiders with any sense of support if they have just started out with a new programming language - if you do want to start with a commercial programming language then you should try and pick up a cheap book from your nearest book store.

Conclusion

In conclusion, if you are new to the world of developing with server side scripting languages then you should take up an open source programming language to learn since there are far more helpful resources available for you than there are with commercial programming languages; this means that you might find it easier to learn your chosen language, and might even be able to get your dynamic website built much quicker than you would with a commercial programming language which has far less resources available regarding information about it. If you start coding in a language, and you fill that your set up might need expanding so that you are able to use many more functions when you code, then you should choose an open source language to learn since you can easily expand these through the use of freely available function libraries which are in most cases open source as well; this means that if you want to expand the interactivity that your website is able to have with the server on which it is hosted, then you can by simply expanding the base of the language in which you are coding with some simple yet effective function libraries. If you do choose to code in a commercial scripting language, then you might find yourself paying high web hosting costs since the cost of the software which is required to enable commercial scripting languages to run is high, and web hosts have to past the costs on to customers; you might also find yourself paying large amounts of money for resources such as books to aid you in the development process because there is a lack of online resources - if you were to code using an open source language then you would be able to use the vast range of free online resources to help you, and would not have to pay large amount of money for thick and complicated and in some cases almost useless books. With the use of this article, you should have been able to discover the power that programming languages have, and how the use of them can help boost your website in terms of how you manage it, and how much interactivity your visitors are able to have with it since you can use the features of programming languages to help add more features to your website. Also, with the use of a programming language, you might be able to get a job in IT since programmers are very skilled people, and positions for them normally accompany high salaries.

Content management systems (sometimes referred to in the abbreviated term ‘CMS’) are systems that allow you to manage the content, and dependent on what options you have chosen for your CMS system, additional features which affect your website. If you plan to update both the content and design of your website on a regular basis, then your website is a more likely candidate for use on the basis of a CMS system; this is because most CMS systems provide you with a web based administration interface to help you manage the content and features which are relevant to your website on the fly from any internet connected computer or location. CMS systems are generally feature rich since there is normally a large community of web developers who actually develop these systems, which means that they are highly reliable in most cases; most high profile CMS systems are open source, which means that they are free for use by the general public and also means that the developer community which is behind the actual piece of software is normally one which isn’t paid, and the developers of that community generally give up their own time to aid in the development of the project. Most large scale websites are based on CMS systems, since the expanse of them is so large and new information is always being added to them - if they were to use regular static HTML pages then it would be more or less impossible for them to maintain the websites concerned to the extent that they do with the CMS systems that they use; you will also find that larger websites use their own custom built or premium CMS systems since they are after a system which is both secure and scalable so that it is able to keep up with the demand that their website will continue to get over time, and will also most likely increase. You will find that most smaller websites that are using CMS systems are using open source ones; this is because they are free, and the developer community behind them normally provides a good level of support for free through public forums - this also means that members of the general public are able to aid in the support of people who have problems with a certain piece or section of the CMS system, you will also find that open source CMS systems have a large add-on respitory which means that you can customize your open source CMS installation to the way you want it to be - this also means that you can carry out many activities from within one application which without would mean that you would have to install many separate systems to help meet the same level of functionality that the one CMS system is able to provide you with in terms of what you can do with it and scalability. CMS systems are generally written in the PHP server side scripting language, and are supported by a MySQL database back-end to ensure that all the data connected to them can be stored within one central and easily accessible location to ensure the greatest flexibility with your website.

Features

Many CMS systems provide you with a web based administration panel with a built in WYSIWYG (What You See is What You Get) editor to ensure that you can view and edit the content which you have added to the system effectively; the editor also means that you can add multimedia articles such as images and flash videos into your CMS pages and view them in real time without the need to have to save the content and actually reload the web page concerned to actually make sure that the content you have added will display correctly within the page that you have created - one thing to note if you are new to the concept of CMS systems is that all the information that you are adding to the system is stored in a central MySQL database which in some cases might be automatically generated when you install the system within your website hosting space. Most systems also allow for the functionality of add-ons which have been designed by third persons, although this will be discussed further on in the article; but in basic this means that you can extend the functionality of your CMS system install to ensure that it runs the way that you want it to run and that it contains the custom features that you want it to have. You will also find that the CMS system which you have chosen to use will allow for you to modify the links that are shown within the menus that are located within the system; this means that if you want to link to external websites or web pages that are not contained within your CMS system or under your domain then you can with ease, and can even place the links where you want if you style your system and manage it correctly. Most CMS systems provide some sort of login functionality which gives you the ability to create password protected areas for your website, which are only accessible if you have a username and password which are authorized for entry to the part of the website concerned; this also means that you can create multiple account to allow many people to add an edit the content of your website and CMS system, although this may prove to be a disadvantage if they end up changing something which they were not meant to have changed - one thing to note is that although not all CMS systems may provide a visitor login functionality for your website, all should provide a password protected administration interface which you can create many accounts for so that other people as well as yourself can manage the content of the CMS systen as well as the settings which it possesses. You will also be given the ability to theme or skin the CMS system that you choose, so that you can style it to look the way that you want it to - this feature is general of most CMS systems that are available, both open source and commercial; this means that even if you do choose to use a third party CMS system to base your website on, you can still skin it and theme it to ensure that it matches both the colour scheme of your company and is laid out the way you want it to be - this sort of functionality is normally achieve by the use of CSS, so knowledge of the CSS style language is a must have to theme or skin a CMS system.

Add-Ons

Most CMS systems allow you to create and add add-ons to them to help you expand the functionality of them, which means that you can get a lot more out of one system than you could with having multiple open source or commercial applications installed to carry out the different tasks which you may expect from both your website and the internet, and in some cases the web hosting that you have chosen to ensure that either you or your business has an online presence to sell products and services that you may want to provide over the internet. Add-ons for most CMS systems cover a wide range of categories, which means that you can use your CMS install to base almost any type of website on - the options are more or less endless when it comes to choosing add-ons for your installation; for example you might want to install a shop within your CMS installation - this should be easy since all you have to do in most cases is upload a few files and run a setup page that will then integrate the add-on into your CMS system in terms of databases and other functions which might be needed in order to allow the add-on to run efficiently. Add-ons don’t always have to be functions to help with the interactivity that users are able to have with either your website or your CMS install; some add-ons can help you on the administration side, for example in the case of Joomla, there are add-ons which are able to replace the advert management system within the administration panel - this is because it contains lot more features than the advert system that comes built in with Joomla, you might also find other add-ons which are able to replace certain features of the administration panel of the CMS system which you have chosen to use, the main reason being that they possess a lot more features than their counterparts which come built into the CMS system which you have chosen. Other CMS add-ons might also help you monitor the visitor activity to your website; for example there might be an add-on for use with the CMS system that you have chosen which can monitor the pages within your websites that visitors look at, the feature might also choose to log more intimate details about visitors such as their location and the IP address which has been assigned to either their internet connection or the computer that they have chosen to use.

Conclusion

In conclusion, content management systems provide you with many features which you can use to aid in the management of the content which you have displayed on your website; you can use them to edit and manage the content that you have contained within your website on the fly via the use of the web based administration panel that is provided with most CMS systems. If you feel the need to expand your website, then you can use the add-ons feature of the CMS which you are using to expand the use of your system via the use of add-ons which you have either developed yourself or have either purchased or downloaded from the websites of third party developers. If you have a static HTML based website which contains many pages, then you should consider a CMS system since it means that you and others can easily manage the content for your website without the need for any desktop website editor such as Adobe Dreamweaver or Microsoft Frontpage - it also means that the people who are managing the content require little to no technical knowledge since most CMS systems can be classed as ‘idiot proof’. You might also find with the ability to expand the use of your website, that you can expand the use of the administration area that you are using to manage your website; this is because the administration area and the features that it contains which are part of most CMS systems are very basic, and you can normally get third party add-ons which can improve on the built in features, and can help make the management of the system easier for you. If your website is only a small one, then you should only consider an open source CMS system if you are looking to make your website more dynamic; if you want a more scalable system because your website receives many visitors, then you should consider a commercial CMS system since these are normally very scalable since they can handle many users and are normally more dynamic and the support for them is normally much more helpful.

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 disasterous. 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