cPanel File Features
cPanel provides you with many different features that you are able to utilize to manage the files that you have hosted within your cPanel shared website hosting account; the file features that cPanel provides you with also give you the ability to generate your own backups as well as the ability to manage the FTP accounts that will give you and others who you have set FTP accounts up for access to your FTP/web space. cPanel file features give you the ability to make sure that your data is safe, this is something which is becoming increasingly important in today’s society where data security is becoming one of the most important points of web hosting; you will also learn how to make use of cPanel’s file manager to ensure that you can take a look at as well as have the ability to edit or delete files when you are on the road or at an internet connected computer but are not able to access your web space using FTP for the sole reason that port 21 might be blocked on the router that you are behind. You will also have the ability to check the disk space usage of your account as well as be able to upload your website to your web space so that you can let visitors through to it, and build up your customer or visitor base. Having the ability to manage and backup yours files is very useful; this is because a web host could easily go bust any time, and the server you are on could easily crash - the backups that are taken by some web hosts are always reliable or even full backups, which is the reason why most people advise you to have your own backups, just in case. Being able to manage your files since you could end up having unneeded files taking up space within your shared web hosting account.
With the use of this article you will be able to create your own backups from cPanel, and be able to download them which means that you can restore the backup if you go and do something wrong which causes an error within your shared hosting account for whatever reason. You will also be given the ability to manage your files effectively to ensure that you don’t have any unwanted files taking up the disk space that you have assigned to your web hosting account - one thing to remember is that the space being taken up could be needed for something else that could be much more important. The ability to setup and configure FTP accounts within cPanel will also be discussed, which will then allow you to setup and configure your own FTP accounts that you can then use to gain FTP access to the web space of your website which will then allow you to upload any files that you may have for it. You will also be taught how to use the FTP session control feature of cPanel that allows you to see and control who is logged into your web space via FTP, and to terminate their connection if you don’t want them to be logged in or if you suspect that it is some sort of hacker. Another feature that allows you to see how and where the space that has been assigned to your shared web hosting account is being used; this can be helpful for you if you have a large website with many different folders and that also takes advantage of private folders that can’t be accessed by the general public. One thing to note though is that when using any type of file feature within cPanel, you should always be careful; this is because if you press one wrong button then you could easily end up erasing all of the data and files that are stored within your shared web hosting account.
Backups
The backups feature built into cPanel allows you to download a zipped up copy of your complete site/home directory which includes things such as site files, databases, emails and email filters that you have put into place. The backup that is downloaded is a fresh one and not an automatically scheduled one meaning that all the information contained within the file is up to date; in some cases automatic scheduled backups might not even be available since they are a feature that needs to be configured by the server owner/administrator. It is a good idea that you take your own backup every few days since the backups that are being taken by your web host might not be all that reliable; this could be down to a number of reasons including the fact that the cron job create to automate the backup schedule might not have run for whatever reason. Another reason for taking your own backup is that you might accidentally corrupt a part of you website which means that you’ll have to restore it; you can use the backup that you have taken yourself to restore your site since some mosts might actually charge to restore your website is you have corrupted a part of it yourself. When restoring and taking backups, cPanel gives you the option to take or restore backups of specific features; for example you are given the ability to take or restore a backup of a MySQL database that you might have, or a backup of a email forwarders or custom email filters. One thing to note when taking backups is to make sure that you take a backup of your whole site, you should not take a backup of individual features unless you absolutely have to otherwise when it comes to restoring your site from your own backups, you won’t have the correct backups; you should also be careful when restoring backups since you could easily restore the wrong backup which would mean that you end up with having stale website and database data.
Backup Wizard
The backup wizard built into cPanel allows you to either take a backup or restore a backup of your shared cPanel web hosting account with ease; this is because it generates one zip file that you only have to download. Unlike the standard backup screen, the wizard presents you with easily configurable options that allow you to choose what parts of your hosting account you want to backup and download; you can either backup your entire ‘home’ directory (the directory on the server in which all files related to your website reside), MySQL databases, or the email filters and forwarders configuration. The backup wizard is good for you if you find the main backup screen too confusing, as well as if you are unsure on how to restore a backup that you have taken previously through the backup wizard; this is because unlike the standard backup screen, it takes you through several different steps and explains each step individually to ensure that you are able to understand it all and that either a backup is produced of what you want, or a backup is restored of data that you want to be restored to your hosting account. Once you have chosen what parts of your hosting account you want to backup, you are taken to the download page where your full backup is ready and waiting for you to download it. One thing to note though when using the backup wizard is that you should only use it for taking backups, as the restoration process that it uses can be quite confusing; if you just want to restore a backup, then it is suggested that you use the regular backup panel as all you are required to do there is select the location on your hard drive where the backup is stored and then click ‘Restore’.
File Manager
The file manager that comes with cPanel allows you to view, edit and delete files effectively that are contained within your web space. The file manager gives you the ability to manage all the files that are located within your ‘home’ directory; this is where all the files for your website, including configuration files reside on the Linux server that is hosting your website. Unless you are able to gain access to your web space via the use of FTP on port 21, you should use the file manager to keep tabs on all the files that are currently contained within the web space that has been assigned to your shared cPanel website hosting account; another good use of the file manager is to edit files on the fly - this is because the file manager is accessible from any internet connected computer that allows access via the cPanel port, and also because the file manager has a built in code editor to allow you edit your coded website scripts with ease, a regular text editor is also provided if you want to use a more basic option to view and edit the contents of your website’s scripts and files. You can also carry out mass file actions within the cPanel file manager since you are able to select as many files as you want within the same folder and carry out one action that will effect all of them; you might want to use this feature for example if you need to set the permissions of certain files within the same folder to the same permission setting to allow them to function correctly. One thing to note is that you should be careful when using the cPanel file manager since it is fairly easy to select the wrong file when maintaining your web space; this in turn could lead to you accidentally deleting the file and not being able to retrieve it.
Legacy File Manager
The cPanel legacy file manager is the name given to the file manager that was used in previous versions of cPanel, until the new one took over its main role. The legacy file manager can be found in the new cPanel 11, but it is advised that you use the new file manager that has been included with the new release of the industry leading control panel. The legacy/previous file manager has been included even in the new release because people were use to using the it, and might find it hard to adapt to the new file manager that has been included because it contains more features and the layout of it has been changed as well; also, unlike its successor, the legacy file manager utilizes page refreshes to ensure that the data is posted to the correct pages and that the correct actions ar applied - the new file manager however uses a technology known as ‘ajax’ which doesn’t utilize page refreshes but instead posts the required data back to the server via the use of javascript to ensure that the requested actions are completed successfully. Although the legacy file manager might still be used by many, it is highly likely that cPanel will drop it in future versions of the popular control panel to ensure that the main focus is on the new file manager, and not the aging legacy one, who’s days are most likely numbered - some might argue that point though saying that it is much more established than the new file manager that has been included within cPanel 11. One thing to note is that when using the legacy file manager, you should always be careful as to which files you edit or view; this is because it is very easy to delete files within the legacy file manager, but unlike its successor it is always easy to retrieve any file that you may have accidentally deleted.
Web Disk
The web disk feature within cPanel allows you to configure certain settings on your computer that will then allow you to simply drag and drop files from your desktop/computer into your cPanel shared website hosting space. It creates a folder for you on your computer that acts like a regular folder that is stored on your computer; however, the folder is actually a link to your home directory that is where all the files for your website reside on the main hosting server that is provided by your web hosting company. The web disk feature also gives you the ability to navigate through all the files and folders that are contained within your shared cPanel website hosting space as if they were locally stored on your computer. This feature can be handy for you if you are unsure as to how FTP access on your web hosting account works; this is because cPanel provides you with the necessary file downloads as well as access instructions on how to use the web disk feature - that is something that is doesn’t do with regular FTP access. Within cPanel, you are able to setup separate web disk accounts which means that you can give web disk access to as many people as you want; you can also specify a certain folder that each web disk account has access to - which means for example that you could have one master account for web disk access that can view all the files and folders that are contained within your hosting space, and have separate accounts for individual people who have their own folders within the web space where they can store their own files so that they can then reach them at a later date.
Disk Space Usage
The disk space usage feature of cPanel allows you to see how much space individual folders within your web space are using; this is a helpful for people who might be using the web disk feature as it can help them keep tabs on the amount of disk space that is being used by folders that might have individual web disk users assigned to them. The main directories that cPanel sets up within your web space are signified on the disk space usage page by using colours - a key is assigned to the page as well so that you are able to differentiate between the different folders; is it helpful that cPanel colour codes the main directories since this might help you when trying to work out which main directory has started to use up all the disk space that is assigned to your shared website hosting account. cPanel also gives you the option to select the directories that are using up the most disk space, and then allows you to delete them if you want; this option can be good since it means that you don’t have to click all the way to the file manager whilst remembering the directories in question - the amount of disk space being used up is also totalled up and displayed at the bottom for your reference. You are also given the option to increase or decrease the depth of the directories that are taking up the most disk space; this can be helpful since it can help you pinpoint the exact file or inner folder of the directory concerned that is taking up the most disk space. Other options given to you allow you to hide small files as well as go up to the parent directories of the directories that are taking up the most space. One thing to note is that you should always be careful when using the disk space usage feature; this is because you could easily delete the entire contents of an important folder with a few wrong clicks.
FTP Accounts
FTP accounts are the account or accounts that you use to gain access to your website hosting space via the use of the FTP protocol, which generally runs on port 21 TCP on most web hosting servers, although it can vary from server to server. The use of FTP can be seen as an alternative to the use of the web disk feature that cPanel provides you with; this is because in a similar way with web disk you can drag and drop files into your hosting space with ease - in most cases you can also set file/folder permissions as well as delete files off the hosting server that you feel you don’t want anymore. When setting FTP accounts up within cPanel, you are given the option to choose the username and password of the FTP account; this means that you are able to customize the login names and the password of people who you want to have access to your web space via the use of FTP. In most cases you are also able to specify the root directory fro the FTP account; this means that you could set up an individual directory within your hosting space for each FTP account to give people who have FTP access the ability to upload and store their files within an internet connected environment that they should be able to access from any internet connection computer, just as long as port 21 hasn’t been blocked on the router. One thing to note is that when creating FTP accounts, you should always make a note of the user name and password that you assign to the account so that they are not forgotten; you should also consider having one master account which will have access to all the files, but create a separate account to use for the purpose of uploading your files to your main web space.
FTP Session Control
With the use of the FTP session control feature that is built into cPanel, you are given the ability to control all the FTP sessions that are currently connected to your hosting account space. This feature can be useful to you if you wish to disconnect someone from your FTP space who you don’t think is supposed to be logged in. Several details of the different session that are currently connected to your space are given; these include the IP address of the ‘visitor’, the FTP user name that they are using as well as the length of time that they have been logged in for. This feature can also be helpful if you think that the FTP account details of someone who you have allowed to have access to your FTP space have been stolen; this is because you can easily log the IP address down of the so called ‘hacker’, and then use the IP deny manager to ensure that their IP address can’t access your web space again. The status of the session is also displayed, and this can be anther helpful feature of the FTP session control section of cPanel; this is because an FTP session might appear to be connected but it might not be active since the person who is actually connection might not actually be connected anymore - they might have just disconnected but the session might still be coming up as active. One thing to note is that when using the FTP session control manager is that you should ensure that you are careful about which FTP sessions you terminate; this is because you could easily end up terminating an FTP session that you mean to be connected, but you accidentally disconnect is because you believe it to be a fraudulent one.
Conclusion
In conclusion, cPanel provides you with a number of tools that you can use to ensure that you are able to manage the files that are stored within your shared cPanel web hosting from any location; other tools provided even allow you to connect with your files and communicate with them just like any files or folders that you have stored on your local PC. The file features of cPanel also include some security features to ensure that you can disconnect any FTP session that you suspect to be fraudulent, as well as clear up any web directories that are large in size when you don’t want them or when they’re not meant to be; all these tools put together ensure that you can conveniently manage all the files that are stored within your cPanel hosting space but at the same time keep them secure from malicious attackers such as spammers and hackers. You can also keep your files safe yourself by taking a full backup every so often from the backup section of the cPanel file features; if you feel that you don’t have the necessary knowledge to use this panel then a backup wizard is provided to ensure that you are able to take and restore your own backups with ease - instructions are even included to ensure that no confusion is caused. The new file manager that is provided within cPanel allows you to manage your files effectively, and via the use of ajax ensures that any requests you make to it are posted back to the server and processed in the correct way; if you are use to using the old version of the file manager, then that is included in cPanel 11 under the name of ‘Legacy File Manager’ to ensure that you can still manage your files on the fly effectively, even if you are use to the older version of the file management program. The disk space usage feature also ensures that you are able to keep tabs on how and where the web space that has been assigned to your shared cPanel website hosting is package is being used; this is helpful for you if you suspect that a hacker has some how gained access to your web space and is currently using it to store their files in - it is also helpful to you if you use the web disk feature with individual folders for each account - this is because you are able to see how much space each individual folder is taking up, and if you suspect one of the folders is taking up too much space then you can easily do it without having to go back and do it from the file manager. Finally, if you do wish to use FTP to access your web space then an FTP account manager is provided so that you can create, edit and delete and FTP accounts that you have setup under your shared cPanel web hosting account.
