What is cPanel

When you signup for a shared hosting account, you’ll find that your webhost provides a WHM (Web Host Manager) to help you manage your domain. In all likely hood, it will be cPanel. As previously mentioned, cPanel is used to help with the management of your domain, and everything associated with it. Things like installing SSL certs, creating redirects, creating email accounts, and even analytics can all be viewed/created using the control panel. To help you get started, this article walks you through some of the common operations that can be performed using cPanel.

Installing Scripts/Programs

One of the first things you may want to do, is to install some sort of platform for your domain. If you are looking to install a blogging software, you might want to choose WordPress. Maybe you need to have a CMS (Content Management Software) for your website. Drupal and Joomla are excellent choices. Either way, these can all be installed within cPanel using Fantastico.

Fantastico makes life easier by automatically setting up your database and then installing the required files. You no longer need to upload files to your host, create the database and then run the installer. To access Fantastico, login to cPanel and scroll down towards the bottom. There you will find a section called software/services. Click on the Fantastico icon. After you click the icon, a new window will appear. From here select the platform you want to use and follow the simple directions. In a few seconds, your site will be configured. You can now login to the back-end for the selected platform and configure it.

While I only touched upon a few platforms, Fantastico has many others. From web carts to help-desks to wikis, most of the open source programs are present. All that needs to be done on your part, is to decide on which platform you want installed.

Email Addresses

So you have your domain setup. Now what? Well you might want to create some email accounts for that domain. cPanel makes that very simple. Find the section labeled mail. Click on the email accounts icon. Input a name for the new mail account and select the appropriate domain (if you have more than one). From there enter a secure password and click on create account. You now have a new email account for your domain.

What if you want to redirect an email account to a new email address? That is also very simple. Under the same mail section mentioned above, find the icon labeled forwarders. Click on that icon. You will now be presented with a couple options. One option is to forward an individual email account and the other option is to forward all email for a domain. Since you are probably not interested in forwarding all your email, select add forwarder. Input the address you want to forward and then put in the email you want to forward to. Click the add forwarder button and you are done.

Be sure to look over the mail section of cPanel. While I went over the most common tasks, there are quite a few others. Adding auto-responders and managing spam (spam assassin), can all be controlled under this section.

Managing Domains

The domains section of cPanel allows you to manage multiple aspects of your domain. Here you can add additional domains, create sub-domains and setup redirects. Probably the most common action under this section is adding sub-domains. Sub-domains allow you to organize your site into separate sections. For instance, if you want to utilize one of the help-desk platforms that are available through Fantastico, you can create a sub-domain called support and install osTicket. This will allow you to create a help-desk very quickly for your site.

Creating sub-domains are very simple. Under the domains sections, click the sub-domains icon. From here just type in a unique name and use the drop down box to select your root domain. You will also need to select the directory where the files will be stored. Most likely it will be auto filled. If that is the case, just click the create button and your new sub-domain is done.

Another common option is setting up domain re-directs. You would use re-directs to direct users to a new website. Especially if you changed your business name or blog name. Another reason to use re-directs is to direct domains with the same name but different TLD (Top Level Domain). For instance, you might want to direct your .ORG domain to your .COM domain. This is common for businesses that own multiple domains, but use only one as their main site.

Setting up a re-direct is also very simple. Click the re-directs icon under the domains section. On the next page, set the type to permanent (301) (this is important to maintain your website SEO).  Now select which domain you want to re-direct from the drop down list. In the re-directs box, type in the new domain that the site will be re-directing to. Make sure that re-direct with or without WWW is selected. Click the add icon to finish. Give it a few hours to propagate and your old domain will start re-directing to your new one.

Database Management

The databases section of cPanel, allows you manage all your databases. Here you will find options to add new databases and users. To add a new DB and User, click the MySQL databases icon. On the next page, you will find all your current databases, plus an option to add a new one. Type a name for your new DB and click the create button. Further down the page you can add a new user for any database listed. Type in a new username and password and again click the create button. After the username has been created, you will need to associate the username with your new DB. Look for the section titled Add User to Database. Use the drop-down box to select both your desired database and user and click add. After you click the button you will be redirected to a new page. Here you will need to set the privileges for the new user. In most cases you want to grant all privileges. Once the desired adjustments are made, click the make changes button. You will now be taken back to the previous page. If desired, you can look at the current databases table and verify that the user is associated with the database. If everything looks good, your new database is ready to be used. Note: In some cases, depending on your webhost, you will find a database wizard. This may be an easier way to go. It will walk you through doing everything we discussed above.

One other task you might want to perform is editing the data inside of a database. cPanel uses a program called phpMyAdmin. Clicking on this icon brings up a page like below

 From here, you will find a list of databases on the left hand side. Select the database you want to use and a new page will be presented so you can manipulate any of your sites data. To see some basic changes to a MySQL database, I have written a how-to on changing the admin username for word press. Here you can get a better understanding of the phpMyAdmin interface.

Installing SSL Certificates

Installing a SSL cert is pretty straightforward. There is one gotcha that you do need to be aware of. In order to install a new cert, you will need to be on a dedicated IP address. You will not be able to install certs on a shared IP.

The first thing you need to do is decide who will be your cert provider. If you have yet to decide, I recommend Namecheap.They offer great service and have some of the cheapest prices on the web. The SSL certs they sell are provided by Comodo and can be had for as little as 9.00 per year for a basic cert.

Once you decide on your provider, you will need to login to cPanel. Under the SSL/TLS section click on “Generate a SSL Certificate and Signing Request”. Input all relevant info into the supplied fields (must match the whois info for your domain). Click create. Copy the RSA private key and paste into a text document. Save the file and store in a safe place. You will need it later. Under SSL/TLS, click on SSL Manager. In the column labeled CSRS, click the floppy icon next to the new cert request. This will display your CSR. The CSR is used to request the SSL Cert from your provider. Once you have used the CSR to request the cert, they will authenticate the domain against the whois info. Once authenticated, they will send an email with a link to download your new SSL.

Installing the cert in cPanel can be accomplished under the same SSL/TLS section. You will find an icon labeled “Install a SSL Certificate and Setup the Domain”. Once you click the icon you will be presented with text boxes to input all the relevant cert info. Open all files that where emailed to you with a text editor(notepad for Windows). Copy and Paste in your signed SSL cert in the cert text box. Now copy your RSA private key into the key box. Depending on your cert, you may have a CA bundle. If you received a CA Bundle, copy it into the ca text box. Confirm you have the correct domain, IP address and User. Once confirmed, click “do it”. Your new cert will now be active for your chosen domain.

Web Statistics And Logging

A nice feature that many webmasters like to have is the ability to view web stats and website logs. With cPanel, it couldn’t be easier. Under the logs section, you will find an icon for either webalizer or awstats. These allow you to view very important data about what your users are doing on your site, where they came from and which search engines are bringing you traffic. The info that is provided is a lot like what Google displays from their analytics. If you do not or can not use Google for analytical purposes, the two programs mentioned are great alternatives.

The error logs can also be accessed through the same section. Their is an icon labeled “error log”. Clicking this will show the last 300 entries that the web server recorded. This is a great place to troubleshoot any issues you might come across with your site.

Conclusion

cPanel is rapidly becoming the industry standard. You will find that most webhost are utilizing this application. While the initial learning curve can be big, you will soon find that cPanel is extremely user friendly and very powerful.