How to use cpanel

Cpanel is an online graphical interface that allows you to many your domain. The tool is a feature available from several hosts as part of your hosting package.

The interface has several icons and descriptions to match.
To use the cpanel, you must first log in, usually with the credentials obtained form your host. The most common pathways to your cpanel are : www.yourdomain.com/cpanel or hostxxx.yourdomain.com/cpanel.

After successful login, you are presented with a screen that looks much like the icons in Microsoft windows Control Panel.

The panel has several tools but the most important are discussed below.

Mail . Under mail, you have auto responders, forwarders and default address.
An autoresponder automatically sends replies to incoming emails. This is a useful tool that can be assigned to any email address on your domain. So an email address such as sales@yourdomain.com can have an autoresponder containing prices of goods and services if that is what people often ask. Then in the autoresponder email, you can tell the recipient to call you or write to another address if they want more information. To configure, click MAIL, click AUTORESPONDER, Click ADD AUTORESPONDER, type the email address you are setting the auto responder for and fill out the box just like you are sending email. After that, click CREATE below. Once you are done, any one who sends mail to that email address will receive an automatic reply from you with a preset content.

Forwarders. A forwarder will redirect an email address from your domain to your personal web-based inbox. For instance if Ken is the sales contact person and has a yahoo personal email, then all letters sent to sales@yourdomain.com , can be forwarded to ken@yahoo.com. It is easier this way because Ken opens his mails everyday and will find it more convenient than to come to the domain to check his mails. To set it up, click EMAIL, FORWARDER, click ADD FORWARDER, type the domain email address and then type the personal email address at the right hand side after the double orange arrows.

Default address. This is the address set at the establishment of you account. This is a system set address based on your username name. So if your username is gym, then your default email address is gym@yourdomain.com. As soon as you set up your domain, quickly change this email address. The reason is simple. If someone knows your username, then hacking into your domain is half complete. To change the default address, click MAIL, click DEFAULT ADDRESS, click SET DEFAULT ADDRESS.

Password. To change your password, click the CHANGE PASSWORD icon, type the old password, then type the new one and conform. Finally, click CHANGE PASSWORD NOW.

FTP. FTP stands for file transfer protocol. It is a means of loading files from your PC onto your domain. By default, you can upload files to your website by the ftp settings you obtained at registration. The ftp manager is additionally useful if you wish to grant access to some directories. This is a typical scenario. You have organized an essay competition and you have 10 contestants. You can set up an ftp account for them to submit the info and create ten usernames and passwords for them. Also if you run a website whereby you require people to send you information on frequent basis, you can set up accounts like that for them. To set up an ftp account, click FTP MANAGER on the cpanel, click FTP ACCOUNTS, click ADD FTP ACCOUNTS, type a login name and a password, then click CREATE.

File manager. This is the most important tool in your control panel. This is the area where you mange all your files on the website. Within this set up, you have the public html files. Your homepage, ie the entrance to your website, should be found within this directory. To edit or create a new file, click FILE MANAGER to see the list of directories and pages. Click on the directory you want you want . Click the CREATE A NEW FILE icon to create a new file. Next, click inside the text box to give it a name. From here you can choose options in the drop down, then click CREATE. The new file is then created and the name displayed at the lower left hand corner of the screen. To edit a file, click on it, then click EDIT at the right hand corner. Afterwards, save the file.

Disk usage. Track how much space you have left with this tool. Double click the icon to see how much space you have left on your hosting service.

Error pages. If a visitor clicks on a non-existent page in your website, a 404 error is displayed to the user. This number just means that the page does not exist. To redirect visitors to another page or to display more meaningful information, you can change this machine generated display. To change this , click ERROR PAGES and click on the number you don’t want to be displayed. Type the message you want in the box displayed and click SAVE. What you type there should be in html as it is going to be displayed on the web,

Mysql databases. The Cpanel gives you an easy way to create and edit databases. You need databases if you are going to run a site that maintains records such as a membership site. Click MY SQL DATABASE to launch the database interface. If you want a new database, type the name in the box below and click ADD DB .

Redirect. The redirect tool will display a page different from the one a visitor seeks. You need a redirect when you have shifted the contents of one page to another but you do not have the time to make changes to the link on all the pages. Assuming you have a page called stores where you have the list of clothing and you move the contents to a page called clothing. You have to go to the website and change the links to clothing. Assuming you have 200 links, you will find it time consuming to change all that. One easy way is to redirect all requests to stores, to clothing. To configure this, click REDIRECT. Type the name of the old page in the left and the newly redirected to the right. Click ADD.

FrontPage extensions – FrontPage extensions allow you to deploy FrontPage server behaviors on your domain. FrontPage is an easy web authoring tool from Microsoft. Properly installed, you can publish your website to the domain straight from your computer without the need of an ftp too. To install, click FRONTPAGE EXTENSIONS and click reinstall. By default, the extensions are already installed for you. If the installation is successful, you will see a red text labeled installed under a heading called status.

Web/ftp stats. Here you can see the number of times you pages has been viewed together with other interesting facts such as where your visitors have come from, the type of browsers they used etc. Simply click WEB/FTP STATS.

Bulletin board. A bulletin board is al discussion forum where people can post messages for view by others. It is usually used to discuss new, products services or to ask questions about a website. To install a bulletin board, click BULLETIN BOARD, type a name for it and click INSTALL. Next click the bulletin board on the url on the page and log in with your domain credentials. At the bottom of the page you will find the ADMINISTRATION PANEL. Use this link to make any further changes you want as title of the page etc.


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