cPanel Overview

Contents

Overview

cPanel is designed for managing your website/web server with ease. With cPanel, you can:

upload and manage files for their websites
edit DNS records for their domains
add/remove addon domains and subdomains
install CMS using the Softaculous script installer
create email accounts
manage email settings and SPAM protection
check website statistics
manage databases and backups, etc.

Search

A search bar that allows you to find cPanel features quickly. Just start typing to bring up your desired tool/application.

General Information

Here you will find the general information related to your cPanel account:

If you click Server Information you will find more details about your web hosting package.

Statistics

This section holds your quotas and displays your current resource usage:

Files

File Manager: here you can manage the files stored inside your account.

Images: this tool allows you to view and modify images in your account.

Directory Privacy: allows you to password-protect your website/certain folders.

Disk Space Usage: reveals detailed information about your resource usage.

FTP Accounts: this option allows you to create and manage FTP accounts – which will let access your server and upload/download files.

FTP Connections: reveals who is currently logged into your site via FTP.

Backup: this feature allows you to download a zipped copy of your entire account or specific parts of it, such as your home directory, databases, email forwarder configuration, or your email filters configuration. More details guidance about how to make backups in cPanel can be found here.

Backup Wizard: is a user-friendly interface for creating backups of your site.

Inodes Usage: provides statistics on your accounts inodes (files) usage.

Databases

phpMyAdmin: is a database management tool. It is super useful and allows you to make direct changes to your MySQL tables/databases.

MySQL Databases: will allow you to create and manage MySQL databases inside cPanel.

MySQL Databases Wizard: provides the same functionality as above, however creates a 3-step user friendly process.

PostgreSQL Databases: this option allows you to create and manage PostgreSQL databases in cPanel.

PostgreSQL Databases Wizard: has the same functionality as PostgreSQL Databases (above) but displays the process in a user-friendly way.

phpPgAdmin: is a database management tool, that allows you to make chages to your PostgreSQL databases.

Emails

Email Accounts: in this application, you can create and manage mailboxes associated with your domain name.

Forwarders: allow you to forward emails to another address. E.g. hello@yourdomain.com can be redirected to your personal inbox. – Perfect if you want to use a vanity business email address, but wish to continue to use your private email address for correspondence.

MX Entry: allows you to setup and modify your MX records.

Autoresponder: allows for automatic messages to be dispatched. (E.g. a “sorry this inbox isn’t checked” autoresponder would be good for a noreply@yourdomain.com email address).

Mailing Lists: with this option you can create a single address to send emails, newsletters and other updates to multiple email addresses simultaneously.

Track Delivery: allows you to track routing of email messages.

Global Email Filters: will allow you to setup email filters for all addresses on your domain.

Email Filters: will do the same as above, but for one account (opposed to every address on the domain).

Authentication: is a tool that helps prevent spam. This is done by setting up a DKIM and SPF record.

Domains

Addon Domains: with the help of this application, you can add more domains to your hosting account.

Subdomains: allows you to setup subdomains (e.g. help.geckohost.nz)

Aliases: this will let you ‘park’ additional domain names on your existing hosting account. They will display the same website as your primary domain and share web statistics as well.

Redirects: here you can create redirects for specific domains/pages to other domains/pages and display the contents of the latter.

Simple Zone Editor: will allow you to edit basic DNS settings such as A and CNAME records.

Advanced Zone Editor: allows you to edit all DNS settings such as A, CNAME, SRV and TXT records.

Metrics

Visitors: provides a log of all the visitors who have been on your website.

Errors: will reveal the last 300 errors that users encountered on your website.

Bandwidth: provides an accurate calculation of the bandwidth used by visitors on your website.

Raw Access Logs: provides a RAW access log for everything that has happened on your account.

AWStats: shows a detailed breakdown of the visitors who have been on your website, where they’re from, and how they got to your domain.

CPU and Concurrent Connection Usage: shows information on the resources consumed by your account.

Security

SSH Access: allows you to generate an access key for your account to be edited/viewed via. SSH.

IP Blocker: provides you a way to block certain visitors from accessing your website.

SSL/TLS: will run you through setting up an SSL certificate on your domain – crucial for e-commerce websites.

Hotlink Protection: allows you to enable hotlinking protection. (Preventing people from directly linking of your images and consuming your hosting account bandwidth).

Leech Protect: allows you to control whether or not users can give out or publicly post their passwords for restricted areas of your site. It can be used to redirect compromised accounts to a URL of your choice (e.g. a suspended page).