Brief Basics

First let’s cover what cPanel is and isn’t…

Is: a place to administrate most aspects of your hosting account.
Is Not: a place to create and edit your website files.

The cPanel Window
When you first log into your cPanel you will notice the following areas:

On the left…
Find and Stats.

On the right…
Preferences, Mail, Files, Logs, Security, Domains, Databases, Software/Services, Advanced.

We’ll cover the first five (5) areas within this issue and continue with the rest in Part 2.

Each host offers different areas (features) so you may find that your cPanel window contains more or less than what is listed above. However, the ones that are listed above seem to be universal within all hosting cPanel accounts. You will also find that they might be arranged differently than how they’re listed above.

Let’s look at each of these areas individually, starting with the first five (5).

FIND
Personally, I have never had the use for this. I am not exactly sure what you would use this for, though I would hazard a guess and say that it allows you to search the different areas within the cPanel. The documentation on this feature seems to be non-existent.

STATS
This area tells you information about your hosting account:

• main domain name
• home directory
• last logged in from IP Address
• disk space usage
• monthly bandwidth transfer
• email accounts
• sub-domains
• parked domains
• addon domains
• ftp accounts
• SQL databases
• mailing lists
• hosting package name
• server name
• cPanel Version
• cPanel build
• theme
• Apache version
• PHP version
• MySQL version
• Architecture
• Operating System
• Shared IP Address
• Path to Sendmail
• Path to Perl
• kernel version
• cPanel Pro version

The Stats are extremely useful in keeping tabs on how much space is left within your hosting account and how much bandwidth is being used by your website and visitors. It also is the place to find what script versions your hosting account handles. This is useful to know when you’re wanting to install scripts and need to know if a script is able to be run on your web hosting account.

PREFERENCES

Within this section there are five (5) main options:

1. Getting Started Wizard: This is the best place to start learning about cPanel and all the things that are valuable to you to do. Also, “It will introduce you to some of the concepts behind web hosting and allow you to configure some basic settings for your website.”

2. Update Contact Info: Does exactly as you would think it does; allows you to update your contact information for your hosting account.

3. Change Style: Gives you the ability to change how the overall theme (look) of your cPanel.

4. Change Language: Allows you to change the language of cPanel to your preferred language.

5. Shortcuts: This gives you the ability to access either or both the cPanel and your cPanel Webmail through desktop shortcuts or through a toolbar within your preferred web browser.

MAIL

You are presented with 11 options:

• Email Accounts: Place to set up your email accounts for your web host/domain.
• Webmail: Gives you the ability to check your email accounts online without the need for third-party software such as Outlook or Thunderbird.
• Forwarders: Allows you to set specific email accounts to have all email that arrives at a specific account to be sent to the one you specify here.
• Autoresponder: Not to be confused with professional autoresponders such as Aweber. This option allows you to set an email message that will be sent back to anyone that contacts your email address. This option is best used for when you go on vacation or are otherwise unavailable.
• Default Address: This email address is mainly used for when any mail is sent to an invalid email address for your domain.
• Mailing List: This options allows you to set up a very simple mailing list where you can sent newsletters or such to a group of people. I highly recommend that you ignore this option, instead invest in a professional service that specializes in this, such as Aweber.
• Manage Filters: “This area you can manage filters for each user. Each user filter is processed after the main account files.”
• Account Level Filtering: “This area you can manage filters for your main account.”
• Email Authentication: This option is usually set by your web host. It is one way to help fight spam.
  Spam and Anti-virus protection: Allows you to set up protection as you want it. Not all hosts have this option available.

FILES

There are eight (8) options within this area to help you manage your website files:

1. Backups: Allows you to backup your files on your web host, including any databases you have created. It also allows you to upload your backup files from your computer to your web hosting account.

2. Backup Wizard: A wizard that will take you through the steps to backing up your files.

3. File Manager: Allows you to upload, create, save, delete, rename, move, etc. your files within your web hosting account. I strongly recommend you do not use this to create your files, or do any thing else to your files unless you have no other choice. Use an FTP program instead to upload and an HTML editor to create your files.

4. Legacy File Manager: Another way to manipulate your files.

5. Web Disk: According to cPanel, “The Web Disk allows you to easily drag and drop files to your hosting account.” In other words, an online FTP program.

6. Disk Space Usage: This option allows you to see at a glance where the files on your website are that use the most disk space.

7. FTP Accounts: This allows you to set up accounts that you can use with any FTP program to access your web hosting account. You can grant others access to these FTP accounts also.

8. FTP Session: You can use this option to see who is currently logged into your web host through FTP.

Continue reading with Part 2