Control Panel Detail

cPanel is a fully-featured web-based control panel that allows you to manage your domain through a web interface. The idea is to transfer as much of the control and responsibility of managing your web site to you. You have the ability to manage all aspects of email, files, backup, FTP, CGI scripts, and web site statistics. Here are the feature details:

E-Mail:

Manage Accounts:
You can set up as many POP (Post Office Protocol) email accounts as you require, up to your maximum limit. Each one of these is in the standard email formation of address@yourdomain.com. As with your default email address, you can access these accounts through NeoMail or through your own offline email application.

Webmail:
You can read your online email using NeoMail. This popular webmail script allows you to read your email, save them, keep an address book, and perform all of the other basic email functions that you are used to. The main difference between NeoMail and an offline email applications, such as Eudora or Microsoft Outlook Express, is that all of these functions are performed online, rather than on your own computer, and offline applications generally provide many more features.

Default Address:
Any email that is sent to an unknown account at your domain name, such as unknown@yourdomain.com, gets automatically rerouted to your default email account. All web site accounts are automatically assigned a default email address - user@yourdomain.com - which you can change, if required
Note: You can enter :blackhole: to throw away all incoming mail, or :fail: to bounce the email back to the sender.

Auto-responders:
Auto-responders are email messages that are sent automatically when an email arrives for a specific email account. Auto-responders are most commonly used for an "Out of Office" style message to inform your correspondents that you are not available, without you having to reply manually. You can have more than one auto-responder on one account.

Blockers:
Spam is the electronic version of junk mail, and has been around since the Internet was created. Spam filters are a way of filtering your email to remove unwanted mail based on a variety of criteria. You can block any sort of email, not just mail of a commercial nature. Blocked mail is deleted automatically - it does not even bounce back to the sender.

Forwarders:
Forwards simply allow you to automatically forward email sent to one account to another account. This is useful when you work at two separate locations, or have gone on holiday.

Mailing Lists:
cPanel includes a popular mailing list script called Mailman. Mailing lists are an ideal tool for communication between far flung participants and can be about anything you want. Mailman allows you to set up a mailing list with a large number of configurable options, such as who is on the list, where mailing lists messages are sent, and whether you include welcoming messages to new subscribers.

MX Entry:
cPanel manages your email through its own mail server. However, by altering your MX (Mail Exchange Record) Entry you can point your email to another mail server, if this is required.

Spam Assassin:
Spam Assassin is a mail filter installed on a mail server used to identify spam. It checks for spam using a large number of pre-set rules that check the header, body, and sender of all email messages sent to your domain mailbox. For more information about Spam Assassin, refer to the following links:

Spam Assassin - Spam Assassin web site.

Spam Assassin rules - A list of all the rules that Spam Assassin currently uses.

Stats:

Webalizer Web Stats:
The Webalizer tool creates a graphical summary display of usage of your site. This is useful to give you a quick and clear overview of your web site activity.

Web / FTP Stats:
The Web / FTP Statistics area presents you with a wide variety of information about your web site, from the latest visitors to a detailed monthly summary of hits, as well as providing an error log. Use the Statistics tools to keep track of what pages are being visited most often, and where they are being referred from.

Analog Stats:
The Analog reporting tools presents the most comprehensive coverage of web server statistics available for your web site using cPanel. Refer to the following links for more information about the Analog tool:

Analog documentation - All available Analog documentation.

Analog reports - A detailed description of all available Analog reports.

FTP:

The FTP area deals with all the tools relating to setting up and managing FTP accounts, as well as managing FTP sessions. FTP (File Transfer Protocol) is a method by which you can transfer files between computers, usually using the Internet. There is a huge amount of information stored on FTP servers around the world which can only be accessed by using FTP. When using FTP you use an application called a "client" to connect to a machine called a "server".

There are a large number of FTP software packages available. Some of them are built in to your browser (such as Internet Explorer), others are dedicated applications (such as such as CuteFTP or WS_FTP), while still others are built into web applications (File Manager in cPanel is one example). Generally speaking, if you are going to spend a lot of time using FTP or have a large amount of files to upload/download, a dedicated FTP client is the way to go.

Domains:

Subdomains:
Subdomains are a way of creating separate accounts within your master account, which are accessed as separate URLs. For example, you could set up a "timber" subdomain on your master account "hardware.com", which would be accessed as "timber.hardware.com". A lot of larger businesses use subdomains to establish branding and focus on separate product lines, because a subdomain creates a separate URL and web presence. However, you do not create a new cPanel when you create a subdomain. You still perform most administration functions for the subdomain through your master cPanel

Advanced

The Advanced Menu area deals with a number of options that you normally would not need to use very often, including cron jobs, mime types, Apache handlers, and a number of other useful tools. Generally you only need to use these tools to perform unusual tasks.

Databases

MySQL:
SQL stands for Structured Query Language. SQL is a international standard in querying and retrieving information from databases. mySQL is essentially a SQL server - it responds to requests for information that are written in SQL. You can communicate with mySQL using a wide variety of programming languages (PHP being one of the most common). mySQL is Open Source software and generally free for use.

Refer to the following links for more information about mySQL :

mySQL FAQ - a good place to start.

mySQL and PHP tutorial - a good introduction to using the two Open Source technologies together.

phpMyAdmin:
cPanel includes a web-based mySQL management tool called phpMyAdmin. This tool allows you to manage all aspects of your database structure and data. Refer to phpMyAdmin documentation if you need to know more about using phpMyAdmin.