Chapter 3: Control Panel Overview

Our control panel's graphical interface makes managing your web space quick and easy. From the main page of the control panel, you can view any account-related information, and have access to all of the features available with your account. Setting up additional features, and modifying their settings is a snap with the control panel, giving you the flexibility to perform changes within your own timeframe to suit your business needs.

This chapter contains descriptions of all the features offered for every hosting package. Therefore, some features listed here may not appear in your control panel if they are not included with your package. For each of the option descriptions, click the [more] link to view the Chapter dealing with that particular option.

NOTE TO FRONTPAGE USERS: Some of the options in your Control Panel will NOT work with FrontPage Extensions installed. If you choose to utilize FrontPage, consult Chapter 15 of this manual for more information about the conflicts that may arise.

Screenshot and Main Sections

Click here to see what your Control Panel looks like. Once you have logged in, you can access each specific option simply by clicking on it. The Control Panel is divided into three areas: Account Glance, Resources Available, Options, and Control Panel Language.

Account Glance: displays general information about your account such as the domain name, domain user, domain IP, hosting Package, owner's email, contract length, account status, and signup date.

Resources Available: displays the amount of your hosting package resources that are currently being used. The resources listed are

Options: These are all of the options available to your account plan. These options are described in more detail in following sections.

Control Panel Language: Allows you to change the language that your control panel is displayed in. The default is English, and you may change it to German, French, or Spanish.

On this page you will find a complete record of your billing history. Included is a log of every bill and notification that you have been sent, and any payments or additional purchases that have been made.

This page gives you the ability to change the password of your Control Panel. You are given the option of having this change be reflected in your domain database, or having the database password remain unchanged.

On this page you will find a form that allows you to compose an email to our support staff. By submitting the form, your comments, questions, and concerns are formatted into an email and sent to the support staff.

This page provides you with a view of all the directories and files in your account. From here you can change the permissions of files and directories, create and delete directories, create and edit files, and upload files from your hard drive to your account. See Chapter 7 for an in-depth description and instructions concerning this area.

This section gives you an in-depth record of the use of your resources arranged by the month. Included here is disk space, email account, and mailing list usage. This section also lists your monthly data transfer totals.

With this option you can create and edit email boxes, change passwords, forward email to other email accounts, and create autoresponders for your POP3 email accounts. From here you can also manage any mailing lists that you have setup. (Quick Note: It is not necessary to create email aliases as your default email account acts as a "Catch All Account", in other words anything@yourdomain.com will be delivered to your default mail account.) Please refer to Chapter 9 for details and instructions about this.

Allows you to install the Mailing List program for your account. Once installed, the only reason to use this tool again would be to uninstall the mailing list program. To manage an already created mailing list, use the mail manager section.

Allows you to install Microsoft FrontPage Extensions, which are necessary if you plan to use Microsoft FrontPage with your site. (This Does NOT install Microsoft FrontPage.)

Allows you to view the complete traffic statistics for your website including hit counts, transfer amounts, and more. Chapter 10 contains a detailed breakdown of the powerful features available with this section.

Provides you with instructions for setting up a visitor counter on your web site if your domain has this feature installed. This section also verifies that your counter has been setup for your domain, and allows you to modify the value on any counter.

This section gives you the ability to add forms to your website where users can enter your specified information and have it emailed to an address of your choice.

Allows you to password-protect specific directories within your account. You simply select the directory you want to protect from the drop-down box, and then set the usernames and passwords for it. This feature allows you to set different usernames/passwords to different directories. This option will not work if you are using FrontPage. Instead, Directory protection can be done directly in Frontpage.

This option allows you to redirect any page of your website to a different URL. This is accomplished by simply entering the name of the page you want to redirect, and then entering the intended destination page. Chapter 16 contains more information about this feature. Again, this option will not work if you are using FrontPage. If you are using FrontPage, you must use it's redirection features.

This option allows you to install, manage, or remove a Webglimpse search engine on your website. You can select the directories you wish to be included in searches, and index your web site all at the touch of a button. Refer to Chapter 17 for more information about using this feature.

This option installs anonymous FTP to your account giving users the ability to upload and download files from your site. Chapter 21 contains more information about this feature.

This feature allows you to back-up or compress files and directories on your site. Read Chapter 22 for more information on how to use this feature.

This option provides you with a way of setting certain programs to be used for files with specific extensions. Chapter 20 contains more information on using this feature. You cannot use this option with FrontPage Extensions installed, instead you must use the Frontpage to perform this function.

Allows you to set up your Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption key on the server. PGP is a method for securing e-mail sent by a person or a form. You must have PGP installed on your computer before using this Option.

Provides the same functionality as Formmail but encrypts mail with PGP before it is sent.

This option allows you to install a MySQL database engine to your website. From this page, you can create and completely manage your MySQL database.

Allows you to install a secure certificate (Verisign or Thawte) on your site. This certificate must be purchased in advance from either Verisign or Thawte. The option here helps you generate a request for this certificate.

If you wish to use telnet to access our servers, it can only be done using SSH. If you have SSH (Secure Shell) software on your PC, you can use this option to telnet securely into your site’s server (uses RSA authentication). You will need to create a key using SSH software, then use the SSH feature of your control panel to upload this key to our servers. Once it is uploaded, you will be able to connect to our servers using SSH. Please refer to Chapter 5 for more information and instructions using this feature.

Our site creation tool option. This allows you to create and manage your website without any knowledge of HTML or the use of programs like FrontPage. This tool creates simple pages, and is not designed for the more advanced needs that your web site may require, refer to Chapter 13 for more information regarding the use of this feature.

This option enables the use of Java Servlets on your website. A /home/dev10-www/servlets directory is created in your account where you can upload compiled Java Servlet code and then implement it on your site.

This section of the control panel contains the Traceroute utility which shows you the path on the internet between your site, and whatever server/IP Address you enter. This utility is good for finding bottlenecks and locating the source of broken or slow connections to your website.

This feature gives you access to our latest newsletter containing any information about recent updates, improvements, or changes to our service.

From this page you can update your account information including your mailing address, hosting package, and payment information.

Submits your website to be listed by a number of major search engines. Simply enter the required information, and your website will be automatically submitted. Note: you may not wish to enter your actual email address if you want to avoid receiving spam.

Installs Miva Empresa for your domain. This program is for plans that include the Miva Merchant Shopping Cart.

Provides detailed information about your account. This information is more in-depth than what is found in the Account Glance section of the Control Panel.

Provides information needed to place a support phone call including information about your hosting company and your account.

This section of the control panel allows you to enable and disable SpamAssassin. If SpamAssassin has already been enabled, then this section also contains options for configuring your SpamAssassin filter's settings.

This section of the Control Panel allows you to enable and disable the SpamGuard email filtering service on your account. Once SpamGuard has been enabled, this section will contain a disable button, and some instructions about the SpamGuard service. All other SpamGuard configuration takes place in the "Mail Manager" section of your control panel.

This section of the Control Panel allows you to enable and disable the Quaranteen email attachment filtering service on your account. Once Quaranteen has been enabled, this section will contain a disable button, and some instructions about the Quaranteen service. All other Quaranteen configuration takes place in the "Mail Manager" section of your control panel.