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Untitled Document
Getting started with your new hosting account
This guide will cover the basics of getting your web site up and running. You may also wish to view the documentation for the control panel for additional help. After logging in to the control panel, (www.yourdomain.com/cpanel) there is a link to the documentation at the bottom of the column to the left of the page.
Please keep in mind that many of these instructions require your domain to be actively pointing towards the web server. Domain registrations and transfers generally take 24-72 hours to take effect. You may have been provided with alternate links for accessing your site in your signup email. These links will enable you to perform basic functions while you wait for the domain changes to occur, but many features of the control panel (ie FrontPage extensions, email, etc..) will not operate correctly until the domain changes have fully propagated.
Contents
Access your sites control panel.
Creating and checking email accounts
Uploading your web site
Making DNS or "whois" changes to your domain.
Using Fantastico to install server side scripts.
Need more help getting your site going? feel free to contact us with any questions that you have have.
Access your sites control panel.
To login to the control panel use this link: www.yourdomain.com/cpanel
You will be prompted for your username and password.
If you are not prompted for your username or password then either your domain registration or transfer has not yet taken effect or your web browsers security settings maybe to high.
The control panel enables you to manage all aspects of your web site. Do not worry if you are unfamiliar with many of the available features, they are only there if you need them. The documentation link at the bottom of control panel can give you more information on how to use each feature.
Creating and checking your email accounts
After you have created some mail accounts under the control panel you can send and recieve emails from each account. Many users find it easiest to create email fowarders to redirect all of a users email to their personal email account so they do not have to check multiple email accounts.
To check your email using webmail use the following link: www.yourdomain.com/webmail
You will be prompted for your username and password. Your login name is your full email address. (ie accountname@yourdomain.com). Some systems have problems with the @ sign. You may also login by replacing the @ sign with a + (ie accountname+yourdomain.com).
To check your email using a POP client such as Microsoft Outlook use the following information to configure your software.
inbound and outbound mail servers = mail.yourdomain.com
username = accountname@yourdomain.com or accountname+yourdomain.com
There is also a configuration utility under the control panel that will automaticly set up Microsoft Outlook Express to use an email account. When you list your email accounts you will see the autoconfig link next to each email. By clicking the link you will be taken through a series of steps that will setup your Outlook Express client to use that particular email address.
Uploading your web site
An easy way to place your web site onto the web server is to access the FTP server with this link: ftp://ftp.yourdomain.com. Many web design applications will allow you to publish your site directly from the program. For more information you should read through the help files for your program. Most applications will display the help page if you press the F1 key on your keyboard.
After logging in you will be located in the root (/) directory. Your account is organized into a few directories to help keep your various documents categorized.
/public_ftp
This is for ftp files that you do not want accessible by your web site.
/public_html, /www
Both of these directories point to the same location, and they are the default location for your web documents. Any user who attempts to view your web site will be sent to this directory. Your home page should be named index.htm, index.html or index.php, depending on how your site has been designed. The file index.(htm,html,php) is the default page on your web site. Any time a user types in your domain into a web browser, this file will be displayed. For example the index file for afmu.com can be seen here: http://www.afmu.com
/mail
This is where the server stores all of the email for your domain. You should not have to edit anything within this directory.
/tmp
This is where the server stores your sites access logs. These logs should be viewed by using one of the links within the control panel. You should not edit anything in this directory.
Making DNS or "whois" changes to your domain.
To change the contact information for your domain or to make DNS changes you must first login to our billing system. (www.afmu.com/modernbill)
After logging you should see a section of the page titled
Domain Stats: Here the current number of domains you have registered or transferred will be displayed. Click on the "view details" button and you will be taken to a list of all these domains. You may then click on any one domain you would like to edit and then change the various information.
Using Fantastico to install server side scripts.
Fantastico can automatically install and configure a number of popular scripts for your use. Message forums, shopping carts, image gallery's and more can be created very quickly by using Fantastico. To access Fantastico first you must login to your sites control panel (www.yourdomain.com/cpanel). Then click on the Fantastico button, located near the bottom of the page. You may then click on any script to get more information about it and install it. Most of the scripts will need to use a MySQL database.
Need more help getting your site going? feel free to contact us with any questions that you may have.
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