Direct Admin End User Series (26)

Hosting additional domains in Direct Admin

This demo assumes you’ve already logged in to Direct Admin

Now let’s learn how to host additional domains in our hosting account

Click the Domain Setup link

Then click Add Another Domain

Enter the additional domain name you want hosted here

This is where you add new domain names to be hosted within your main hosting account

Set the bandwidth and disk space allowances for this new domain

When finished, click Create

You can also decide if you want this new domain to have SSL, CGI or PHP privileges

Click the Home icon here

That’s it! The new domain has been setup

Click anothersite.com

Now whenever you click Home, or login to Direct Admin, you’ll have to choose which domain you want to manage

Scroll down…

Click the Home icon

You can always tell which domain you’re managing by looking here

Now click demo1234.com

This is the end of the tutorial. You now know how to setup and host additional domains in your hosting account

How to create an autoresponder in Direct Admin

This demo assumes you’ve already logged in to Direct Admin

Now let’s learn how to create an autoresponder

Scroll down…

Click the Autoresponders link

Click the Create New Autoresponder link

This is the screen where you can create autoresponders for your hosting account

When an email is sent to an autoresponder email address, an automatic message is sent back to the sender of the email. Let’s create an autoresponder message

Enter a new email address for the new autoresponder, keeping in mind that the address you enter cannot already exist as a POP email account, forwarder or mailing list

Then enter your autoresponder message here

Scroll down…

If you want to be notified whenever an autoresponse is sent, click here and enter your email address

When finished, click the Create button

That’s it! The new autoresponder has been created, and is listed here

From this same screen, you can also modify existing autoresponders, or delete them entirely

Let’s go ahead and delete the autoresponder we just created

Click the Delete Selected button

The autoresponder has been deleted

Click the Home icon here

This is the end of the tutorial. You can return to the autoresponder page at any time, to add, modify, or delete autoresponders for your hosting account

How to backup your website in Direct Admin

Click the Create/Restore Backups link

This demo assumes you’ve already logged in to Direct Admin

Now let’s learn how to backup our website/files, and restore them

Scroll down…

This is the main backup screen, where you can select specific portions of your account to backup….. Leave everything checked if you want everything in your account backed up

Let’s go ahead and create a backup of this account….. click Create Backup

Scroll down…

Now let’s download the latest backup to our computer….. click here

The backup file has been created

Click Save

Click Save again

When the download is complete, click Close

Now let’s go take a look at the backups we have stored in our hosting account….. click here

Click the Home icon here

Here is our backup, listed in the Backups folder of File Manager

Go back to Create/Restore Backups

Scroll down…

Select the file you wish to restore from this list

Now let’s learn how to restore files from a backup

Then click here to restore the files

You can choose to restore only part of the account, by unchecking the boxes next to the items you don’t want restored

Scroll down…

Let’s restore the entire account…. click here

Scroll down…

Click here to return to File Manager

The account was successfuly restored

Now let’s restore the backup that we previously saved to our computer

Scroll down…

Click Upload files to current directory

Locate the backup file on your computer

Then click Open

Click Upload Files

That’s it! The backup has been uploaded to the server, and can now be used to restore the account

Click the Home icon here

This is the end of the tutorial. You now know how to backup your account to the server, or to your own computer….. and how to restore previously saved backups from the server, or from your computer

How to create a catch-all email account in Direct Admin

This demo assumes you’ve already logged in to Direct Admin

Now let’s learn how to create a catch-all email account

Scroll down…

Click the Catch-All E-Mail link

Let’s go ahead and set a catch-all email address

You have three (3) choices in how to deal with emails being sent to addresses that don’t exist, or aren’t setup in your hosting account

1) You can have the email returned to the sender…

2) You can have the email dropped (deleted) and completely ignored…

3) Or you can have these emails forwarded to a specific email address, which can be an address within your hosting account, or an unrelated address

Let’s select an email address we already have setup in this hosting account

Then click the Update button

That’s it! The new catch-all email account has been setup

Click the Home icon here

This is the end of the tutorial. You can return to the catch-all email setup screen at any time, to change your catch-all email settings

How to setup a Cron Job in Direct Admin

This demo assumes you’ve already logged in to Direct Admin

Now let’s learn about Cron Jobs and how to set them up in Direct Admin

Scroll down…

Click the Cronjobs link

A Cron Job is a system command that you schedule to occur at a later date/time

For example, if you wanted to run a CGI script every Monday morning, you would set this up as a Cron Job

Scroll down…

This is the main Cron Job page where you can setup new Cron Jobs, or delete existing ones

Let’s setup a Cron Job…..

Enter the path of the script you wish to run

When finished, click Add

In this case, we’re setting up a Cron Job to run the test_script.cgi every morning at 9:00am

To delete the Cron Job, simpy select it here, then click Delete

The Cron Job has been setup, and can be seen here

Scroll up to the top of the page

The Cron Job has been deleted

Click the Home icon here

This is the end of the tutorial. You now know how to setup Cron Jobs in Direct Admin, as well as delete them. For more information on using Cron Jobs, please consult www.site-helper.com/misc.html#cron

How to create additional FTP accounts in Direct Admin

Click the FTP Management link

This demo assumes you’ve already logged in to Direct Admin

Now let’s learn how to create a new FTP account

As you can see here, there is already one FTP account, and it is the main (default) FTP account of this hosting account; this default FTP account cannot be deleted

Let’s go ahead and create a new FTP account…. click here

Enter a new FTP username

Then enter and confirm a password for this new FTP account

Scroll down…..

Then click Create

Choose the extent of access you wish to grant this new FTP user

Success! The new FTP account has been setup, and can be seen here

You can change FTP passwords for your FTP accounts from here

Now let’s delete the FTP account we just created

The FTP account has been deleted

Click the Home icon here

This is the end of the tutorial. You now know how to setup additional FTP accounts, change their passwords, and delete them altogether

How to setup email forwarding in Direct Admin

This demo assumes you’ve already logged in to Direct Admin

Now let’s learn how to setup an email forwarder (or redirect)

Scroll down…

Click the Forwarders link

Click the Create new E-Mail Forwarder link

An email forwarder is a way to forward emails that are sent to one address, automatically to another address

Enter the email prefix in this box

Then enter the email address where you want these emails to be forwarded to

Click Create when finished

Let’s return to the email forwarders list

That’s it! The email forwarder has been setup, and now whenever email is sent to john@demo1234.com, that email will automatically be forwarded to john@yahoo.com

Let’s delete the forwarder we just created….. click here

From this screen you can add new email forwarders, modify existing ones, or delete them altogether

Then click Delete Selected

The email forwarder has been deleted

Click the Home icon here

This is the end of the tutorial. You now know how to create new email forwarders in Direct Admin, as well as delete them

How to create a mailing list in Direct Admin

This demo assumes you’ve already logged in to Direct Admin

Now let’s learn how to create a mailing list

Scroll down…

Click the Mailing Lists link

Then click Create Mailing List

Enter an address for the new mailing list

When creating a mailing list, remember that you cannot use an email address that’s already setup as a POP account, an email forwarder, or an autoresponder

Then click Create

Now let’s see how to manage this mailing list….. click View

The mailing list bulletin@demo1234.com has been created

Let’s manually add a new subscriber to the digest form of this mailing list. This means that the messages are stored for a period of time (i.e. weekly or monthly), and then sent out as one large message all at once

Let’s go ahead and add a subscriber to the digest list

Click Add

Let’s see how to change the mailing list settings….. click here

The new subscriber has been added as a digest subscriber, and is listed here

Scroll down…

You have complete control over the mailing list, including setting the list description, digest settings, subscribe policy, maximum message length, moderators, and much more

Scroll down some more…

When finished making changes to the mailing list settings, click Save

Click the Home icon here

This is the end of the tutorial. You should now be familiar with mailing lists, how to create them, how to manually add subscribers, and the types of settings you can modify

How to use File Manager in Direct Admin

Click the File Manager link

This demo assumes you’ve already logged in to Direct Admin

Now let’s learn how to use File Manager in Direct Admin, to manage the files in our hosting account

Let’s go there now….. click public_html

This is File Manager, and it’s here that you can upload files to your account, rename them, delete them, change their permissions, create new folders, and many other functions

Your website files are located in the public_html folder

Let’s create a new folder….. scroll down…

Now we see the files and folders located within the public_html folder

Enter the name of the new folder here

Then click Create

Scroll down…..

Now let’s rename this folder…. click Rename here

The new folder has been created, and can be seen here

Enter the new name of this folder

Then click Rename

Scroll down…..

Now let’s delete the folder altogether… check this box

The folder has been renamed

Scroll down…..

Then click Delete

Click OK to confirm you wish to delete the folder

We want to upload a file to the cgi-bin folder, so click cgi-bin here

Now let’s learn how to upload files to the hosting account

The folder has been deleted

Scroll down…..

Click Upload files to current directory

Now use the browse button to locate a file for uploading, on your computer

Select test_scriptl.cgi

Then click Open

Once you’ve selected all files you want to upload, click Upload Files

Click here to go back

Success! The file has been uploaded to our hosting account

Now let’s change the permissions of the test_scriptl.cgi file….. click here to select the file

Enter the new permissions here

Then click Set Permission

Now let’s delete this file… select it again by checking here

The permissions have been changed, as you can see here

Then click Delete

Confirm the deletion by clicking OK

The file has been deleted

Click the Home icon here

This is the end of the tutorial. You should now be more familiar with using File Manager to upload files, create new folders, renaming files or folders, and setting file permissions

How to use Installatron in Direct Admin

This demo assumes you’ve already logged in to Direct Admin

Scroll down…

Now let’s learn how to use Installatron

Click the Installatron link here

This is the main page for Installatron

Installatron is an auto-installer program, that allows you to install dozens of free scripts and programs, with just a few clicks

The scripts available for installation are listed on the right side of this page, here

Scroll down to see the complete list of available programs…..

That’s quite a long list! There are currently over 50 programs availabe through Installatron

Let’s install the b2evolution blog…. click here

Now let’s go through an example….. let’s install one of the scripts into our account

Scroll down…

To install b2evolution, click New Install

This is the b2evolution page, and contains information about the script we’re going to install

Scroll down…

Enter an admin password here

Take note that this installation requires a MySQL database, so make sure one is available to you before proceeding

Scroll down…

To agree to the script’s Terms of usage, click this checkbox

Click Install when ready

Scroll down…

Click Configure

Scroll down…

To complete the installation, click GO!

Scroll down…

That’s it! b2evolution has been installed

To begin using b2evolution, you can login by clicking here

Close this window, and return to the Installatron screen

Click Finalize

Click OK

You can also administer your b2evolution installation by clicking here

Click the Home icon here

This is the end of the tutorial. You now know how to use Installatron to install dozens of free scripts into your account. Remember that in most cases, you’ll need to make sure you have 1 available MySQL database for successful script installations