Direct Admin End User Series (26)

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

Managing MySQL databases with PHPMyAdmin in Direct Admin

Click the MySQL Management link

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

Now let’s learn how to use PHPMyAdmin to manage MySQL databases

Click the phpMyAdmin link

Enter your system username and password

Then click OK

This is the PHPMyAdmin main screen

From this drop-down menu, let’s choose a database to manage

Click the SQL link

There are currently no tables in this database, as indicated here

Click the Import link

You can run SQL queries here, but we’re not going to do that now…..

Then click Browse so we can search for a database to upload

Let’s upload table1.sql from our local computer

Scroll down a little….

To complete the upload, click Go

Click the table1 link

We’ve successfully uploaded the table called table1.sql to the test.sql database

Click the Export link

On this page you can see all the details of table1 within the database test.sql

Now let’s learn how to save the table1 table to our personal computer

Scroll down…..

Select the Save as file check box

Then click Go

Click Save

Click Save

Click Yes to re-write the old table1.sql file

Click Close

We’ve just saved table1 to our computer

Click the Exit button

If at any time you need help with using PHPMyAdmin or MySQL, click on one of these help links

We’ve successfully signed out of PHPMyAdmin

Click the Home icon here

This is the end of the tutorial. You now know how to use PHPMyAdmin to manually manage a MySQL database

How to view your website statistics in Direct Admin

Click the Site Summary / Statistics / Logs link

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

Now let’s learn how to view our website statistics

This is the main web stats screen, and has lots of information about this hosting account

Scroll down…

For example….. we’ve used 2.50 MB of bandwidth so far this month, and are allowed a total of 5,000 MB

We’ve also used only 2 of our allowed 50 POP email accounts

Scroll down…

Here you can view how many resources you’ve used in your account (Current Usage), as well as the total amount you’re allowed (Maximum Usage)

Scroll down…

You can change the email address the server (or server administrator) uses to notify you of important messages here

Scroll back up to the top of the page…..

Here is where you can see all the various services in the server, and whether or not they are running

Click the demo1234.com link here

Now let’s take a look at the webalizer stats for our website

Scroll down…

This is the main Webalizer Stats page

To view more detailed statistics, click the month for which you want to view statistics

Click the [Daily Statistics] link

This is the summary stats page for the chosen month. For more detailed stats, select from the available links

Click the [URLs] link

Let’s return to the Direct Admin page

Click the Home icon here

This is the end of the tutorial. You can return to the Site Statistics page at any time to view updated stats about your website

How to use WebMail in Direct Admin

Click the Webmail icon here

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

Now let’s learn how to use WebMail for accessing email from within Direct Admin

Login to Webmail using your complete POP email address, and it’s password

This is the main screen of SquirrelMail, and it shows the contents of the main inbox

Click the Options link

Click the Folders link

On this page there are several options for configuring the way your webmail displays for you

Although we won’t do it now, feel free to alter any of these options:

Personal Information

Display Preferences

Message Highlighting

Folder Preferences

Index Order

Let’s create a new folder…. enter the new folder name here

Then click Create

From this page you can create or delete folders and sub-folders, which is a convenient way to help organize your email messages

To see our new folder in the folder’s list, click refresh folder list

Click the Addresses link

There’s the new folder we just created!

You can create as many folders and sub-folders as you like….. whatever makes it easier for you to organize all your emails

Scroll down…

SquirrelMail comes with a Personal Address Book which you can use to store commonly used email addresses

Let’s go ahead and add an email address to the address book

When finished, click the Add address button

Let’s delete an address from the address book…..

The new address has been added to the address book, and can be seen here

Now let’s send an email… click Compose

To choose an address from our address book, click the Addresses button here

Let’s select this address to send a message To

Now fill in the rest of the details

The email address is automatically inserted into the To field

Scroll down…

Click the Send button

Click the INBOX.Sent link to see the message we just sent

The message has been sent!

Now go back to the INBOX

There it is!

Let’s delete this message

Now let’s move this message to the Temp Folder we created earlier

Click Move

Let’s go see if it’s there…. click Temp Folder

The message has been moved to the Temp Folder

When finished with webmail, you should always click the Sign Out link

There it is!

This is the end of the tutorial. You should now have an understanding of how to use Webmail from within Direct Admin

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