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 install FrontPage extensions in Direct Admin

Click the Frontpage Extensions link

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

Now let’s learn how to install FrontPage extensions in our hosting account

Remember that FrontPage extensions should only be installed if you are using Microsoft’s FrontPage to build your website

If you’re not using FrontPage, then do not install the FrontPage extensions

Let’s assume we’re using FrontPage, and need the extensions installed….. you can see here that FrontPage extensions are not currently installed in this account

Let’s go ahead and install them….. you first need to enter your account password….. a step for added security

Then click the Enable button

To uninstall FrontPage extensions, simply click Disable here

That’s all there is to it! The FrontPage extensions have been installed in the hosting account, as you can see here

Uninstalling FrontPage extensions is just as easy, and doesn’t require you to enter your password

The FrontPage extensions have been removed from the account

Click the Home icon here

This is the end of the tutorial. You now know how to install and/or uninstall FrontPage extensions from your hosting account

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 create a MySQL database 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 create a MySQL database

Let’s go ahead and create a new database… click this link

This is the main MySQL database screen where you can create new databases, or manage existing ones

Create a Database Name, and Database Username in the spaces provided

Then enter the database Username Password here…..

….. and again here

Then click the Create button

Scroll down…

The database has been successfully created

Now let’s return to the database page…. Click Here

Listed here are the values you’ll need if connecting to this database from a program or script

Let’s click on the database we just created

From this page you can create new databases, or modify existing ones

Now click the modify privileges link for this user

Let’s leave everything unchanged…. click the Save button

Although you’ll typically never have to modify any of these settings, this is where you would limit certain types of access for specific users

Click the Home icon here

This is the end of the tutorial. You now know how to create MySQL databases, and modify user preferences

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

Becoming familiar and Navigating around in Direct Admin

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

Now let’s familiarize ourselves with Direct Admin

Across the top of the main Direct Admin screen, there are icons available for easy access to the most popular tools

The Webmail icon will take you directly to your webmail application…..

The Password icon is a quick link to where you can change or reset your account password…..

The Help icon will take you to complete documentation on using Direct Admin…..

The Files icon takes you directly to File Manager

Let’s go take a look at the available Help documentation….. click the Help icon

… and the Logout icon is what you click when you are finished with Direct Admin. You should always logout when you are finished

Click the editing HTML link here

This is the main Help page, and it has dozens of helpful links for learning how to use Direct Admin

We get taken to a page that explains exactly how to edit HTML pages, complete with additional links you can click to get more information

Now click the Creating e-mail accounts link

Here’s a page that explain how to create email accounts

This help page is a terrific source of information on using Direct Admin

On the right of the screen is some general account information

You can see how much disk space you’ve used, and how much you have available to you…..

….. and same with Bandwidth (or data transfer), E-mails, FTP accounts and MySQL Databases

Scroll down…

Now back at the main Direct Admin page…..

Click the Server Information link here

… and if we scroll down…

Here we can see detailed information about the server…..

Scroll back to the top of the page…..

We can see if all the services in the server (Exim, MySQL, Apache, etc) are running properly

Click the Home icon

Now let’s take a look at the Installed Perl Modules….. click here

This page lists every Perl module that’s installed in the server. You may need to consult this page if you’re installing a script that needs a certain Perl module, and you’re unsure if it’s installed

Scroll down…

This list is very long…..

Click the Home icon here

This is the end of the tutorial. You should now be more familiar with navigating around in Direct Admin. To learn more about the various features of Direct Admin, you can return to the Help link on this main page