It is important to keep your eye on your resources when you have a dedicated hosting plan so that you know when and if something is about to or has gotten out of hand.  Here I hope to give you a few handy tips when it comes to monitoring your site resources and statistics in Plesk.

First thing you need to do is login to your Plesk control panel, and click on Limits.  As you can see Limits displays the resource limits allocated to your account.  It lists such details as:

• Maximum Number of Subdomains
• Disk Space
• Bandwidth
• Maximum Amount of Traffic
• Maximum Number of Web Users
• and more…

Now click on Up Level at the top of the Limits window for your domain, and click on Report.  The Report will show you all account resource limits & usage, as well as users and a full list of all available scripts, utilities and resources.

FTP Stats will show you a history of FTP activity on your site - both in upload as well as download. 

Traffic History will display information on traffic usage by Months and Years on your dedicated hosting account.  To view the detailed traffic statistics used by various services at the domain, click on the Traffic button.  The page will open displaying the traffic usage table.  You can send a copy of the report to an e-mail address you specify too at the bottom of the Report screen.  You can also set up a schedule for automatic delivery of the reports. 

The last detail about monitoring dedicated resources inside of Plesk is the Web Statistics Preferences screen.  From here you can set some of the preferences that will dictate the display of refers in your stats.

Now you should be a little more handy when it comes to stats and resources inside of your Plesk control panel via your dedicated web hosting account.

Have a trouble maker in your dedicated server?

Now we will explain how to suspend a user account in Web Host Manager (WHM).  Now there are a variety of reasons you might need to temporarily suspend an account.  Examples would be non-payment, breach of your own TOS, overages in bandwith and more.  Now lets say you have a trouble maker your hosting on your dedicated account and you want to suspended him.

Login to WHM, then click on Account Functions.  From there, click on Suspend/Unsuspend an Account.  Now you should see a two columned list of all the accounts your hosting on your dedicated server.  Select the account you wish to suspend.  Now you need to enter a reason for the suspension (keep it short and sweet) and then hit the suspend button.  Now if you want to unsuspend an account go into:

Account Functions > Suspend/Unsuspend an Account

Then click on the account you wish to unsuspend, and hit the unsusupend button.  Your done!  Now you can have a little more control using WHM with your hosted accounts under your dedicated server.

Via Web Host Manager (WHM), upgrading and downgrading a package or site you have installed is an important aspect to master.  To start off, login to WHM.  Occasionally, you will want to upgrade or downgrade your hosting packages inside.  This is how you get that done.  Click on “Account Functions” and then go to “Modify an Account”. 

From the Modify an Account page you can select the exact account you wish to modify.  All you have to do is click on the domain for the package and click the “Modify” button.  Here you can see several things you can change. 

You can change the domain name, the cPanel theme, the language, the user name, the max e-mail accounts, the max ftp accounts, the max mailing lists, the max subdomains, the max SQL databases, the max parked domains, the max addon domains and if you can, you can add or remove shell access.

Once you are done changing the settings, hit the “Save” button on the bottom of the screen and you should be all done.  Now you can login to the cPanel for the account you edited to confirm all was changed correctly.

This is how you manage Crontabs and use the Crontab Manger in Plesk on your dedicated hosting account.  Crontab will allow you to automatically run scheduled tasks on the server, and if selected, receive automatic emails showing the results.

First step would be to login to Plesk, and then go down to the Crontab icon and click it.  Next, you will need to select the name of the user for whom you wish to manage the crontab.  You can also setup crontab messages to be sent to your e-mail address.

To get the task setup, click on the “Add New Task” icon under your Crontab tasks page.  On the next page you should see a web page that reads “Editing the Crontabs tasks of yourusername”.  Enter the specific parameters to set the frequency of the task.  Enter * to select all.

Now under command, you will enter the path to the fill that will execute the crontab.  Once that is done, hit the OK button and you have finished creating your first crontab on your dedicated hosting account using Plesk.

Any great web site out there, especially those on a dedicated sever, need to have an equally as great backup plan.  Thankfully if you are using Plesk, this is an easy process to step through.

First thing you need to do is login to your Plesk control panel, and then click on the "Back up" icon.  You can then backup locally or remotely.  For convenience, you can enter your FTP details and store them for future sessions.  To do so, click on FTP Account Properties and then fill out all the blanks, giving Plesk your FTP information to remember.  Now that you have that done lets backup our files.  Click on Create Backup on the main Backup page, and then you should see a screen labeled Backup file creation.

Now click on the backup method, either local, download or remotely on an FTP server.  You can also create a multivolume backup from here too.  Now under FTP settings, you should see that everything has been filled out for you.  Give your backup file a name, leave a comment to help your remember what it was about and also you can put in your e-mail address so you will be notified as soon as the backup is done.

When your ready, click on the "Back up" button.  After doing so you may wish to play with other options you have such as enabling backups on a schedule so you don’t have to actually login and do all of this to get it done each time.  You can also browse through the backup file repository too.

Do you want to keep yourself updated to know what you’re using on your dedicated server and when? This kind of information can be especially helpful if you are allotting a certain amount of disk space, bandwidth, or email accounts to specific clients on your dedicated server. Plus, knowing what you are using and how often will assist you in keeping your server up to date and if you need to upgrade, you will know before any issues arise.

In Plesk, via Windows or Linux hosting, you can find this information easily.

First, click on Limits

Limits displays the resource limits allocated to your account. For example, it shows you the maximum number of subdomains allowed, disk space, maximum traffic or bandwidth, maximum number of web users, maximum number of databases, maximum number of mailboxes, mailbox quota, maximum number of mail redirects, maximum number of mail groups, maximum number of mail autoresponders, maximum number of mailing lists, and a ton more.

To see account resources limits and usage, click on Report.

Report options will display all resource limits and usages, as well as users and a full list of all available scripts, utilities, and resources. For example, you’ll see Web Statistics, Web Stats, Web Stats SSL, FTP Stats, Traffic History, and can manage Report Delivery.

If you click on FTP Stats, this will show you a history of FTP activity in your website, both in upload as well as download.

If you click on Traffic History, this will display information on traffic usage by Months and Years.

To view detailed traffic statistics used by various services at the domain, click on the Traffic button.

If you’d like to keep yourself updated, you can also choose to send a copy of the report to any email you specify.

Or, you can setup a schedule for automatic delivery of reports by clicking on Report Delivery.

Accessing this information can assist you in self-managing your dedicated web hosting.

We have already gone over the importance of using cronjobs to manage your Dedicated Server, as these scheduled tasks assist you in self-managing. This will save you time, staff, and money in the long run, especially because they are so incredibly easy to setup! Crontab will allow you to automatically run scheduled tasks on the server, and if selected, receive automatic emails showing the results. These email updates can really save you hassle, as you will know that each task has been completed and what the results were immediately.

Using Plesk on Linux or Windows dedicated servers, you can manage your crontabs effeciently by simply following these easy steps:

Click on Crontab and then select the name of user who you want to manage the crontab. There should be a dropdown box of all the users listed on your dedicated server. You can also choose as an optional step to have emails sent to whatever address you provide. If you don’t want emails, don’t enter an address in this box:

Next, click on Add New Task which is the small Clock Icon you see in the upper left.

From there, you’ll need to enter the specific paramaters to set the frequency of the task. Enter * to select all. For example, you can set options to run crontabs every minute, every 2 hours, every Monday of each week, and every month of the year. Then simply enter the path to the file that will execute the crontab: i.e. /usr/bin/python-s/var/mailman/cron/checkdbs and click OK:

Afterwards, you’ll be able to assure the task has been successfully setup. If you ever need to modify an existing task, simply click on the name of the cronjob listed under “Command”. To delete existing tasks, check the box next to the command and click on “Remove selected”:

Windows web hosting and MS SQL databases go hand in hand, just like Linux web hosting and MySQL are the most compatible. But what happens if you’re looking to use MySQL with your Plesk control panel in your Windows Server Hosting account?

Here’s a simple tutorial that should help you access phpMyAdmin using Plesk.

First, you’ll want to login with the username and password you got from your dedicated web host.

In order to access phpMyAdmin, you must first have created a MySQL database, so if you have not done that yet, do so now before you proceed.

Once the database with MySQL has been created, click on the “Database” icon in your Plesk control panel and choose whichever database you want to manage. Finally, click on the “DB WebAdmin” icon, where a popup window will open for phpMyAdmin.

NOTE: If nothing pops up, your popup blocker might be preventing this, so double check your settings and proceed once you can access the phpMyAdmin popup.

From there, you can edit tables, fields, data, and perform backups and delete your MySQL databases, right from phpMyAdmin!

If you’re using cPanel, it’s a bit easier: simply click on the icon above the words “MySQL Databases” on the main cPanel interface screen and then you’ll see phpMyAdmin and you can go from there!

So either way, whether you’re using Plesk or cPanel, you will be able to access phpMyAdmin with your dedicated server.

By now, you already know that Silverlight is one of the fastest growing media technologies in the world right now. So if you’re planning to get or already own a dedicated server to run as media server hosting, you’ve got to know a thing or two about deploying Microsoft Silverlight applications on your dedicated server. For example, did you know you can run and install Silverlight applications using a Linux or Windows server?

The good news is that deployment of a Silverlight app is incredibly easy, and our friends at Lunarpages Dedicated Server Hosting have provided this amazing and easy-to-follow tutorial for your convenience.

1. Upload Your Silverlight Application

First, you’ll need to upload the actual application folder under the document root of your account. If you’re on a Linux server, remember that file names, folder names, and links are case sensitive, so ensure these are all correct before proceeding.

2. Specify the MIME Mapping

Working with cPanel on a Linux server, you should first click on the MIME Types icon. It looks like this: Then, add a MIME Type application/xaml+xml with extension xaml.

Working with Plesk on a Windows server is just slightly more complicated, though not by much. First, click on the Web Directories shortcut on the Domain Management page and select the MIME Tabs tab. Add New MIME Type and put .xaml as extension, select content as Custom, and write application/xaml+xml in the next edit box, and click OK.

That’s it! In two simple steps, in Windows or Linux, you have effortlessly deployed your new Microsoft Silverlight application! And you probably didn’t even break a sweat. That’s how easy dedicated server hosting can be when you have great tutorials from great web hosting providers like Lunarpages.

What are the costs involved in setting up my Dedicated Server?

This all depends on what you’re ordering. It’s like if you go to Subway and get a sandwich – if you’re just ordering turkey on wheat, you can get it for a base price. If you want turkey on wheat with extra cheese and extra meat, plus a second sub of similar value, there’s going to be an additional cost per extra cheese, extra meat, and for the second sub. It’s the same way for dedicated servers – if you want extra RAM, extra bandwidth, or a second server, charges will vary.

Remember, your dedicated web host should work with you to provide the best server experience possible, as well as the most minimal cost. Ask about dedicated hosting coupons and get a quote on the server before you buy. If you get a better offer elsewhere but would like to use the more expensive service, be upfront and tell them you found a better deal. More than likely, they will work with you.

Okay, but really – how much should I be expected to pay per month or year?

Let’s take a real-life example. You are a web designer and you want to host all your clients on a Linux dedicated server. So far, you have 50-100 clients and don’t expect to grow more than 5 clients per month. Each client requires 1GB of storage space and 1GB bandwidth/month. Your clients prefer cPanel as a control panel, so they (and you) can manage their services for them. Here’s your dedicated server quote:

• Dedicated Hosting Charge Per Month = $99
• Dedicated Hosting Setup Fee (including setup for cPanel) = $160**
• cPanel Control Panel Charge Per Month = $35

TOTAL CHARGES***:    $294.00

** This setup fee can be removed if you choose to pay for 3, 6, 12, or even 24 months upfront.
*** This is only the first month’s charge, so don’t let it scare you! Next month, you wouldn’t have to worry about setup fees, which means your monthly charge will only be $134.

How can I get the best discounts available on purchasing my first server?

1) Call the dedicated web host – ask for the best discount for your situation
2) Go with our recommendation for LPDedicated.com and use coupon code DSHRAM for 1 Free Month + 1 Free GB RAM or use coupon code DSH for $55 off
3) Go with a longer billing cycle – if you’re not paying month-to-month or if you commit to 12 or 24 months upfront, you can save quite a bit in the long haul