Looking for a user guide tutorial book to help you master the confusing world of cPanel? You can easily get the most from the control panel juggernaut in the cPanel User Guide and Tutorial book.

Read on…

Allowing the root user to login directly is a major security issue, we’ll show you how to disable it so you can still login as root but just not directly, reducing the security issue.

This will force a hacker to have to guess 2 separate passwords to gain root access.(you do have 2 separate passwords for admin and root right?) What happens is you’ll first need to login as your admin user in SSH, then switch to the super user with the su command to get root.

We also will be forcing the use of SSH protocol 2, which is a newer, more secure SSH protocol. Just a couple more ways to help your server stay safe from the bad guys. If you’re using cPanel make sure you add your admin user to the ‘wheel’ group so that you will be able to ‘su -’ to root, otherwise you may lock yourself out of root.

Read on…

I decided to mix things up a little ‘bit today and give you a list of some of the most popular dedicated hosting tutorials we have featured here on the dedicated server hosting blog.  Enjoy!

WAP and Dedicated Servers

Does a Dedicated Server package have a WAP feature/server? Just about any dedicated hosting setup will allow WAP. You’ll just need to setup Mime types and DirctoryIndex settings in web server configuration. The following guide mentions settings for both Windows and Linux servers to be setup for WAP.

Remote Access key in WHM

This is how you would setup a remote access key in Web Host Manager (WHM). The first thing you would need to do is login to WHM. From the front page, click on "Cluster/Remote Access". Next, click on "Setup Remote Access Key".

Read on…

How much do you know about Red Hat as it pertains to dedicated hosting?

Red Hat is one of the largest and most recognized companies in the Open Source community, probably best known for their enterprise-class operating system, Red Hat Enterprise Linux.

The advanced platform really eliminates the costs and complexity of enterprise-class virtualization, high availability and storage management.  Here is more about the Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5 server from the developers:

Red Hat Enterprise Linux is available in two variants for servers. A base Red Hat Enterprise Linux server is designed for small deployments while Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Platform is designed for mainstream customers and provides the most cost-effective, flexible, and scalable environment. Both versions are based on common core technology. Both include a comprehensive suite of open source server applications and virtualization capabilities.

To learn more about Red Hat as a dedicated hosting OS of choice, be sure to check out this link:

• http://www.redhat.com/rhel/server/

For dedicated hosting needs, Red Hat is one of the best of the best.

One popular choice when it comes to Linux-based operating systems out there on your dedicated hosting server is CentOS.

What is it?  CentOS is well known for being an enterprise level Linux distribution and this freely provided across the Web.  The entire thing is managed by a network of developers, system administrators, network administrators, and core Linux contributors and enthusiasts from around the globe.

Where can you go for CentOS support?

• CentOS Wiki
• CentOS 5 Forums

CentOS 2, 3, 4 and 5 are built from publicly available open source SRPMS provided by a prominent North American Enterprise Linux vendor. CentOS conforms fully with the upstream vendors redistribution policies and aims to be 100% binary compatible. (CentOS mainly changes packages to remove upstream vendor branding and artwork).

Hope this look into CentOS is helpful!

What time is the best time to move to a dedicated hosting account?

It is not hard to manage dedicated server without a lot of experience, if you purchase control panel for it. If you have experience with cPanel on the shared plan, I would recommend purchasing this control panel for your dedicated server as well. cPanel gets installed on most dedicated servers with similar setup like our shared ones have.

As for when to switch to the dedicated server, there can be two reasons. First is you need some component that can’t be installed on the shared server. Second is resource consumption by your site that overgrows the allowed limits for shared plan. The most important limits are CPU, memory and MySQL connection utilization.

If you don’t have access to the resource stats for your site and you can ask the support to provide them from time to time to see, if you are near to or in the the red line. However, my recommendation would be upgrading to the dedicated server before when you are expecting traffic and client amounts increase to avoid possible downtime or hurry with site switch to the new server.

How difficult is it to move from shared to dedicated web hosting?

It is not hard to manage dedicated server without a lot of experience, if you purchase control panel for it. If you have experience with cPanel on the shared plan, I would recommend purchasing this control panel for your dedicated server as well. cPanel gets installed on most dedicated servers with similar setup like our shared ones have.

As for when to switch to the dedicated server, there can be two reasons. First is you need some component that can’t be installed on the shared server. Second is resource consumption by your site that overgrows the allowed limits for shared plan. The most important limits are cpu, memory and mysql connection utilization.

Unfortunately, you don’t have access to the resource stats for your site and you can ask the support to provide them from time to time to see, if you are near to or in the the red line. However, my recommendation would be upgrading to the dedicated server before when you are expecting traffic and client amounts increase to avoid possible downtime or hurry with site switch to the new server.

Want to see what WHM (Web Host Manager) and cPanel look like before you buy you next dedicated hosting account?  You can check out the demos for both on cPanel’s own web site:

http://www.cpanel.net/products/cpwhm/try_cp_whm.htm

Just plug the correct user name and login into the right demo, and you are all set.  This is perfect for those out there who have never used eitehr – and want to see what they look like and feel like before they sink the money into them.

Also, it is worth taking note that not all cPanel themes (or WHM themes) will be alike.  So you should ask your dedicated hosting provider that you have or you would like to have if their cPanel and WHM look like the ones on cPanel’s official web site.

This is how you would setup a remote access key in Web Host Manager (WHM).

The first thing you would need to do is login to WHM. From the front page, click on "Cluster/Remote Access". Next, click on "Setup Remote Access Key".

If you are incorporating an external script that automates account creation and management, it will ask you for a remote access key. WHM automatically creates the encrypted code for you. Simply generate the key, copy and paste into your script. To generate the new key, hit the button marked "Generate New Key" button.

After doing so, you will be able to setup a remote access key in WHM.

Want to backup your account from cPanel? 

The first step in the process would be to login to your cPanel account. Once you are on the front page, then find and click the icon marked “Backup”. This will take you to the cPanel Backup screen.

Full Backups

The full backups are backups of your entire web site and everything in it except for MySQL databases. To generate a full back, click on the link at the top of the page that reads, “Generate/Download a Full Backup”.

To do a normal backup generation, just select from the Backup Destination drop down menu, “Home Directory”. Next, put in your e-mail address in the second box and skip over the remote settings. Click on the button that reads, “Generate Backup” and you should be e-mailed once the backup is ready to download. When it is, you can come back and get it. To download your backup, login to cPanel and click on “Backup”. From there, under full backups click on the text link the reads, “Download a home directory backup”.

Backup Your MySQL Databases

To backup your MySQL databases, login to cPanel. Once you are on the front page, then find and click the icon marked “Backup”. This will take you to the cPanel Backup screen.  Near the bottom of this page, you should see a section titled, “Download a MySQL Database Backup” with your databases listed under it.

Click on your database name, and then save the backup to your own computer.