cPanel Overview.

Different Control Panels

C-Panel is a popular control panel for hosting accounts. Not all of the web hosts use C-Panel, but the features that we will explain in the next articles using C-Panel as example are available to you no matter the type of the control panel used by the web host. Maybe the name of the links or the name of the buttons will not be exactly the same or maybe you will find some options in different categories, but in the end, the output will be similar if not the same.

The purpose of a control panel is quite obvious; it allows you to put together and maintain the website(s) hosted in that account. But what exactly can you control? We will look at:

• Emails and FTP accounts management.
• How to protect information and create access rules.
• Logs and backups.
• How to manage databases and run automated scripts
• How to analyze the traffic.

But first, let's take a look at the C-Panel itself. It opens into two sections: on the left you have two information panels and on the right icons and links leading to different control options.

Account and Server Information

The first panel is the General Account Information panel. You get information about the type of your account, how much disk space and bandwidth you have used and how much is still available and, how many databases, email accounts, FTP accounts, mailing lists, auto responders, etc. have been created.

It's important to not max out on bandwidth because your website might become unavailable or you will be charged extra. The bandwidth counter resets at the beginning of each month.

The second panel on the left is the General Server Information panel. As we discussed in Determining your needs, different websites can be developed using different programming languages. This panel lists the current software running on the hosting server (name and version number) and the paths to where the software is installed. This is technical information; it is more needed by the programmers that developed the website.

Control Panel Options

The options on the right are the links to the pages where you'll actually change settings, create email accounts, etc. Rather than re-listing the manual for these options, in the next articles we'll try and group them by functionality and explain what you can achieve by using them.