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cPanel Administration

DataFly.Net Control Panel Guide

The DataFly.Net Control Panel provides a simple, intuitive interface for clients to manage all aspects of site management all from one central location. Most modules are fairly self-explantory, but you may fond it helpful to read this guide to familiarize yourself with the system.

Customer Support

New Support Ticket
The DataFly.Net Support system allows you to contact us directly with any support issues or questions. Use this module to open a new support ticket which can then easily be tracked and followed until the issue is resolved and ticket is closed. You will be notified by email when DataFly.Net Support responds to your ticket.

View Support Tickets
The major advantage of using this type of system for support is that all of your communications with DataFly.Net Support can easily be viewed in a very organized way. You can view tickets sorted as 'open', 'pending', 'closed', or 'everything'. When you have opened a ticket or added to a ticket and haven't yet received a response from support, your ticket is considered 'open'. Once DataFly.Net responds to your ticket, you will be notified by email and the ticket status will be changed to 'pending'.

Referrals
Use this module to refer DataFly.Net to a friend or associate. The system will create a special link which will be sent to the recipient (a copy will also be sent to you). If they use the link to sign-up, they'll $5.00 off their order, and you'll get $10 off your next bill. More details in the referral module itself.

Email Management Tools

Add/Remove E-mails
All DataFly.Net hosting accounts include unlimited email accounts. This module allows you to add or remove email accounts from the server. You can create as many username@yourdomain.com accounts as you like. After using this module to create your mailboxes on the server, you'll want to add accounts to your email program (ex: Outlook Express) to fetch mail from these mailboxes. Alternatively, you can fetch your email using the Webmail module (see below).

Read Webmail
The DataFly.Net Control Panel includes the excellent SquirrelMail webmail application which allows you to access your email accounts from any standard web browser. The interface is similar to MSN Hotmail and is for the most part self-explanatory. When using the module, you will be prompted to enter your username and password. IMPORTANT: Be sure to enter the full email address as the username and the password for that email account.

Default E-mails
Your DataFly.Net server account has a default email address which handles all incoming email which is not directed to a valid user (called "unrouted mail"). This module can be used to configure a "catch-all" account or to discard or reject unrouted mail.

Auto Responders
This module allows you to create an email message which will instantly be mailed to the sender of all incoming mail to an address. Many people find it useful to set-up an Auto Responder to handle incoming email when on vacation.

E-mail Filtering
Email can be filtered based it's sender, body contents, and other criteria. You can set-up rules to redirect the mail to another address, or even discard it completely. This module is often used in conjunction with the Spam Assassin module (see below) to redirect mail that the server has identified has spam.

Aliases / Forwarding
In some cases, you may find it more convenient to create an email account which simply forwards all incoming mail to another mailbox. This module allows you to do just that.

Spam Assassin
Spam Assassin is an open source application which uses very sophisticated email analyzation techniques to identify unsolicited commercial email, commonly called "spam". You can configure Spam Assassin to be as strict or as lenient as you like using this module. It is important to note that Spam Assassin will not actually delete suspected spam but will instead just rewrite the email message and body so that it can be easily identified. One common technique is to create a mailbox called junk@yourdomain.com, then use E-mail Filtering (above) to redirect all incoming spam to the "junk" inbox. This gives you a chance to look for any false positives before deleting.

Site Management Tools

Change Password
Security experts recommend that you change your password at least once a month. For added security, don't use any dictionary words or easily guessed passwords such as your birthday. This password is used for your cpanel login, default ftp user (for uploading files, etc), and SSH (if enabled for your account).

FTP Manager
You can create multiple FTP accounts with access to specific directories. This can be useful if you want to provide FTP access to a client for example, but don't want them to have access to your entire site. Use this module to manage accounts, passwords, etc.

Disk Usage Viewer
A simple graphic view of your disk usage.

Index Manager
Control how the web server displays directories which contain no index file. By default, the web server will list all files in the directory as links to the file. Use this module to change that behavior on a per directory basis.

Web Protect
Easily password protect any directory in your website. This module lets you manage usernames and passwords for any directories you designate to be protected.

Custom Error Pages
When a user tries to access a page which does not exist on your site, or for which permission is denied, or other such errors occur, the server will generate a default error message to alert the user. You can use this module to override the default error messages with your own custom pages.

Subdomains
Subdomains are sections of your site which can be accessed with addresses in the following format: subdomain.maindomain.com. Adding a subdomain will create a corresponding directory in your public_html directory. Files placed in this directory will be accessible at the subdomain created with this module.

Parked Domains
Parked domains allow you to access your website by more than one domain. You'll need to be the registered owner of the domain name and make sure it's nameservers are listed as ns1.datafly.net and ns2.datafly.net. Parked domains will function exactly as your primary domain name.

Add-on Domains
Add-on Domains are similar to subdomains, except that it allows you to access a directory by using a true domain name. In effect, this allows you to have multiple websites with completely different content and distinct domain names using only one hosting account. All bandwidth, disk usage, and other limits are applied accumulatively. (Add-on Domains are not included with the Basic Hosting plan).

MySQL Databases
Before using phpMyAdmin (below), you'll need to use this module to create a database. This module also provides management of MySQL users and permissions.

phpMyAdmin
Graphical front-end for easy management of MySQL databases. Add, delete or modify database records from your web browser.

Analysis and Log Files

Web / FTP Stats
Use the AWStats open source web traffic stats analysis program to view detailed statistics including monthly, daily, and hourly traffic, most popular pages on your site, referring sites, etc.