Cpanel New Website move in Checklist

Cpanel New Website Move In Checklist

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Beginners Guide, Help, FAQ, META TAGS, Spam Mail, Security

Cpanel is a powerful Web Based Control Panel software application that enables you to manage and control almost every aspect of your website through simple clicks in your web browser. Although it works very well, there are a few basic things you need to verify to ensure your website is as secure as it possibly can be.

YOUR PASSWORD

Your Administrator password (and every other password on your site - mailboxes, FTP etc), is the most important first line of defense against those who would do you and your new website harm. Here are some Tips:

DON'TS:

Never use a simple password like your name, last name, "God", "Jesus", "Lord", and scripture reference like "John:3:16", your telephone number, address, date of birth or anything resembling any of these. They are simply too easy to guess and your site will get hacked.

DO'S:

A decent password should at least consist of the following:

At least 9 long (12 is better),

Never be a known word in English (or any other language for that matter),

Have at least one digit in it,

Have at least on UPPER CASE character,

Have at least one lower case character.

Anything less and your password is NOT SECURE!

FIRST THINGS FIRST

Log into your Control Panel and click the

button. Then the Account Link. Enter your Email address on the right and click Update. Be sure to come back here and change it if your email address changes in the future.

Setting up the default Email address

Click the

button then the Default Email address link. Make sure it is set to :fail: (NOTE: It must have the colons ":" before and after he word fail). This will bounce all email that is sent to your domain back to the sender if it does not have a valid mailbox. You can set it to a valid mailbox if you want but we don't recommend this as you will likely attract tons of SPAM email this way.

A Note on creating mailboxes

You should always set a mailbox size to a reasonable figure. Between 2MB and 10MB is more than enough for most purposes. Remember, mailboxes are added to your overall quota and you can quickly run out of space if you have large mailboxes with lots of email in them.

As a rule, never set a mailbox to unlimited.

Setting up a SPAM box and Spam Assassin

IMPORTANT NOTE ON USING SPAM BOX:

If you set up a spam box, you must check it from the Control Panel using Horde or Neo mail as that is the only way to access it.
Check the SPAM box and empty it regularly if you have set it up or it can very quickly become huge!

Spam Assassin is a powerful utility that can block almost all unwanted email but care needs to be taken in setting it up. We have prepared a short HOW-TO here. For more detail, please go the the Spam Assassin Website.

Where are the Error Log files??

This question comes up all the time. You will find them listed under Statistics. Click the

button.

Parked Domain, Add-on Domains and Sub Domains

You do all of this by clicking the server link

and following the sub-category links from there. We have a short tutorial here explaining the differences and procedures you need to follow.

Disable directory listings

If you don't want people to be able to list the contents of directories on your site that don't have an index.html file in them, you need to disable indexes on a per directory basis using the Index Manager. You will find this tool listed under the server link as shown above.

NOTE: This also applies to any directories in the cgi-bin directory tree.

FTP - Disable anonymous FTP

Anonymous FTP should always be disabled unless you have a specific reason for wanting it on. Click the

link then the Setup anonymous FTP access link to disable it.

Setting up Fantastico scripts

There are tons of free applications you can setup for your Website by clicking the Fantastico link

IMPORTANT:

If you install a script using Fantastico, be sure to use Fantastico to uninstall it if you change your mind. This is because Fantastico keeps a registry of what you installed and if you manually uninstall a script, Fantastico won't know about it. You can quickly run out of MySQL databases this way.

SCOPE OF OUR SUPPORT

Please note that setting up your Fantastico Scripts, configuration of email accounts, copying your files, designing your web pages for you or any other Control Panel function is not a web hosting support issue. If you need any of these services, we offer them at very reasonable rates but they are not included in your Web Hosting contract.

SEE ALSO

Beginners Guide, Help, FAQ, META TAGS, Copyright, Spam Mail, Security