SSL (Socket Security Layer) or TLS (Transport Layer Security) is a mechanism for encrypting data, which is transferring from your computer to host or server and vice versa.
Generate a CSR
CSR (Certificate Signing Request) is an encoded certificate, which CA authorities ask for when we purchase a SSL certificate from them. To issue a SSL certificate they need some additional information, which we provide in the CSR.
To generate a CSR, follow these steps below.
Step 1 − Click SSL/TLS link found under Security section of the cPanel.
Step 2 − Under Certificate Signing Request (CSR) click Generate, view, or delete SSL certificate signing requests.
Step 3 − In SSL Certificate Signing Request Interface, scroll down to see Generate a New Certificate Signing Request (CSR).
Step 4 − Choose an existing Private Key from Key dropdown. You can also choose to generate a new Private Key.
Step 5 − Enter Domains for which you want to generate CSR. You can choose a wild card domain by putting * as a subdomain. E.g. *.example.com.
Step 6 − Provide all necessary information in text fields like City, State, Country, Company etc.
Step 7 − Click Generate Button to generate a CSR.
Installing SSL
To activate SSL/TLS certificate in your domain or Subdomains follow these steps −
If you have obtained a SSL/TLS certificate from a Trusted Certificate Provider, to use it on your website, you will need to upload it to your server.
To generate Upload a SSL/TLS certificate, follow these steps below.
Step 1 − Click SSL/TLS link found under Security section of cPanel.
Step 2 − In the left-side pane, click Install and Manage SSL for your site (HTTPS).
Step 3 − In this interface, you can choose to install SSL in your website. Scroll down to install an SSL Website.
Step 4 − Choose a certificate from the installed certificates by clicking on Browse Certificates. Or, you can also select a Domain from the dropdown box. Then paste the certificate you obtain from your SSL Provider in the Certificate: (CRT) field.
Step 5 − All fields of Certificates, Private Key and Certificate Authority bundle will be filled automatically.
Step 6 − Click Install Certificate button to activate the certificate for the Domain or Subdomain.
Two-factor authentication (2FA) is a security measure that requires two forms of identification. After you enter your password, you must enter a security code. An application on your smartphone supplies this code. Without your smartphone, you cannot log in.
Note: 2FA requires a smartphone with a supported time-based one-time password (TOTP) app. We suggest the following apps:
2FA supports only one concurrent session for any user. If you open several browser windows to cPanel and log out in one of them, the server will log out the other windows.
To configure 2FA, perform the following steps:
The Two-Factor Authentication menu can be found in the cPanel >> Security >> Two-Factor Authentication:
Go to the Two-Factor Authentication menu and click on the Set Up Two-Factor Authentication button:
Connect your cPanel to your Authenticator app.There are 2 ways to connect the app:
Automatically create the link by scanning the displayed QR code with your app
Manually create the link by entering the provided Account and Key information in your app
After the app is installed and connected to the cPanel, continue by entering the six-digit security code into the cPanel >> Security >> Two-Factor Authentication >> Step 2 >> Security code:
You should receive the following success message:
During the next cPanel login, after you enter your username and password, you will be redirected to the next page to enter the security code:
This feature of cPanel is very useful for your website. We can use backup feature for transferring our website to the new host. If we are making a change in the website files or database, we can create a backup of website. So that, if anything goes wrong to the website while editing, we can always restore from it’s previous state. If any problem occurs with the hosting provider, you will always have a copy of the website.
cPanel Backup creates a zipped copy of your entire website or a part of your website. There are two types of Backup in your cPanel Backups.
Full Backup
Full Backup creates a zipped copy of your entire website and cPanel account. It includes all the files you own or you have access to. It also includes all the databases, email accounts, email lists, subdomain, etc.
Full Backups cannot be restored through cPanel interface. It is only used when you are transferring your current host to the new host. You need to upload this zipped backup into your home directory and ask your hosting provider to restore it.
To download your full website backup, please follow these steps −
Step 1 − Open cPanel Backup by clicking Backup from the Files section in cPanel Home.
At the top, you will find Full Backup as shown below –
Step 2 − Click on the Big Blue button on which “Download a Full Account Backup” is written and you will be taken to this screen.
Step 3 − Select Backup destination, leave it as home directory. This will create a backup in your home directory, from where you can download it later. Enter the email address, where you want to receive a notification, when full backup of your website is ready to be downloaded. As full website backup takes time to generate.
Step 4 − Click Generate Backup and you will see a success message of Backup in Progress.
To download the Full Website Backup, you can always come back to this page after you receive your email notification and you will see a screen similar to the one shown below.
Download your backup by clicking over the backup link.
Note: Full Backup can use a large portion of your storage allocation on your hosting account. Make sure to calculate your disk space before performing a full backup. Otherwise, your cPanel account will not function properly because you reached your maximum storage allocation.
Partial Backups
Partial backup is created and can be downloaded instantly. Through Partial Backup, you can download your Home Directory, Databases, Email Forwarders and Email Filters separately. You can restore the downloaded backups any time by uploading them to cPanel using the same interface.
To use this feature, open your Backup section using the same method used above in Step 1, scroll down and you will see a similar interface shown here, interface will vary according to your domain and data.
You can click Home Directory button to download your home directory backup. To restore your home directory, you can upload the same file in the right-hand side interface on which Restore a Home Directory Backup is written.
You can do the same with Databases, Email Forwarders and Email Filters.
cPanel Disk Usage is a very efficient way to monitor your accounts available and use disk spaces. This feature scans your disk to provide you a graphical overview of the Disk usage. It displays disk space used by directories, but it does not show how much space is consumed by an individual file. It also displays information of disk quota used by MySQL Databases, hidden directories and Emails.
It helps in management of disk quota, because once you know which directory has the largest files, you can navigate to that directory using file manager and delete unnecessary files.
To access this feature, click Disk Usage link from Files section of cPanel.
cPanel Disk Manger has mainly two tables. The first table gives you information about disk space used by subdirectories of home directory and space used by other features like MySQL, Mailing Lists. Please refer to screenshot below.
The Second Table displays a directory structure, which has all the subdirectories including hidden ones, to open a directory to view space used by that sub-directory, you can click on the arrow shown in front of the name of the directory. Clicking on the name of directory will take you to the File Manager. In this table, you can see which subdirectory has the largest files in them, it is very helpful when there are lots of directories in your account.
cPanel File Manager gives you useful options to quickly manage your files within the cPanel interface. It’s easy to use and it removes the hassles of using FTP. You can create, upload, modify or remove files from this interface. It also gives the feature of moving files to Trash before permanently deleting them, from which it can be recovered later.
To open the file manager, click on File Manager in the Files section.
It will open a new tab and once you are in File Manager, you will see a Dashboard like this.
cPanel File Manager gives you a lot of flexibility for Navigating within your files.
You can use file manager for following tasks.
Searching for a File
To search for a file, use the search bar on top of the File Manager Dashboard. You can search within all your files, public_html or current directory, then write the file name in next input box and click go to search for a file.
Note − public_html is folder in cPanel, all the files which are accessible from the frontend of your website are stored in this directory. Index.html or index.php found in this folder loads first, when somebody accesses your website from frontend by your URL.
File Manager Settings
To access cPanel File Manager Preferences, click setting buttons from the top of the Dashboard. You will see a Prompt as shown below.
By default, cPanel File manager opens the Home Directory of your account, when opening the cPanel. But, we can override this by choosing it with Web Root, which is public_html folder of Public FTP root or with a Document root of your domain or any subdomain you create.
In Linux, hidden files have a single Dot (.) in front of them. The default cPanel File Manager does not display them, but you can choose to show hidden files by enabling Show Hidden Files (dotfiles) option.
When we open a text file, which may be HTML, PHP or Plain Text file, cPanel opens a dialog to check the character encoding of the file, to ensure maximum compatibility, when editing the file. You can disable this feature by selecting – Disable Character Encoding Verification Dialogs.
Working with File Manager
Creating a File
To create a new File, navigate to the directory, where the file needs to be created and then click New File from the Dashboard. A prompt opens and asks you the file name. Enter it accordingly with the extension of file and Path, where the file will be created. Finally, click Create New File and a new file will be created.
Creating a Folder
To create a new Folder or Directory, navigate to the directory in which you want to create the folder. Click on New Folder from the Dashboard. A Prompt will be opened to ask you name of your New Folder. Enter your desired Folder name and Click Create New Folder. Your new folder will be created.
Copying
You can copy a single file or folder or even multiple files or folders. To copy a single file or folder select what you want to copy with a single mouse click over the it and Click Copy. You will be asked the file path where you wish to copy the file or folder to, enter the Path accordingly and click Copy File(s).
To copy multiple files or folders, single click on the desired files or folders by holding down the ctrl key to select multiple files or folder and then click on copy. Enter the desired location and Click to Copy File(s) button to copy multiple files.
Moving
You can move a single file or folder or multiple ones. To move a single file or folder, select the one that you want to move with a single mouse click over it and Click on Move. You will be asked the file path where you wish to move the file or folder to, enter the Path accordingly and click on Move File(s).
To move multiple files or folders, single click on the desired files or folders by holding down the ctrl key to select multiple files or folder and then click on move. Enter the desired location and Click to Move File(s) button to move multiple files.
Uploading a File
To upload a file from the cPanel File Manager Interface, navigate to the directory in which you wish to upload and then, click Upload. You will find the interface shown below.
You can Drag and Drop the file to upload or you can select the file from Select File button. If you want the File Manager to automatically overwrite the files with same name, you can select – Overwrite existing files checkbox.
Downloading a File
To download a file from the cPanel File Manager, you can select the single file or multiple files with single click on file name, and click over Download to download the files.
Deleting a File or Folder
To delete Single or Multiple file or folder just select the files with single mouse click and click on Delete button. You will get a prompt for sending the files into Trash, if you want to permanently delete the files then select Skip the Trash checkbox. If the check box is not selected, files are moved to Trash Folder from where you can recover them later.
Renaming a File or Folder
To rename a File or Folder, select the file or folder with a single mouse click and Click on rename. You will get a prompt to enter new file or folder name. Enter file or folder name accordingly and click on Rename File button to save. You can also double click on Name of any File or Folder to rename the file.
Text Editor
To edit any text file with simple text editor, select the file and click on Edit button. You will get a prompt with Encoding check if enabled, then click on Edit in prompt to edit the file. Text editor will open in a new tab, where you can edit the file. You can also switch to Code editor from here. When you have finished editing, click Save to save the File.
Code Editor
Code editor makes it easy to edit those files, which contains code in them. It differentiates color between codes, which makes it easy to edit those files.
Extracting a File
To extract a File which are compressed, select the file you wish to extract and click on Extract Button. You will get a prompt to enter the path where you wish to extract the files, if you enter a path which is not existing, cPanel File Manager will create the directory and extract the file in it.
Note − cPanel File Manager can only extract files which are in Zip, GZip and BZip2 type of compression.
Compressing a File or Folder
To compress a folder or a single or multiple files, select the files and click on Compress. You will get a prompt, select the compression method where you can choose from Zip, Gzip or Bzip2. It will ask you to enter the file name, enter file name accordingly and click Compress File(s). After compression, the result will be shown to you.
Viewing a File
This option helps you to view the content of known file types within cPanel Interface. Select the file you wish to view and click on View. It will open a new tab and the content of file will be shown to you.
Your TXT records can be easily managed with the help of the Zone Editor section, which can be found at your control panel. Open your cPanel and find Domains → Zone Editor:
To create a TXT record, you just need to click on the button Manage:
Click on Add record option and change record type to TXT:
Once created, Zone Editor section provides you with these buttons for already created TXT records:
Button to edit your TXT records
Button for deleting your TXT records completely
NOTE: Any DNS Record changes triggers domain propagation, which can last up to 24 hours.
On phpMyAdmin all you will need to do is select your desired database and to press Import:
Choose a file which is .sql or .sql.zip format:
Proceed further without changing anything on the settings and click Go.
Errors
Incorrect format parameter
When importing a database make sure your file’s format is .sql, you can also import a compressed .sql file with these compression types: gzip, bzip2, zip (for example, file.sql.zip). This error might also indicate a corrupted database file.
Command denied to user
If you see this error, it means that your database user doesn’t have enough permissions to import the database. To fix it,open MySQL Databases -> Your user -> Manage user privileges. Make sure that permissions are set correctly (by default all checkmarks should be added):
Access is denied. You need the SUPER privilege for this operation
This error means that your database includes queries that require SUPER privileges to be executed. In this case, double-check your .sql file if such queries can be removed. After you remove them through any text editor of your choice, importing the database will be possible.
If they are required, you may consider going for one of our Cloud Hosting Plans.
The phpMyAdmin is a third-party tool to manage tables and data inside a database. It is graphical user interface to manage MySQL databases. You can manually create Tables, Import and Export data or edit the values of a row through it.
To access phpMyAdmin
Click on the phpMyAdmin link, which can be found under the databases section of cPanel Home.
You will see a dashboard similar to this.
On the left-hand pane, there is a list of databases, which can be expended to see the table in each database. On the right hand pane, there is general information of Database server.
