Archive for Control Panels
Control Panel: Advantages & Disadvantages
Posted by: | CommentsTo control panel, or not to control panel? It’s a perennial question, and one all conscientious web masters have had to ask at some point during their career. It doesn’t matter what kind, style, or flavor of website you’re hoping to create: Odds are you’ll have to wage the costs and benefits of using a control panel (like cPanel) to manage your media, or going Bear Grylls and relying entirely on the command shell. However, just because the problem is a ubiquitous one does not mean it has to be a hard one. In fact, with a little foreknowledge and just a smidgen of guidance, you might find the decision between graphical front-ends and pure control is simpler than you think. With that in mind, we’ve compiled a short list of some of the pros and cons of using a control panel alongside your website. It’s by no means a complete listing, but if you’re on the fence, it will certainly help you along the right path.
Pros:
1. No Software Required: We may have just modified a Phil Collins song to meet our needs, but that doesn’t make the point any less valid: If you’re using a control panel, there’s absolutely no need to clutter up your home computer with FTP software of any kind. This, after all, is really the point of having a control panel in the first place. With something like cPanel in place, you can access your site from any location around the globe via browser. From there, you’re free to upload, mangle, and download your system’s files as needed. It’s quick, efficient, and saves you hard drive space in the long run.
2.Easy Stats: Another advantage to using a control panel over the traditional terminal are the various statistical tools available for your perusal. Using these tools, you can stay up to date on a minute-by-minute basis with who has been accessing your site, from where, and when down to the second. Want to know how many of your users have been coming from the Southeast? With a control panel in place, it’s no problem at all to find out. In fact, we might even say it’s easy as pie—especially considering pie charts are a definite possibility.
3. Ease of Installation: Another benefit to using a control panel is its ease of software installation. Essentially, with a package like cPanel creating a front-end for your site, you’re allowed to add, remove, or modify web applications as you please. Want to add a forum to your site? No problem, assuming you have a control panel! How about shopping carts, bags, help desks, image galleries, billing software, or even a content management software like WordPress? With all of the above, it’s a done deal, assuming you’ve got the control panel to match. Best of all, these installations can be removed just as easily as they’re added, allowing for an unprecedented level of control over your site’s performance.
4. Know Your Usage: Typically, when a web hosting provider comes stock with a control panel, the panel is capable of tracking your data usage, just like Sprint, Verizon, and AT&T allow users to track their minutes and allowances from the Web. In this way, it’s a cinch to keep a tab on just how much of your plan you’ve been using, allowing you to scale back next month if needed, or ramp up the features, should your site experience a sudden hike in popularity.
Cons:
1. Big Tasks Suck: However, a control panel isn’t always sunshine and rainbows. In fact, when it comes to certain filing procedures, they can be a right pain in the derriere. For example, let’s imagine you have a directory that’s currently housing something like 5,000 unique files. Now, what if you wanted to move all 5k of these items to a new folder? How about only the files that begin with a specific phrase? Using a graphical control panel, this could take hours of tedious clicking and sorting. However, with the command line, a single string can take care of the whole operation in only seconds. Now that’s power!
2. Getting Dirty Requires Less: Let’s create another example: Let’s say your server begins acting strangely, and all of your files suddenly change their permission states. With a control panel, sorting out the mess could, again, require hours of manipulation, and even then, privileges are notoriously hard to manage with a graphical front-end. When it comes to such root level functions as modifying folder permissions, visibility, or password protection, using the shell terminal is really the only way to go.
3. Security is Shell-Oriented: Another notch in the terminals favor is the fact that graphical interfaces are typically far less secure. These control panels rely on a software relationship between the hardware, the shell, and the pretty, eye-candy studded panel you deal with on a daily basis. All of this connectivity adds up to an impressive level of control, but also to a lot of compromised security. Not to mention the fact that cPanel’s popularity makes it a prime target for hackers looking to make a quick steal. The shell terminal, on the other hand, is direct, password encrypted, and one-way. With this in mind, it’s nearly impossible to hijack a shell tunnel, providing an infinitely more secure experience, and at no cost to your overall control.
So there you have it! On the whole, there’s really only one quick question you need to ask yourself when considering the application of a graphical control panel: And that is, “How much ease of use am I really after?” If quickly and simply managing your site is of the utmost importance to you, there’s no better way to do it than with a program like cPanel. Otherwise, for the dedicated and control-based webmaster, the shell truly is king.
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Understanding The Root User And How to Obtain It
Posted by: | CommentsIf you’re new to the realm of dedicated web hosting, you may suddenly be inundated with a bunch of terms with which you’re unfamiliar. Believe it or not, there’s a lot more to web hosting than just disc space, bandwidth, and hardware: The Linux operating system underneath comes with a heap of terminology you’ll have to become acquainted with, as well as many different quirks and methods that must be learned about.
Don’t sweat it, though, Grasshopper. We understand what you’re going through, and to help you out, we’ve got a guide to one of Linux’ most important aspects ready to go: If you’re confused about what the root user does, keep reading. All is revealed in full detail just after the break.
So What is Root?
Just as a plant has foliage and flowers at the top, so does it have roots that anchor it beneath the surface. Linux operates in the same way, allowing users to perform surface level modifications to the system at the top, while a deeper administrative user (this is the “root”) sits just below, managing all the vital organs of the operating system. Most of everything you do will be done outside the root user, but when you need to do some heavy duty file management, or install a new script, you’ll want to dip below the surface and tap into the core of things.
Why Should I Care About The Root? Do I Need It?
The root is important, because the alternative is somewhat frightening: Imagine letting all the tenants of your dedicated server have total administrative access all the time. It’s a scary though, no? Who knows what an absentminded user could accidentally do. With that in mind, root is built into your system to ensure you only mess with the foundation when you want to. It also ensures only certain people have root access, and even then, only when they need it.
How Do I Go Rooting?
Simple! In most Linux systems (Red Hat, SUSE, CentOS, etc.) simply SSH to your server shell, and type the following command:
su
It’s that easy! Other distros, like Ubuntu Server, allow access to the superuser in slightly different ways. For example, with these, there is no permanent root access, but rather a single command to type before performing a root action. This command is:
sudo
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Using cPanel to Setup Cron Jobs
Posted by: | CommentsThe “cron job” is one of the basic programming tools that remind you that you can get a lot of function out of learning just a little code. A “cron job” is simply a command that you instruct your server to perform at regular intervals. It can literally be any command that you can run normally.
You have the power!
Not only are the advantages of this obvious, but once you realize the power you can get from this in just a few commands, much of what you use control panels for may start to seem frivolous. You can, for example, in just a single command backup an entire directory once a week and email it to yourself. Don’t be scared: we are diving a bit into expert stuff here, but only to prove the point. You can do a lot with very little.
So how do you do it?
Even by cPanel standards this is one of the easier functions to perform. Scroll down in your cPanel home page. You’ll probably find “Cron Jobs” in the Advanced section. Click on it and you’ll be asked whether you like it easy or hard. Personal preferences aside, there’s not much reason to go hard. Click on “Standard” to get to the main cron jobs screen.
You will first enter the email address that the results of the cron job will be sent: if it is not successful, the email will contain the error message, though this may require some debugging on your part. Next you will enter the command. One unavoidable technical note: the command must be typed in using the full path. So if you are running a script that is in your home directory, you must specify the full server path to it.
Get your timing right
Now you need to specify how often you want the cron job to run. Most of this is self-explanatory, though there is at least one potentially confusing item. You can specify the days that the job will run both by days of the month and days of the week. That’s not confusing by itself, but what happens if you choose both? Let’s look at the combinations.
- “Days” = “Every Day” and “Week Days” = “Every Week Day”: This will run the cron job on every single day.
- “Days” = “2” and “Week Days” = “Every Week Day”: This will run the job on the 2nd day of the month only.
- “Days” = “Every Day” and “Week Days” = “Tuesday”: This will run the job on every Tuesday.
- “Days” = “2” and “Week Days” = “Tuesday”: This will run the job on the 2nd Tuesday of the month only.
That’s it!
Now hit “Save Crontab” and you’re done! You can then go back to this later and delete or modify the job. Note that you can also create mulitple cron jobs, even if they use the same commands. You might want to, say, backup a certain directory every day, and your entire account every month.
Now the only thing you need to do is learn the commands you want to run. This should make clear that this is worth the effort. Cron jobs are one of the most useful basic tools for just about any developer, and cPanel makes using them even easier.
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The Ins and Outs of DirectAdmin
Posted by: | CommentsBy just about every measure, cPanel is the #1 web hosting control panel. In the web hosting world, though, that typically means that there are a gaggle of alternatives that are 2nd best and trying harder. While not all of them have gained a strong footing among web hosts, one that is climbing the ranks is DirectAdmin.
The first complete version of DirectAdmin was released on Mar 1, 2003. Reviews of some of its earliest versions circa 2005-6 weren’t so hot. Lately, however, it’s been gaining traction, as evidenced by the active user support forum for it, and the increasing number of hosts offering it alongside of cPanel. In fact, vpsLink, HostPC and SiteValley includes this control panel among their standard hosting options.
So what is the main drawing point for DirectAdmin?
Simple: It’s simple.
DirectAdmin’s main draw is how light it is as a software package. “Light” means a lot of good things for the user.
First, it means that it is fast to operate, not having cPanel’s heavy overhead. This is especially critical on shared hosting services, since it might be several dozen users at once using these. That kind of processing can add up fast if not done right. Second, it means that it is easy to use and navigate through. Its interface is also very similar to cPanel, so users crossing over won’t spend a lot of time re-educating themselves.
Third, being a lightweight package means that it is far more reliable and doesn’t crash nearly as much. When it does crash, the recovery is comparatively pretty quick and clean. Finally, being a smaller package means that it’s also a cheaper package, resulting in lower price passed on to you, the end user. A number of free web hosts use DirectAdmin for this reason.
Simple isn’t all good … is it?
The downside of this easier approach means that DirectAdmin doesn’t quite have the full rainbow of options that cPanel has.
Or does it? In multiple reviews online comparing cPanel to DirectAdmin I found users talking about the advanced administrator tasks that you can only do in cPanel. However, when pressed to name what those tasks were, I did not see a single specific one listed.
This doesn’t mean that they don’t exist. With a package as established and worked over as cPanel, its probably a sure thing that there are some cPanel wizard tricks that you cannot do, or do easily with DirectAdmin. On top of that, even if there isn’t that much in direct functionality that’s different, cPanel has a larger set of tutorials, FAQs, and current users ready to share their knowledge of the product.
Less popular because it’s less popular?
One web site suggests that the preference towards cPanel in the hosting world might be little more than momentum. If that’s true, then considering the fact that DirectAdmin is also largely considered to be the more secure of the two control panels (again, for reasons of programming simplicity), this might not be the case forever.
Whatever the reason, DirectAdmin is clearly rising in the web hosting world as a respected control panel package. If your host offers this, you might consider looking into it.
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What To Remember When Moving To A New Control Panel
Posted by: | CommentsVery rarely will you have to move your website to a new control panel interface, especially if you’re using shared hosting. Most web hosting providers will not give you the choice of several different offerings, or even the option to migrate to a new base. However, if you’re using VPS or dedicated hosting, you may be looking at a totally different animal. The control panel at work is under your thumb, and should you get a wild hair to swap from cPanel to Plesk, it’s your prerogative.
With that in mind, there are several things that need to be kept in mind when deciding to migrate from one control panel to another. It’s not an easy task, and considering the benefits, you may want to reconsider. So, here’s our quick thoughts on what you need to know before swapping to a different control panel.
It’s In The Matrix, Neo:
First off the bat, we’d like to remind you that not all control panels are wired the same. Each interface achieves its goals in completely different ways. We aren’t just talking about a scripting language here, either. Who knows if the underlying code of your new system won’t be completely different from the one before it? Not to mention the fact that your new panel may not play well with the various packages and applications you’d like to use.
As an example, your control panel may be hard-wired to run with Apache HTTP. By swapping to a server panel that’s not, you run the risk of losing all of your existing scripts, your hard-won applications, and perhaps even some of your content. At the least, be aware of the fact that different panel’s may use very different coding structures. If at all possible, do some research, and get to know your new neighborhood.
Moving Out Is Hard To Do:
Because structures may be so completely different, you may yet have a bear of a time transferring all of your data to the new panel. Imagine all those scripts and applications you have laying about. Will they all work with a new panel? If they don’t, can you find a ported version of the same item to match your new system? Not to mention, are you capable of coding for the new platform you have in mind?
Moving one whole site to a new panel isn’t too big a pain in the derriere. But if you have many multiple servers and sites, imagine moving them all to a new structure.
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Enkompass: A Windows Control Panel For The Masses
Posted by: | CommentsSo, you finally bit the bullet: You gave in and used a Windows-based web host, contrary to the popular, Linux-oriented hosting. Before we say good for you, though, we just want to point out one sad fact—there aren’t many quality, Windows-ready control panels out there for managing your new content. At least, there aren’t many as easy to use or as user friendly as you might like. Thankfully, though, there are a few, and one of our favorites (Enkompass) is even the brainchild of the same developers that brought you cPanel/WHM.
Enkompass is easily one of the best control panels around for your Windows-based server. If you’re looking for a fresh face to add to your account, you could certainly do a lot worse. We aren’t here to sell you the software, but we will tell you what we like about it. Starting with the following:
- It Looks Like cPanel, Smells Like cPanel: Like we said, Enkompass comes straight from the guys that made cPanel, one of the easiest to use and most familiar control panels around for UNIX-based servers. With that in mind, if you’re use to cPaneling your servers, you’ll instantly be at home with Enkompass. It looks and behaves about the same, making it an easy transition from one to the other.
- Plays Well With Others: Reason number two is simple—Enkompass works well with other utilities. For instance, it plays like a good kid with Windows Server 2008 and Microsoft IIS7 Server. Not to mention full support for MySQL and Microsoft SQL Server 2005-2008. It also takes full advantage of Active Directory, providing enhanced scalability.
- Scripting? We Got Loads Of It! Another reason we like Enkompass is its compatibility with a wide variety of scripting platforms. This puppy can handle .NET, ASP, PHP, Perl, AJAX, Silverlight, XML, and others, making it an all-one resource for the coder in you.
- You Get The Literature: The last reason we think Enkompass is just wonderful has to do with its documentation. As a cPanel port for Windows (more or less, don’t shoot us Windows server geeks!) you still get access to the wealth of troubleshooting literature available for the Linux edition. Because both services behave more or less the same, the communities are entirely integrated, allowing you to take full advantage of already existent resources.