Archive for Control Panels
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.
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Control Panels – What are Their Limits?
Posted by: | CommentsWhen something is too user-friendly there is an instinctual felling that there must be some nuances of use that you are sacrificing to obtain use an un-intimidating product or service. This is a good general rule, but one that doesn’t quite have the bite that it used to. Modern web hosting control panels, for example cPanel hosting do more than simply let you more files around and setup spam filters. They are full-service suites that at times seem to encompass just about anything that you might ever want to do with your web site.
Again, though, your presumption may be that this couldn’t possibly be all that is needed. In this case, you’d be right. Web hosting control panels are a fantastic way for the beginner-to-intermediate user to focus more on their web site and less on learning tech tricks. But the more experienced you get, the more you are going to wonder where their limitations lie and when you should be using other ways of accessing and manipulating your account.
Command line interfaces: not quite the dark side.
If you’ve never done so before, the notion of learning any kind of scripting might seem like jumping to the dark side and liking it. Those who have experience with this type of scripting may be chuckling at the thought. Knowledge of the basics of how to use a command-line interface can quickly provide you with access to a world of functionality that you may not have even considered.
DOS, Unix, and for that matter, just about any operating system comes with a command line interface with some syntactical basics that are quickly picked up, never forgotten, and which have a plethora of uses. Let us take the wildcard, for example. The asterisk (“*”) is a long-running “match anything” standard. Do you have a directory with 5000 files, and you only want to move files with a certain word in it to a new directory? In a control panel this could take hours. From a command line this can be done in 10 seconds.
Countless tools
While control panels are continually adding new features to them, they are catching up to operating systems that have been around for decades and have ridiculous amounts of add-ins and small scripts that are often forgotten about, yet still included. Some of them admittedly today now seem silly and quaint, but many of them, if you can make basic use of them, can provide fantastic time saving techniques. Let’s say, for example, that you are looking for a file, but all you know about is the rough 3-month period in which it was made, about how big it is, and one or two words that you are sure are found within the file. Again, with most graphical systems this is a nearly impossible task. With an “ancient” interface this can be done in a few lines and at most a minute of your time.
Remember when you complained about learning Latin?
Like Latin, it may seem like few people still use it. But when you start using command-line interfaces, you start to see that by learning them you are equipping yourself with tools that will have more uses than you can hypothesize about. So the answer to the question of what the limitations of control panels are is simple: it’s somewhere… and you are only going to know where when you see what else you are capable of by stepping outside their world a bit.
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The Control Panel B Team – A World Beyond cPanel
Posted by: | CommentsThe popularity of cPanel can mask the fact that it is far from the only control panel option out there. It is also not the only good one. Dozens of well-supported feature-rich control panels exist, and as not every host even uses cPanel, the beginner who is facing the question of choosing a new web host might want to know whether or not the control panel system that they use adds value to their web hosting package or not.
So let’s do a brief rundown of some of the other common web hosting control panels out there, so you know how much you should smile when you see that your host offers it.
Plesk
Short for Parallels Plesk Control Panel, Plesk has gone through many revisions, and is considered by some to be even more stable than cPanel. Also, if you are going with a Windows-based host, then Plesk’s support for it is several years older, meaning that it’s going to be even more stable (and secure: a Windows-based control panel is a double-whammy of potential security holes). It also has extensive module support, and can be used in multiple speaking languages. On the negative side, a number of users have complained that Version 10 is too overloaded and slow.
Kloxo
Formerly known as Lxadmin, Kloxo is an open-source control panel for CentOS and Red Hat Linux servers. It had a troubled history to get where it is now, including a number of security holes, but users now report their satisfaction with using it. One drawback to it is that support is only available via community forums, though word is that the software is growing enough in popularity that paid consultants are stepping up to the plate.
H-sphere
For a software package available on multiple platforms (Unix, Linux and Windows), H-sphere gets its share of mixed reviews. Some of the negative points are elements that the end user won’t see: it is expensive for a host to purchase and it’s described as difficult to install. There are also complaints about its ease of use. On the other hand, its help documentation is extensive, and it has multi-lingual support in 10(!) languages. It certainly has its devotees: in one online poll 15% of users listed it as their favorite control panel.
Interworx
Interworx is a control panel that’s quickly growing in popularity, though it’s more for backend purposes. It supports load balancing and server clustering, and uses real-time graphs; what this means for you as the end user is greater stability both with the panel and on the server. It’s described as not only being easy to use but also being very command-line friendly, something that doesn’t always get much control support. It includes a module called ScriptWorx that is described as letting the user install just about any third-party software package.
There is a lot of energy being put into making competing control panel software packages. So when you go to a new web host and see a name there that isn’t cPanel, don’t panic. Many of these packages are high quality, and some would argue are better. Take a close look at the plus and minuses, but definitely don’t just write them off. If cPanel is still your choice check best cPanel hosting providers.
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Performing IP Filtering Through cPanel – A Brief Tutorial
Posted by: | CommentsSecurity is something that nearly every webmaster has the need for, but not every webmaster knows how to pursue effectively the appropriate security measures. Given the craftiness of the hacker world, it can seem to the novice an unwinnable fight where they just have to accept a certain amount of break-ins as a sort of collateral damage.
While it is good to understand that it’s impossible to make a lock that can’t be picked, this doesn’t mean that you should take frequent security breaches as the norm. With just a little bit of education and effort, the untrained webmaster can lock down their site to levels that it would take extreme efforts to break. This brief tutorial will focus specifically on how to use cPanel to filter the IP addresses that can access your web site, a step that, by itself, can keep a large percentage of attacks from even making it to your site.
IP Filtering – easy to do…
To filter an IP address or block of IP addresses from accessing your site using cPanel is simple. In the Security section near the bottom of your cPanel main page you will see an icon labeled “IP Deny Manager”. Click on it and you’ll be at a page where you can add new restrictions, see your current ones, and remove any existing ones. The page lists the appropriate formats (don’t bother with the CIDR format: it doesn’t do anything you can’t do any easier way).
Now, if you know how to block IP addresses, a more important question comes: what addresses to you block? If you are getting a wave of attacks from a single IP address, the choice of course is simple. But what do you do if they are coming from a number of IP addresses? The short answer is this: block a range if it feels right, but don’t go overboard.
Let’s say that you are getting attacks from 212.56.24.X, where X is variable, and nothing else from that class C (an IP address format is Class A.Class B.Class C.Class D). Then, blocking everything from 212.56.24 should be safe. But let’s say they are all from 212.56. You do some research and see that this is a university Class B and there are plenty of safe hits from those addresses. Of course, a college is going to have a few bored hackers. Taking down all of those addresses is overkill and will negatively impact your traffic.
Find the right middle ground
It’s rare that you are going to want to restrict anything more than a Class C. In general, you’re not going to want to restrict anything more than you have to. Use trial and error: block what you need to and, if the site continues to get hammered, modify and expand your rules. Then, once it feels like you might have scared them away, remove the blocks, keeping a close eye for 24-72 hours afterwards to make sure that they don’t start up again. Also, be sure to let your web host know if the attack is particularly vicious: they might want to filter the bad IP addresses on a network level.
IP Filtering by itself will not solve all of your security problems: no one method will. But it will ensure the bulk of the worst attacks will be filtered away from you so you can focus more on other things.
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Editing DNS Information in cPanel
Posted by: | CommentscPanel boasts one of the easiest to use interfaces in the web hosting industry. This is one of the main reasons for its continued popularity. Therefore, it is simple to edit DNS zones without the hassle normally associated with manually editing the files. Manual editing is typically prevalent with other web hosting control panels. However, cPanel automates this task making it much easier for the user.
Editing DNS Zones
The first step to editing a DNS zone is to log in to cPanel. Next, navigate to the “Domains” section which provides two options: “Simple DNS Zone” and “Advanced DNS Zone”. Then select a specific domain name from the drop-down menu and enter the name and address for an A-record or CNAME record.
A-records are primary records that link to the server’s IP address thus translating the numeric address to an alphabetic user-friendly domain name. For instance, www.cpanel.com will have its own A-record. CNAME records are the aliases for subdomains. For example, mail.cpanel.com could also point to www.cpanel.com. Once you are finished entering the information click “Add a Record” or “Add CNAME Record.”
Editing Advanced DNS Zones
For the Advanced DNS Zone features there are three types of records that can be added: A, CNAME and TXT. The last record is specifically used with miscellaneous entries such as SPF records. To add a record here, enter the Name Type (A, CNAME, TXT), TTL (Time to Live) and address. To complete the desired changes simply click “Add a Record”.
Creating MX Records
cPanel also allows users to create MX (mail) records. These are located in the mail settings. For instance, if you are configuring a cloud email, you must add the MX records and CNAME records to be successful.
To add an MX record you must first navigate to the “Mail” section and click “MX Entry.” Next, select your domain and then “Local” (you mail server), “Backup”, or “Remote” (cloud mail server) mail exchange. To add the record, input the order in which the servers will be used beginning with “0” and the destination of the remote server or domain. Finally, click “Add New Record” to make the desired changes.
The process of configuring DNS information is much easier in cPanel than in other web hosting control panels. Once you become comfortable with the interface and system functionality, this procedure should be a breeze.