About Our Online Control Panel

With Cpanel you will be in control of every aspect of the Web Hosting World.  From e-mail to MySQL, everything is taken care of with Cpanel. With our new features, Cpanel is easier to use then ever.
The Cpanel interface allows you to easily control a web hosting account. With the touch of a button, you can add e-mail accounts, access your files, backup your files, setup a shopping cart, and more.

Access Menu

The Access Menu area deals with all the tools that you need to control your own access to your web site using cPanel, including managing files, protecting directories, backing up your site, and using SSL to access your web site.

Account Settings Menu

The Account Settings area deals with all the tools that you need to control your account using cPanel, changing your web site, creating custom error pages, using subdomains, and other tools.

Tools Menu

Webalizer

The Webalizer tool creates a graphical summary display of usage of your site. This is useful to give you a quick and clear overview of your web site activity.
To use Webalizer:

1. Click on the Webalizer link in the Web / FTP Stats area.
2. Browse the results.

Analog Tool

The Analog reporting tools presents the most comprehensive coverage of web server statistics available for your web site using cPanel. Refer to the following links for more information about the Analog tool:

• Analog documentation - All available Analog documentation.

• Analog reports - A detailed description of all available Analog reports.

To use the Analog tool:

1. Click on the Analog link in the Web / FTP Stats area.

2. Click on the month that you are interested in.

3. You are now presented with the Web Server Statistics page for your web site. You can browse the report online, or print it for more detailed perusal offline. Take your time - there is a lot of information available.

Guest Book

You will want to be able to view your guestbook once visitors start leaving comments. You can keep the guestbook private, or you can set it up so that anyone can view the guestbook.

To view the guestbook:

1. Click on the Guestbook link in the CGI Center area.

2. Click on the View Guest Book link.

3. You can now view the guestbook. If you want to make the guestbook available to anyone, open the viewing page in its own frame (right-click in Internet Explorer).

4. Copy the URL show in your browser when viewing the guestbook and make it a link on the same page as the sign-in form.

Search Engine Submit Tool

cPanel allows you to submit your web site details to several search engines at one time. Some pointers on this process:

• This is not a guaranteed way of becoming registered by these search engines, as some may charge a registering fee. It is always best to check each search engine site individually to see what their registration policy currently is.

• It may take several weeks (4-8 weeks is common) before your web site will appear on a search engine.

• Do not submit your site multiple times to the same search engine within a short period of time, as the search engine may ban you from its list.

To submit your site to one or more search engines:

1. Click on the Search Engine Submit link in the CGI Center area.

2. Click on the tick boxes next to the search engines that you want to submit to.

3. Enter the address of your site in the URL field and your contact email address in the Email field.

4. Enter a short description of your site in the Comments field.

5. Enter the keywords of your site in the Keywords field. These are the handful (3-6) of words that are predominantly used by search engines to index your site. Separate each key word by a comma.

6. Choose the language of the site in the Language drop-down list and the country in which the site is located in the Country drop-down list.

7. Click on the button

Mail Menu

Reading Your Emails

You can read your online email using NeoMail. This popular webmail script allows you to read your email, save them, keep an address book, and perform all of the other basic email functions that you are used to. The main difference between NeoMail and an offline email applications, such as Eudora or Microsoft Outlook Express, is that all of these functions are performed online, rather than on your own computer, and offline applications generally provide many more features.

NeoMail is optional. You can still use your favorite offline email applications, if you prefer. You can even use a combination of NeoMail and another tool - you can check your e-mail online, perhaps when you're at work, and download your email to your computer when you get home. You can automatically configure Outlook Express, or manually configure other mail applications.

To read your email online:

1. Click on the Web Mail link in the Mail Menu area to access your default email account, or click on the Add / Remove accounts link and click on the Read Webmail link next to the account that you want to read.
   
   Note: You can also save this link as a bookmark, so that you can access it without having to use cPanel.
    

2. You are now in the NeoMail window for your default email address. Click on any message link to read the message, and use the toolbar to reply to the email, or perform any other function.

Because Microsoft Outlook Express is the most popular email application available, you can automatically configure Outlook Express from cPanel. This saves time in manually configuring your email application and avoids errors.

Note: This will only work if you have Microsoft Outlook installed on your machine and are running any version of Windows.

Configuring Outlook Express to Read Emails

To automatically configure Outlook Express:

1. Click on the Add / Remove accounts link in the Mail Menu area.

2. Click on the Outlook (Express) AutoConfig link next to the required account.

3. Read the message in the alert window and click on the OK button. You may need to repeat this step two or three times.

4. Click on the Open this file from its current location radio button, and click on the OK button in the File Download window.

5. Click on the Yes button in the Registry Editor window and repeat for the last window. Outlook Express has now been configured for this account. You need to repeat this process for as many accounts as you want to access through Outlook

Spam Assassin

Spam Assassin is a mail filter installed on a mail server used to identify spam. It checks for spam using a large number of pre-set rules that check the header, body, and sender of all email messages sent to your domain mailbox. For more information about Spam Assassin, refer to the following links:

•  Spam Assassin - Spam Assassin web site.

• Spam Assassin rules - A list of all the rules that Spam Assassin currently uses.

To enable Spam Assassin:

1.  Click on the Spam Assassin link in the Mail Menu area.

2. Click on the button

Blocking Emails

You can block an email using spam filters. There are many definitions of spam, but one of the most useful ones is the following:

"Spam: unsolicited email, usually of a commercial nature."

Spam is the electronic version of junk mail, and has been around since the Internet was created. Spam filters are a way of filtering your email to remove unwanted mail based on a variety of criteria. You can block any sort of email, not just mail of a commercial nature. Blocked mail is deleted automatically - it does not even bounce back to the sender. These filters are quite flexible - some examples are provided after the instruction on how to add a spam filter below. All filters are cumulative.

Useful spam links:

• Six simple things you can do to prevent spam

• Alternate definition of spam

• Usenet definition of spam

To add a spam filter:

1. Click on the Block an E-mail link in the Mail Menu area.

2. Click on the Add Filter link.

3. Click on the required header field in the first drop-down list. These are the various fields in any email message.

4. Click on the required filter action in the second drop-down list. This action will act on the text entered in the third field.

   • equals - match the text exactly (whole words only). "Credit" will block "Credit".
   • matches regex - matches the text based on regular expression (regex) rules. Regular expressions are a powerful but complex area. You do not need to use regular expression filters for most circumstances. Refer to these two good introductory tutorials - Using Regular Expressions and Learning to Use Regular Expressions - for more information.
   • contains - match the specified text in any circumstance. "porn" will block "porn" and "pornography".

   • begins with - match the specified text when it is the beginning of a word. "porn" will block "porn" and "pornography" but not "teenporn".

5.  Enter the filter text in the third field. This text is case sensitive.

6. Click on the button

Example:

• To block all email from "john@paradise.net", enter: From, equals, john@paradise.net
• To block all email from paradise.net, enter: From, contains, paradise.net
• To block all references to pornography, enter: Any Header, contains, porn

A more detailed documentation is available on the cPanel but if you have any question feel free to contact admin@bighostafrica.com