Creating Websites using ISPmanager 4

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Creating WWW domains (Websites) using ISPmanager 4

Overview

Note! This user guide is specific to creating WWW domains (Websites) using ISPmanager 4. Information on how to create a website in ISPmanager 5 is located here - Creating Websites Using ISPmanager 5. How to determine which version of ISPmanager you are using can be found here - ISPmanager versions

Using ISPmanager 4, you can easily create and manage websites on your Virtual Server. Each website can be created on a per-user basis, which means that you can allow your users to only have access to their own websites.

This user guide only covers how to add a website to the Virtual Server using the ISPmanager 4 Control Panel. This user guide does not cover how to create websites using HTML, CSS, or any other website language or framework.

Once you have created your Users and WWW domains, you can add content to them using SFTP or FTP, or the File Manager.

Prerequisites
    Installing applications

Creating WWW domains (Websites) using ISPmanager 4
    Creating Users
    Adding the webadmin user
    WWW Domains
    ProxyRequests

Prerequisites

To create a website, you will need to have at least one user. This is who will own the website and the associated files.

The website will need an associated domain, which will need to exist in DNS. You can host the domain in the eApps DNS, or use your own DNS service. The DNS A record for this domain must point back to the IP address that you have been allocated for your Virtual Server. More information about adding domains to the eApps DNS is found in the User Guide: DNS Manager - http://support.eapps.com/portal/dns

Installing applications

For some applications, such as WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal, you will need to have PHP installed. You install PHP in ISPmanager 4, Server Settings > Applications. Click on the application you want to install to highlight it, and then click on Install in the upper right corner of the screen. Once the applications are installed, they will be listed in the Installed version column.

See the PHP User Guide for more information if needed.

Other applications that can be used on your website can be found in Management Tools > Web-scripts (APS). For more information on Web-scripts, please see the User Guide: ISPmanager 4 - Web-scripts, and the built-in Help on the Web-scripts (APS) page.

Creating WWW domains (Websites) using ISPmanager 4

To create a website in ISPmanager 4, you first need to have a User that will own the domain and the website. Once the user is created, then you create the WWW domain, which sets up the DocumentRoot for the website and the relevant entries in the Apache web server configuration files.

You can create a user that is not associated with a WWW domain, but that is not covered in this User Guide.

If you want to use the webadmin user, please see the section on Adding the webadmin user first, and then continue with the steps below.

Creating Users

A user must exist before you can create a website. To create a user in ISPmanager 4, go to Accounts Management > Users. In the User management screen, click on New in the upper right hand corner.

This brings up the Add user screen, which has three tabs: User, Permissions, and Limits.

Most of the menu options in Add user have tool tips that are available if you hover your cursor over the menu item. You can also click on the built-in Help in the upper right hand corner.


User

Add user - User

  • Username - the name of the user that will own the website. This must be in lowercase letters.

  • Password - the password for the user. You can set a password yourself, or click on the button to the right of the text box to have one created for you.

  • Re-enter password - if you manually set a password, enter it again here to verify. If you have ISPmanager 4 create one for you, it will will already be here.

  • IP-address - Select the IP address that the website will use from the drop down list.

  • Domain - enter the FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) that the user will own here. This means to enter just the domain name, without any "www" or any other prefix. For example, if the domain is eapps-example.com, only enter that, and not www.eapps-example.com.

  • Preset - this is a set of predefined parameters used when creating accounts. You can create Presets in Other Settings > Presets. Please see the built-in Help on that screen for more information.


Permissions

The Permissions screen will differ depending on whether or not you currently have PHP installed. If PHP is not installed, you will not be able to select it as an option. If it is installed, you will be able to select it as an Apache module.

Note If you install PHP after creating the user, and want the user and the website to have access to PHP, you must come back to the Users screen and Edit that user, changing the Permissions to allow PHP as an Apache module. You will also have to edit the WWW domain.
Add user - Permissions

  • Shell access - this allows the user to access the VS using SSH (including MindTerm) and SFTP. They will only have access to their specific user directory. If the user does not have shell access, they can only use FTP.

  • SSL - this will allow the user to set up SSL for their website. See the SSL User Guide for more information.

  • CGI - if the website will be using CGI scripts, check this box.

  • SSI - if the website will be using SSI, check this box.

  • PHP as an Apache module - if the website will use PHP, check this box. Note that this box is only available if the PHP Scripting Language is installed.


Limits

Add user - Limits

  • FTP accounts - this is the amount of FTP accounts that be used.

  • Mailboxes - this is the amount of mailboxes that can be used.

  • WWW domains - this is the amount of WWW domains that can be used.

  • E-mail domains - this is the amount of E-mail domains that can be used.

  • Traffic - this is the amount of traffic that can be used.

Generally, the Limits can be left as is. In ISPmanager 4, the limits apply more to any users created by this user.


Once you have set up the User, click OK. This will reload Apache, and when the screen refreshes the new user will be listed.

User listing

From the Accounts Management > Users > User management screen, you can create a New user, Edit or Delete an existing user, Enable or Disable an existing user, use the Filter to search for a user, or Enter, which allows you to log in to ISPmanager 4 as that user, with only that user's privileges and permissions.


Once you have created the User, you can give the user name and password to the person who will be creating/managing the website, along with the URL to ISPmanager 4. They will be able to log in to ISPmanager 4, but only be able to access a limited subset of functions specific to their website and domains.

Warning Make sure to understand that if you delete a user, you also delete everything associated with that user. This means that any WWW domain, E-Mail domain (and all associated e-mail addresses), or databases associated with that user will be removed. Proceed with caution!

Adding the webadmin user

By default, the VPS and Webmin Control Panel VS plans used the webadmin as the owner of any website. If you wish to use the webadmin user in ISPmanager 4, you will need to do two things from the command line of the VS before adding the user. If you try to add the webadmin user before doing these things, you will get an error saying that the user already exists.

Error adding webadmin user


This is because the webadmin user does actually exist, but the home directory for it is outside of where ISPmanager 4 knows to look for user. What you will need to do is remove the existing webadmin user and group, and then add the user back using ISPmanager 4.

To remove the user and group for webadmin, you will need to connect to the Virtual Server using SSH, and then as the root user, use the userdel webadmin and groupdel webadmin commands.

[root@eapps-example ~]# userdel webadmin
[root@eapps-example ~]# groupdel webadmin

After doing this, you will be able to add the webadmin user through ISPmanager 4, which will create the home directory in the default /var/www/webadmin/data location.

WWW Domains

The WWW domains screen is where you add, delete, or manage the domains associated with the Virtual Server. This User Guide assumes that you have already added the domain to DNS.

Adding a new WWW domain

Once a user has been created, you can add additional domains that can be managed or owned by that user. If you want the domains to be managed or owned by another user, you will need to add that user first, and then the domains.

To add a new domain, go to Domains > WWW domains, and click on New in the WWW domains screen.

This brings up the Add WWW domain screen. Most of the menu options in Add WWW domain have tool tips that are available if you hover your cursor over the menu item. You can also click on the built-in Help in the upper right hand corner.

Note If you install PHP after creating the WWW domain, and want the website to have access to PHP, you must come back to the WWW domains screen and Edit the WWW domain, changing PHP to PHP as an Apache module. You will also have to edit the Permissions of the user who owns the WWW domain.
Add WWW domain

  • Domain name - enter the FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) here. This means to enter just the domain name, without any "www" or any other prefix. For example, if the domain is eapps-example.com, only enter that, and not www.eapps-example.com.

  • Alias(es) - enter any aliases for the domain here. This is where you enter the "www" or "mail" or any other alias you want the domain to answer to.

  • Root folder - this is the DocumentRoot, which is where the files for the website are served from. By default, this is /var/www/user_name/data/www/domain_name.com

  • Owner - this is the owner of the website, created in the Users menu screen.

  • IP-address - select the IP-address for the website from the drop down list.

  • E-mail administrator - this is the e-mail address that will be shown on any error pages for the website.

  • Encoding (character set) - leave this empty to use the default encoding set by the web server, or specify a character set if needed.

  • Default page - leave this empty to use the default page (DirectoryIndex) as set by the web server (index.html), change if you need to use a DirectoryIndex such as index.php. You can have multiple default pages.

  • Auto subdomains - there are three choices here: disabled, as a separate directory, and as WWW domain subdirectory. See the built-in Help for more information on these options.

  • PHP - there are three choices here: PHP is not supported, PHP as an Apache module, PHP as CGI. The most common choice if the website needs to use PHP is PHP as an Apache module.

  • CGI-bin - if you select PHP as CGI, this will automatically be checked.

  • SSI - this allows Server Side Includes on the website.

  • SSL - this allows SSL to be used with the website.

  • Disable ISPmanager 4 - by default, a limited set of ISPmanager 4 functions is available to the Owner of the website. Check this box to disable this access.


Once you have made your choices, click OK. This creates the entries in the Apache web server configuration file, and creates the files in the DocumentRoot for the website. Assuming you have already set up the DNS for the domain, you should be able to browse to the domain name and see the default page for a website. You can now start to put your website files in place.


#### Managing an existing WWW domain

Once domains have been added to ISPmanager 4 (either as part of adding a User or a WWW domain), they can be managed in the WWW domains screen.

WWW domains main screen


To manage a domain, click on the Name to highlight it. At the top of the WWW domains screen are several options available for the selected domain. This is an overview of the available functions, please see the available Help for more information.

  • New - this is covered in the Adding a new WWW domain section above.

  • Edit - this opens the Edit WWW domain screen, which has the same options as the Add WWW domain screen.

  • Config - all of the options for the domain in the VirtualHost block in the Apache configuration file are shown here. You can edit the VirtualHost configuration from here.

  • Delete - this option will delete the domain from the Apache configuration files, and also delete all the files in the DocumentRoot for the domain.

  • Logs - the Log Rotation for the website is configured here. You can also select which application you wish to use to view the logs.

  • All logs - this allows you to change the log rotation settings for all WWW domains.

  • Filter - if you have a large number of domains, you can use the Filter to narrow them down if you need to search for a particular domain or domains.

  • Errors - any custom error pages (404, 403, 503, etc) can be set here.

  • Redirects - any redirects for the domain or a URL can be set here.

  • MIME - if you need to add a MIME type that doesn't exist in the default configuration, you can add it here.

  • Enter - this allows you to log in to ISPmanager 4 as the Owner of the domain, with the same permissions and privileges as that user.

ProxyRequests

In the Apache httpd.conf file, the ProxyRequests setting is set to Off by default. Do not set this to On. Doing so will allow outside users to proxy all their web traffic through your VS, and you could be liable for any overage charges that may be incurred.

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