Creating Websites in ISPmanager 5

  1. Portal Home
  2. Knowledgebase
  3. Creating Websites in ISPmanager 5

Applicable Plans - All Cloud Hosting Plans

Creating Websites Using ISPmanager 5

Overview

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

In ISPmanager 5, a website is called a Web-domains. Using ISPmanager 5 you can create websites on your Virtual Server. Each website is owned by a specific user, which means 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 5 Control Panel. This user guide does not cover how to create websites using HTML, CSS, or any other website language or framework.

Prerequisites
Creating Websites for a new user
Creating Websites for existing users
Next steps

Prerequisites

  • In order to create a website in ISPmanager 5 you will need to have a user. This user will own the website and the associated files and directories. Note that this user can be created as part of the process to create the website.

  • The website will also need a valid FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) that was purchased from a domain registrar and that exists in DNS. The domain can be hosted in the eApps DNS service, or you can use the DNS service provided by your domain registrar. The DNS A record for this domain must point back to an IP address that has been allocated for your Virtual Server as part of your eApps Hosting account. More information about adding domains to the eApps DNS is found here - DNS Manager.

  • If you are going to use an application like WordPress, Joomla, or Drupal, you will need to have PHP installed on your Virtual Server. Some templates already have PHP installed, but make sure to verify that PHP is installed before setting up a website that requires it.

    To install PHP in ISPmanager 5, go to Settings > Features and click on Web-server (WWW). Then click on Edit in the upper left corner. Select PHP, and then click on Apply changes. More information on installing applications using ISPmanager 5 is found here - Installing Applications.

Creating Websites for a new user

ISPmanager 5 has a built-in wizard that will guide you through the process of adding a User, which will then allow you to create the Web-domain associated with that user. At the same time you can also create a Mail domain and an FTP-user which can be used to upload content to the website.

If you are creating a new website that has a new user, this is the process to use. If you are adding a website that will belong to an existing user, go here - Adding websites for existing users

To start, go to Accounts > Users. This will take you to the New user screen, starting with Step 1 - New user.

Step 1 - New user

Only four items are required in this section: Login, Template, Password, and (password) Confirmation.

  • Login - this is the name of the user who will own the website. This name must be in lowercase letters and is usually a variation of the user's actual name. For example, "Bob Smith" would be "bsmith." Generally only letters and numbers are used.

  • Template - change without template to Default. This is not strictly required, but the Default template has a set of options for Limits and Access that most users find acceptable. You can make changes to the Limits and Access at any time.

  • Password - this is the password the user will use to login to ISPmanager and manage their site. This needs to be a strong password. If the password is easily guessed then a malicious hacker could gain access to that website. ISPmanager has a function to generate a random password and it is strongly recommended that you use that feature. If you create your own password, ISPmanager will tell you the password strength.

  • Confirmation - if you use the password generator in ISPmanager, the password will be automatically entered here. If you create your own password you will need to retype it here.

On this same page are sections for Limits, Access, and Default value. Generally the default values are fine, but if you want this use to have shell (SSH) access, make sure to check Shell access under Access, and if you have PHP installed and the website will use PHP, check PHP as Apache module.

Once you have added the user, click Next.

Warning! If you delete the user that owns the website, then ALL the files owned by that user will be deleted. This means any websites, e-mail domains and e-mail addresses, databases, etc, that are owned by that user will also be deleted

Step 2 - Additional information

The web-domain is added in this section. If you are going to allow this user to connect to the website using FTP or SFTP that can be configured on this screen.

If you are going to have an e-mail domain and e-mail addresses associated with this domain name, you can add the e-mail domain here. However, note that configuring e-mail addresses, forwards, aliases, etc, is done in a separate section of ISPmanager, and is covered in the E-mail Configuration User Guide.

  • Create the selected objects automatically - if you want to have most of the information for FTP-user, web-domain, and mail domain added automatically, make sure that this is checked. If you uncheck this box, all you will be creating is the user.

  • Add FTP-user - if you want the user being created to also have access to the Virtual Server via SFTP or FTP (usually so they can upload content to their websites) make sure this box is checked.

  • Name of the FTP-user - this will be pre populated with the name of the user.

  • Add web-domain - since you are creating a website, make sure this box is checked.

  • Name of the web-domain - this is the FQDN (Fully Qualified Domain Name) for your website. Only use the domain name, and not an alias or CNAME. What this means is that if you have the domain name of example.com, you will enter that as the name. DO NOT enter something like www.example.com as the Name.

    • Correct - a domain name like domain.com or example.com for Name
    • Incorrect - entering something like www.domain.com or www.example.com for Name

  • IP address - if you have more than one IP address provisioned for the Virtual Server, select the one you want to use for this website from the drop down list. If there is only one IP address available, then that will be pre-selected.

  • Add mail domain - if you are going to have e-mail for this website, you can add the domain as a mail domain here.

  • Name of the mail domain - the same rules for the web-domain apply for the mail domain - FQDN, and no CNAME or alias. Use the exact same name for the mail domain as you did for the web-domain.

  • IP addrress - if you have more than one IP address provisioned for the Virtual Server, select the one you want to use for this website from the drop down list. If there is only one IP address available, then that will be pre-selected.

Once you have added the information for the FTP-user, web-domain, and mail domain, click Next.

Step 3 - Confirmation

This screen shows the results from Step 2. If you need to make any changes, click Back. Otherwise, click Finish.

This will take you back to the Accounts > Users - List of users screen. The user you just created will be listed here.

If you navigate to Domains > Web-domains the domain for the website will be listed there.

Creating Websites for existing users

If you already have an existing user created in ISPmanager you can create a new website and associate it with that user. Unless the defaults have been changed, a user can own an unlimited number of websites.

To create a new website for an existing user, go to Domains > Web-domains. This takes you to the List of web-domains screen. Click on Add in the upper left, and follow the steps to create a new website. Note that the Owner field will be pre-populated, if you have more than one user you can select the correct user from the drop down list.

More information on creating a new website for an existing user can be found here - Website configuration.

Next steps

Once the website has been created, you can upload your files or website content. If you are going to use an application like WordPress, Joomla!, Drupal, or an application that uses PHP, you can install them from Web-scripts. More information on Web-scripts can be found here - Using Web-scripts. There are many applications that can be installed using Web-scripts.

Applications such as Tomcat, WildFly, GlassFish, MySQL, etc, are installed from Features. More information on installing applications can be found here - Installing Applications. More information on these applications, including how to install them from the command line, is available in the user guides specific to the applications themselves. User guides for all applications are available here - Virtual Server User Guides.

If you want to secure your website with an SSL certificate, you can purchase one from eApps - SSL Certificates. Once the SSL certificate has been purchased, follow these instructions to install it on your Virtual Server and activate it for your website - Installing SSL certificates.

You can also enable website statistics using AWStats or Webalizer, which can be installed from Settings > Features > Web-server (WWW). Then click on Edit in the upper left corner. Select Select awstats web-statistics or webalizer web-statistics and then click on Apply changes.

  Print

Comments

Please login to comment